Ambiguity, this paper argues, is not merely a property of dream imagery, but ignites a process that is dreaming thinking. When images are ambiguous, the mind cannot fix on a single meaning. Hence dream ambiguity catalyzes a play of possible meanings that implicitly raises questions, not only about personal memories but also about those cultural models that these memories evoke. Dream thinking, then, renders people's ongoing subjective reactions to culture into images. Through data from a 2004 to 2009 study of Northwest American student dreams and life histories, I propose that people think within dreams by representing daily ambivalences as visual ambiguities. Excerpts from this dream study illustrate seven types of visual ambiguity in dreams. Implicit in this taxonomy is a method of cultural dream interpretation that I present through an analysis of a full dream from a young man, Clarence. Through this analysis I show how ambiguities in Clarence's dream represent his ambivalence about an American masculinity model—one that may underlie the school shootings that are now so common in the United States.

中文翻译：

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作为梦境的歧义：美国梦中的超男子气概和矛盾

歧义，本文认为，不仅是梦意象的财产，但点燃的过程，是做梦的想法。当图像含糊不清时，头脑就无法固守单一的含义。因此，梦境的模糊催生了一种可能的意义的游戏，这隐含地引发了问题，不仅是关于个人记忆，而且还涉及这些记忆引起的文化模式。然后，梦想思维将人们对文化的持续主观反应呈现为图像。通过2004年至2009年对西北美国学生梦和生活史的研究数据，我建议人们通过将日常的矛盾情绪表示为视觉歧义，在梦中进行思考。该梦研究的节选说明了梦中七种类型的视觉歧义。隐含在这种分类法中的是一种文化梦的解释方法，我通过对年轻人Clarence的完整梦境的分析提出了这种方法。