"Mistakes are not caused by fate, but the responsibility of the self." - Shakespeare
The line at the beginning of the film echoes a fundamental assumption of psychoanalysis: the principle of mental determinism, also with a Sartre ethos, that human freedom means that we will take full responsibility for our actions.
The source of John's guilt—the psychological determinism hypothesis
For John's psychological abnormality, the female doctor has always insisted that it was caused by some of John's past experiences. In the second half of the film, we see that John's guilt came from his childhood and the accidental death of his younger brother. John did not intentionally However, in his heart he always thought that he killed his younger brother. This formed a subconscious of John , I killed my brother, so when Dr. Edward died, in a similar scenario (stairs and skis), John thought he killed Dr. Edward himself.
John's Defense - Oblivion
Why does John forget the accidental death of his brother as a child and the time he was skiing with Dr. Edward? It's because in John's heart, the "reality" of killing his brother and the cognition that I shouldn't kill (the sin of killing) are in conflict with each other. When there is a conflict in our hearts, we will activate our inner defense mechanism. , deal with the inner conflict, and forget about the fact that I murdered, so that the above conflict can be "handled", of course, this kind of conflict is not really dealt with, but just not remembered at the conscious level, but in the On a subconscious level, this conflict still exists; that's why John believes he killed Dr. Edward and tries to assuage his guilt by pretending to be Dr. Edward.
At the same time, we can see John's fear and avoidance of the lines, because the lines are similar to the traces left after skiing, and similar situations will stimulate the scenes in the subconscious to return to the level of consciousness, recalling those scenes means the awareness of inner conflict change, which is what our hearts try to avoid.
John's Resistance - The subconscious system is repelled by an inner force from reaching consciousness
The female doctor tried to bring John's subconscious (I "killed" my brother) into the conscious level through free association and situational reappearance, because when the childhood scene reappeared, John could know that it was not I who killed my brother, The reality is that the younger brother died unexpectedly, so that the conflict at the subconscious level can be truly resolved. However, the subconscious system will be repelled by a force in the heart and cannot get close to the consciousness ("Introduction to Psychoanalysis") , so there is resistance in the treatment. In the movie, John's several faintings are the performance of the resistance. Why is the subconscious being repelled by a force in the heart and cannot get close to the consciousness? Take this film as an example, because John’s subconscious is biased about his brother’s death. This bias leads to an inner conflict. What needs to be avoided at the conscious level, the stronger the conflict, the stronger the inner rejection will be.
Dreamland - a bridge to explore the subconscious
What is repressed at the level of consciousness will be expressed in some form in the dream, in John's dream; the English occurrence of Gabriel Valley and the casino is homophonic, and the roof is similar to the ski resort and the stairs in childhood. , the dropped non-circular wheel represents the Dean's pistol, and Dr. Edward's victory at the casino represents the replacement of the Dean... Precisely because the subliminal stuff isn't really being dealt with, though It is suppressed, but the conflict still exists, so it is revealed through various symbols in the dream, and the dream is disguised, so it is difficult for us to connect the consciousness and the subconscious through the dream.
John's Healing - Awareness of the Subconscious
The immediate reason why John was healed was because the real childhood scene (the younger brother died in an accident) reappeared on the conscious level, so the conflict in the subconscious system that I killed my younger brother was really dealt with. When this repulsive force disappeared, the actual scene of Dr. Edward's death was recalled. A very important point in this is that John's love and trust in the female doctor is precisely because of this trust, so he is willing to rebuild those scenes.
In the film, we can see the complex structure of the human heart, and healing comes from the fact that we remove the obstacles and fog in our hearts and see the real reality .
At the same time, we can see that psychoanalysis has some ingenious connection with Zen (discussed in detail in Fromm and Suzuki's book "Zen and Psychoanalysis").
"The body is a bodhi tree, and the mind is like a mirror. Always wipe it off, don't let it provoke dust" - Shenxiu
"There is no tree in Bodhi, the mirror is not a stage, and there is nothing in it, where can it cause dust" - Hui Neng
Shenxiu's poems describe the healing process of psychoanalysis well, and "wiping" is just like the work done by analysts; while Huineng's poems well express our original mind and the situation after healing .
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