Of Dreams, Aesthetics, and Phenomenological Psychology

A Profile of Professor Don Kuiken (by Phillip J. Reimer)

Don Kuiken is a unique figure in the U of A’s Psychology Department – an innovator in research that bridges the areas of dreaming, aesthetics, and phenomenological psychology.

While working on his PhD (1970) at the University of Texas (Austin), Don was drawn to mentors critical of neo-positivist philosophies and paradigms, including Sigmund Koch, a psychologist-philosopher who criticized the hegemony of operationism in psychology, and Michael Polanyi, a chemist-philosopher who argued for protecting the role of connoisseurship in science generally. These individuals were pivotal in articulation of the intellectual position that would guide Don’s research career. Since 1969 Don has been a member of the Department of Psychology, although he also was part-time in the Centre for Advanced Study in Theoretical Psychology between 1987 and 1990. (The Theoretical Centre was an intellectual hub, hosting high-profile visitors such as Noam Chomsky, Karl Pribram, Hans Eysenck, Amedeo Giorgi, and Joseph Margolis during its 25-years as a research unit in the Department.)

Don’s research program is a phenomenologically guided blend of two areas: dreaming and literary reading. In collaboration with two former students (Don Schopflocher, Cameron Wild), Don articulated what he calls numerically-aided phenomenology. These ‘qualitative’ procedures, which combine empirical systematicity with sensitivity to expressive language, have been pivotal in his studies of dreams and literary reading. In collaboration with two former students (Ria Busink, Shelley Sikora), Don used numerically-aided phenomenology to classify ‘impactful’ dreams (e.g., nightmares, existential dreams, transcendent dreams). In collaboration with Sikora and Don’s long-standing colleague David Miall (Department of English and Film Studies), he used these same phenomenological methods to classify ‘significant’ reading experiences (e.g., expressive enactment, ironic allegoresis). Recent research continues to reflect these empirical origins.

As part of his longstanding collaboration with David Miall, Don co-supervised Shelley Sikora (Psychology), as well as Paul Sopcák, Olivia Fialho, Cathelein Aaftink, and Paul Campbell (Comparative Literature). Don now supervises one graduate student (Shawn Douglas, Psychology) and continues to supervise honours students (Kelly-Ann Albrecht, Psychology. Currently, his group conducts (at home, online) dream research in which awakening from impactful dreams is followed by administration of tasks that reflect post-dream changes in self-perception, expressive reflection, and metaphoric generativity. His group also conducts (laboratory, online) research that examines how deeply engaged literary reading precipitates similar changes in self-perception, expressive reflection, and metaphoric generativity. Theoretical articulation of these parallels is grounded in phenomenology. For example, phenomenological conceptions of intersubjectivity, explicative reflection, and metapahoricity contributed to a recent invited lecture about numerically-aided phenomenology at the Centre for Subjectivity Research (University of Copenhagen) and to another pair of invited lectures on expressive literary reading at the Interacting Minds Centre (Aarhus University) and the Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics (Frankfurt).

Don has served as Editor of Dreaming (the journal of the International Association for the Study of Dreams), and he is currently an Associate Editor of Scientific Study of Literature (the journal of the International Association for the Empirical Study of Literature and Media). Current collaborators include Monique Kuijpers (Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics, Frankfurt), Art Jacobs, (Freie Universität Berlin), and Paul Sopcák (McEwan University). Don’s former students and collaborators have continued research and teaching in psychology, literature, aesthetics, and public health at the University of Alberta, University of Montréal, MacEwan University, St. Francis Xavier University, National Dong Hwa University (Taiwan), and elsewhere.

During these late years in Don’s career, he looks forward to having more time to write, including a book describing parallels between significant reading and impactful dreams. When asked if he had particular advice for current students, Kuiken emphasized the importance of comparative thinking, i.e., the ability to work in-depth with alternative perspectives—to articulate and occasionally reconcile the tensions between them.

Relevant References: Impactful Dreams

Relevant References: Memorable Literary Reading

Relevant References: Phenomenological Methods

Phillip J. Reimer is a recent graduate from the University of Alberta (B.A. Hons.). His honours thesis on the effects of event properties on memory retention and metamnemonic perceptions received an Award for Academic Excellence from the Canadian Psychological Association.