Who am I? Philosophy with dreamcatchers

    Who am I? No it’s not a question I’m asking you. This is the name of a class I am currently taking in my freshman year of high school. In this class we looked at many many philosophers. We discussed many ideas and what we believe in. This final action project was to make a dreamcatcher with LOTS of symbolism. This was not an arts and craft project but something to help us understand why the Ojibway did what they did and to understand Freud, the surrealists, British empiricist, and other philosophers. This helped us learn lessons on how to interpret dreams. 

What good things did I want my dreamcatcher to pass through?

    “Good vibes” More good feelings and good memories to come my way. I want only the good experiences to pass through.I would like the dream catcher to filter out very confusing things and even small bad things which is why it has so many points. Although my inner dreamcatcher doesn’t have a lot of points I thought it would be good to symbolize my weakness. My weakness would be letting things get to me even though they are stupid.

The centerpiece symbolizes the great mystery because it’s a puzzle piece. I thought about my guiding questions such as Who Am I? And my personal guiding question: Are there living things on other planets? I put a puzzle piece because I don’t and will never fully know who I am. I also thought about the mystery behind religion and how we only have so many puzzle pieces to help us understand our own reality. This relates to surrealism because they think about things that go beyond reality. I was thinking about Aliens or other living life forms and how they only have so many puzzle pieces to their world and reality. My main goal for my dreamcatcher is to only let the very very good things come out of my dream catcher which is why it has so many points. If I think about if I had a dream catcher before it had very few points because too many bad things keep reaching me. 

    I want the good memories and feelings to pass through which is why I have so many beads to help me. Each bead represents a person except the white bead represents my dog. I think of them as forever stuck with me. Even as the sun rises they are going to be there with me for a long time. I want the dream catcher to trap and block every bad thing. Mostly the very large majority. I say this because there are always going to be bad things to come through but I really want the mass majority to stop. I figure since there are so many points it’s going to be harder to reach me.

The rational concepts (of Freud, Descartes, Ojibway, and the surrealists) all had ideas and beliefs to do with dreams. The Ojibway believed in spiders and how they are the large key to the circle of life. They believe that the circle resembles the circle of life in a dream catcher and if you did good things good things would come your way. The Ojibway believed that at night there was bad air above you and it needed to be trapped and burned when the sun touched it the next morning. Freud thinks about the ID which is essentially the irrational subconscious mind that controls you and is most related to your dream meanings. However this is balanced out by your ego and superego as Freud believes. This leads to the ID being in the majority of your dreams. This also relates to surrealism because as Freud and the surrealists explain that dreams are out of order and don’t always make sense. This is how the both relate to one another. The surrealists used art to explain how things go beyond reality which would correlate to our guiding question/ “The great mystery”. Freud and the surrealists’ reasoning slightly contradicted the empiricists. They believe and focus more on real things such as what you could observe( they were focused on sensory logic). Although Freud did not state his belief as facts, they still contradict the empiricists ideas/beliefs. This also contradicts the surrealists because they always are trying to go beyond reality. Their goal is to express their subconscious through art which question reality. What I learned from this class that dreams could almost have no meaning for people. I never could have imagined that a dream could not have any meaning to a person. 

This is my dream catcher. Everything on here represents something except the silver hoops you cannot see because it is covered by the leather cord. 

As you can see there are two hoops. 1 To represent all of me and the smaller to represent my mind and personality.

You may notice that there are a lot of beads! Each Bead represents a person except my dog Shouko which is the white bead next to the two lavender ones.

Each of the pink beads represents each of my classmates. The one closest to the Navy blue beads go like this: F.K, N.O, L.H, L.A, S.T, N.M, H.R, R.L, R.M, H.C, and last but not least myself A.A.L 

The next light blue bead after that is our former classmate K.G. The 6 Navy blue beads are my former classmates from my middle school who have affected me greatly. 

This is a close up of the center of my dream catcher.

On the left with the white bead is my dog Shouko.

The two lavender beads are two great friends who have affected me most. C.R and A.G. I picked this color because it makes me uncomfortable just like they sometimes make me uncomfortable. More specifically the one closest to Shouko is C.R and the one closest to the black bead is A.G. You will notice there is a lot of black. I personally wear a lot of black. These black beads are my family because I also represent them as they sort of represent me. You will notice the smaller dream catcher with the puzzle piece has pink thread. I choose this color because I am a reflection of all of my classmates. I am a combination of everyone around me and that is what makes me who I am. I made sure to go to the smallest detail which the black bead closest to A.G is slanted toward my friends. This represents my sister. I know my sister is family but she is also an amazing friend and I love her. The rest of the beads are my brother, father, and mother.

These are chains. One is gold, one is silver, one is brass. 

The gold chains represent me and my past because no matter how much I like it I am chained to it and it follows me wherever I go. N.O is also close to this chain because I think I am able to relate to him the most. The next chain is silver. This represents my big sister because she wears a lot of silver. She is also not a circle but I think that she has two different reactions. L.H is above this chain because he is like my far cousin. The next chain is brass. This represents my friendship and how I chain myself to my friends. You will notice that L.M is above this  Chain because when I fist met her I wanted nothing more than to be her friend.