Catching the Train: While Klein focused on the internal dynamics of peremptory ideation, I propose that this internal ideation might align with an external ideation arising from challenges in our life—these challenges are often related to dilemmas and polarities that we encounter. We can envision the internal ideation “hooking on” to the ideological “train” passing by us from an external source. We hitch our thoughts and emotions to an outside train. Irrational and anxiety-saturated external ideation can be particularly attractive, given that this internal ideation is likely to be quite primitive (often taking on a “haunting” presence). The internal ideation may be “haunted” by ghosts and goblins of Regret, Loss, and Anger from childhood and early adulthood. The external ideation contributes to the content of our dreams, as does the internal ideation.
Some of our committee members might hitch a ride on this train when we are asleep. This means that members of our committee of sleep might be just as biased and just has “haunted” as those influencing and even guiding our daytime actions. This can also mean, however, that our committee members can be particularly thoughtful about the “haunting” (fears and biases) and can teach us, through the content of our dreams, about the nature of this haunting and about ways to get beyond the fears and biases. However, the challenge of discernment might be quite great for members of the committee, for we may be haunted, in addition, by a collective unconscious inherited from our ancestors and culture.
It can be traumatizing when the train is drawing in the peremptory ideation of many people. We find that there are many societies in which there is a history of collective regret, loss and anger (slavery, war, ostracism, etc.). These collective, unconsciously held regrets, loses and experiences of anger produce what is now called the “social unconscious” (Hopper and Weinberg, 2019). Members of this traumatized society held a common set of troubling images.
A colleague of mine in Israel, for instance, reports on common themes related to the holocaust that appear repeatedly in the dreams of Israeli citizens. Israelis and members of other traumatized societies often report stressful dreams related to loss. Feelings of anger are easily triggered by events that produce nothing more than mild stress in the citizens of many other societies. With this powerful alignment of internal and external material, we become victims of personal and collective peremptory ideation both in our dreams and in our waking life. This new unconscious coalition demands attention. We are obsessed, closed-minded, passionate, and regretful. Sometimes, we are driven to action.
Anxious Passengers: Collective emotions (such as loss, sorrow and regret) can escalate collectively engaged peremptory ideation. Everyone on the train (including committee members) is uneasy about what is happening in society or what has occurred in the past. Racism, prejudice and attendant violence loom big and often unacknowledged in American societies (Weitz and Bergquist, 2024). The anxiety associated with strong emotions can, in turn, be produced by and can escalate the loss of confidence in a chosen leader or by mild public protests regarding some social ordinance. It might very well be that the “social unconscious” material appears in our internal peremptory ideation. This being the case, one can imagine that an ideational train carries or is at least aligned with external images—such as one’s impressions of a leader or a public protest.
A “perfect” storm of prejudice, intolerance, fear of the “other,” and (eventually) violence is created (Weitz and Bergquist, 2024). This is where the alignment of Freudian psychology with Marxism through the Frankfurt School comes to the surface. We find the work of this school manifested in the major American studies of authoritarianism (Adorno, et al, 1950/1964) and in the critical review of American society offered by Erich Fromm (1955). Above all, the societal criticisms offered by those of the Frankfort School provide us with potential reasons to be anxious personally and collectively. We are given good reasons to worry about our political future and our potential loss of true freedom (Bergquist, Weitz and Pomerantz, 2026).
