Under authoritarianism people stop seeing things. "Percepticide" is what Diana Taylor calls it [1] and what Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann refers to as the "Spiral of

Under authoritarianism people stop seeing things. "Percepticide" is what Diana Taylor calls it [1] and what Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann refers to as the "Spiral of Silence" [2]. Dreams contain unprocessed experience and suppression pushes that down into the unconscious where it is processed and expressed in a creative and safe way. Such sublime, symbolic expressions are extremely powerful weapons against the suppressing force, and this is why (real not imitative) art, writing and Psychoanalysis is feared by all mechanical and authoritarian regimes. [1] Diana Taylor, Disappearing Acts: Spectacles of Gender and Nationalism in Argentina's Dirty War. [2] Noelle-Neumann, The spiral of silence: Public opinion, our social skin, University of Chicago Press (1973)