One of the possible ways of defining or categorizing postmodernism is by its rejection of modernism ideals. The Lathe of Heaven does this in several ways.
One is by its rejection of Freudian and Jungian ideas. Freud’s ideas of psychoanalysis and Jung’s archetypes figured heavily into modernist ways of thinking. Both obviously were also interested in dreaming and what it said about the human psyche.
Haber’s therapy sessions seem to reject basic Freudian ideas and techniques. At one point he says the only holdover modern psychology still has is the couch, but he uses it for patients to sleep on, which Freud very much opposed. For Haber, modern psychology is all about technology, not about the analysis that Freud and Jung practiced.
Haber also rejects the ideas of Freud and Jung that the unconscious was a dark and scary place:
Your unconscious mind is not a sink of horror and depravity. That’s a Victorian notion, and a terrifically destructive one. It crippled most of the best minds of the nineteenth century, and hamstrung psychology all through the first half of the twentieth. Don’t be afraid of your unconscious mind! It’s not a black pit of nightmares. Nothing of the kind! It is the wellspring of health, imagination, creativity….. there is nothing to fear. -88.
For Freud and Jung and their patients, there was very much something to fear. They told us that our subconscious was full of dirty thoughts and secret motives and monsters that we were not even aware we had. The idea that there was a whole other layer of the brain that we could not tap into, yet was controlling our behavior to some point was a scary notion indeed.
Haber also is rejecting the Jungian ideas of archetypes, which was found throughout modernist literature. When he is trying to make George feel better, he rejects the idea that the aliens are some universal archetype that represent the fear of the unknown, and says that they were probably just influenced by sci-fi movies from the 70’s. George wants to stop before he brings out more monsters from his unconcscious, but Haber tells him he is being silly and that they must proceed.
Another way that this postmodernism rejects modernism is the “incredulity towards meta-narratives” that we discussed in class and that Harvey discusses in his article. The Lathe of Heaven definitely rejects meta-narratives in the fact that there is no consistent reality. How can there be one meta-narrative when reality is fundamentally altered every time that George Orr has an effective dream? A world with 7 billion people can not have the same narrative as a world with 1 billion. A world with racism can not have the same narrative as a world with no race. A world with aliens living among us can not have the same narrative as one that doesn’t. By rejecting the idea that the world has any singular, continuing reality the idea of any narrative to go along with reality is rejected as well.
Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you’ve always imagined. -Henry David Thoreau
I randomly grabbed a bookmark from my desk for The Lathe of Heaven, and this Thoreau quote was on it, it made me laugh.