Have you ever read
the book Gulliver's Travels? Were you drawn in
by the fanciful societies? Did it ever make you question your own
society? It was always a work that I enjoyed reading, so I thought I
would also enjoy rewriting it.
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I decided to do my
storybook on
the adventures of Gulliver in Gulliver's Travels by Johnathan
Swift.
For those of you who don't know, the main storyline of this work is
focused on the travels and mind-boggling destinations an Englishman
finds himself thrust into. Throughout Swift's book,
Gulliver finds
himself among creatures nobody has ever before seen or even heard of.
On one island, for example, Gulliver awakes to find himself a
giant
among the pint-sized natives who hold him captive till they can decide
what to do with such a large man. In another land, Gulliver finds
himself in a society where horses are the dominant culture and
humans
are completely uncivilized. Each scenario tests Gulliver's
abilities
to learn a new culture and conform to fit within it. Much of
Swift's
book has the undertone of desiring to belong while at the
same time
recognizing imperfections within the societies themselves; this
however was not his main focus. Swift wrote
Gulliver's Travels as a critique of human society. It was this aspect
of Gulliver's Travels that interested me the most. Swift used the
adventures
of Gulliver in order to comment on human nature. His focus is not the
imperfections of the imaginary worlds that are important, but the
imperfections Swift wants to expose in our world. Here in my Storybook,
however, I want to depart from the setting of a sea journey and instead
embark on a journey of the mind.
In my retelling of
this classic story I have not simply told a
story of travel and outward discovery, but one of self-reflection
forced upon one who feels out of place. I decided to focus on the
juxtaposition of what Gulliver knows as his everyday norm and the very
different norms of the societies he visits. To make this departure
from Swift's story, I decided to replace Gulliver's sea travels with a
journey of the mind and use the fanciful settings and societies
as a
likely set-up for what one might experience in dreams,
hallucinations,
or psychotic delusions. Instead of having Gulliver tell his own story,
you will hear the story from multiple people who feel out of place
in
their own lives.
In my Storybook, you will be present at a psychology convention where
doctors will report on cases where their patient felt out of place.
Each doctor will give the case history of a patient, a patient who
through dream or hallucination has had a Gulliver-like experience,
feeling out of synch with their own lives. So here begins my
tale....
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Welcome to
the Eleventh Annual Cognitive Therapy Convention.
On Monday
at 10:00 am in the ballroom there will be a workshop on
dream interpretation. The renowned Dr. Joshua Gates will be our guest
speaker. Listen as he takes you through the case history and dreams of
a patient who feels controlled by little people, and learn how Dr.
Gates diagnoses this condition.
Tuesday
at noon join us in the main hall for a dissertation on
hallucinations caused by sleep deprivation. Here Dr. Abby Heart will
share with us a case of a man overworked to the point of sleep
deprivation who hallucinated that his coworkers were giants with whom
he could not communicate.
On Wednesday we will hear from Dr. Steven Knocks about dissociative
fugue and the experience of one lady who would rather be a cat.
Thursday Dr. Clair Williams will talk about psychosis and her
'Struldbrug' patient Walter.