Studies of
dreams and introspective psychology may lead to a presentation in which a part
of the psychological life is described in accordance with lives of Egos (see Egos and dreamt-people).
According to
this point of view, Egos emerge and vanish. They try to impose their requests.
They drive to act or to think in a certain way. They are seats of more or less
demanding frustrations, enthusiastic hopes, raging or resigned disappointments
and joyful satisfactions (see an example of a self-made disappointment process).
Except one of
them, who appears to us through a permanent life (like the dreamt-dreamer
does), they are entities which are more or less momentary apparent,
self-sufficient. They are driven by something which powers them: the
inclination. Inclinations “become” Alter Egos when they have passed a certain
stage of self-sufficiency otherwise they can just stay as simple casual
intentions.
Whatever the
inclination is, its general working is the same: it deals with a specific field
of pleasures and displeasures and, depending on whether a pleasure or a displeasure
has arrived or not, the inclination will be satisfied, dissatisfied by
frustration (typically when the aim of the inclination has not been achieved)
or dissatisfied by disappointment (typically when the experienced pleasure is
under the expected pleasure). One can find:
·
The physical inclinations, which are
concerned with the carnal pleasures and displeasures.
·
The social inclinations, which are
concerned with the social sensations (such as human warmth, feeling of being
useful…).
·
The spiritual inclinations, which are
sensitive to the sublime or morbid components of what is perceived.
·
The ontical inclination,
which is interested in having individual means at disposal (skills, abilities, strength,
knowledge…). The ontical pleasures or displeasures are the feelings of
self-respect, or loss of self-confidence, of being powerful, or being weak…
Indeed, each failure or success in the accomplishment of an inclination or
another produces a dissatisfaction or a satisfaction of the ontical
inclination. Concretely, each annoyance – which is supposed to be analysed as a
disappointment or a frustration of an inclination – generates an ontical
annoyance. (That’s why victims feel guilty although they should not. They can’t
help reproaching themselves for not having being able to avoid the damage.
Here, the ontical inclination – the tendency which makes us want to be able to
– is frustrated).
·
The moral inclination which comes from the
human’s ability to get a synthetic image of one’s life and to be stimulated by
it. As one is able to compare between his life and what it could have been, one
feels felicity (moral pleasure) or regret (moral displeasure). As one is able
to compare between an ideal life and what his life may become one feels he is
in a good way (moral pleasure) or in a bad one (moral displeasure). So, it
appears that a particular inclination pushes to have the best possible life. We
can call it “moral inclination” because it feeds moral debates such as “among
all of the imaginable ways of live, which ones are worth living?” and because
it polices the others inclinations. That’s why inclinations are more or less
accompanied by the feeling of “good” or “bad” depending on whether the moral
inclination expects to be satisfied or not by their achievements.
In addition to
all of that, we can consider the Resolving Inclination. This particular inclination is
supposed to be stimulated by the states of satisfaction of the other inclinations
and, so, its pleasures or displeasures would depend on whether inclinations are
satisfied or not.
Whatever the
inclination is, it generates sentimental links to its exciting objects.
Typically, an exciting object will generate a more or less dominating
attraction or repulsion and will be more or less loved or hated depending on
whether it is expected to give pleasure or displeasure. So, each inclination is
sentimentally linked to his exciting objects through different kinds and powers
of attraction.
As for the
Resolving Inclination, it generates different kinds of sentimental links to its
exciting objects (the inclinations) depending on whether they are supposed to
pleasure or displeasure the Resolving Ego (by getting themselves satisfied or
not). Likewise the Resolving Inclination may be more or less dominated by more
or less attracting or repulsing inclinations.
Like any
inclinations – which are sensitive to specific exciting objects, which can
“perceive” them and which can drive actions in order to catch, to avoid, to
produce or to destroy them – this particular inclination is sensitive and
reactive to the states of satisfaction of the inclinations. The Resolving Inclination’s reaction to an inclination
seems taking 2 possible ways. In one hand (extraversion),
it can make it work such as the inclination is more or less satisfied by an
actual or a substitutive achievement. In the other hand (introversion), it can try to neutralise, or to feed,
an inclination by moving its attractiveness and/or its power of attraction (see example). The
first process seem to be converted into outside-story dreams and the second one
in inside-story dreams. (It’s nice to see that the very few dreamt-sourced
concepts we have highlighted – Dreamt-dreamer/Resolving inclination,
Dreamt-people/Inclinations, Inside our Outside story dreams/2 complementary
psychological processes – are connected
to each other).
Let’s note that
a perceived thing has been called “Ego”, an Ego is a perceptible thing. But
what’s about his motor? The Ego’s motor, the inclination, is not directly
perceived. Its “existence” is supposed due to the perceptible effects it
“explains” (typically the desires when the intellectual component is dominant,
the needs when the reactive component makes it compulsive or the expectations
when it is felt in a more affective way). Indeed, the inclination is a postulated, non-produced
and energising cause and it would certainly be vain to try to “visualise”
its nature (see epistemological
references). That’s why we should define the Resolving Inclination as the
meta-psychic cause which drives the Resolving Ego.