This dissertation unites two contrasting phenomena, musical theorizing as practiced on YouTube and dreamlike experiences involving music, under a single rubric: virtual space. While the two phenomena are disconnected in time, geography, and culture, they are nonetheless similar in that they are spatialized in ways that contravene how we typically experience physical space, So, I develop the concept of virtual space as a means of approaching the commonalities underlying these phenomena. Building on a definition of space as a medium in which entities are positionally related, I propose a framework for analyzing virtual spaces that emphasizes a phenomenon’s subjective immersivity and objective relationality. In order to bring out the human dimension of these virtual spaces, I concentrate on the discursive, instrumental, experiential, and generative aspects of embodied virtual spaces that are entangled in social, cultural, and political networks. To that end, in the first half of the dissertation, I discuss how a community of YouTube content creators has carved out a place for practicing, teaching, and learning music theory. I detail YouTube’s affordances as a space for theorizing music and a medium of communication, showing how content creators have leveraged these to great effect in their theorizing of game music. Flitting between the general and the particular, I balance case studies of content creators and close readings of audiovisual content with sociological approaches. In spite of the platform’s self-image and the community’s political positioning, I contend that YouTube’s egalitarian promise has been left unfulfilled in the English-language, Western-centric field of YouTube music theory, which replicates or even exacerbates some of the epistemological issues and unjust social structures that pervade academia and Western society more broadly. The other half of the dissertation concerns the analytical interpretation and precise differentiation of dreamlike experiences centered on music. I demonstrate that much of the discourse on this topic comes from close readings of music as dream. As this perspective locates dreaming in an object, I argue for counterbalancing this discourse towards a dreaming subject, and thus I propose a framework with three interrelated components. First, I carefully distinguish dreaming, as a virtual and spatialized experience, from standard waking consciousness through recourse to neuroscience and phenomenology. After that, I set forth a tripartite scheme that articulates the many permutations of how we might position ourselves, other subjects, and music in this non-dreamer–dreamer dynamic. Last, I classify the various interactions between music, dreamlike experience, and analytical interpretation. Using the music of Fryderyk Chopin as my example, I show that, though this music has accrued much historical and cultural meaning through being read as dreamlike, we have much to gain from the analytical insights unique to our subjective, dreamlike experiences with this music.

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This dissertation is composed of a critical preface, "Reconciling Art and Account in the Creative Essay," and the essay collection Resurrection Attempts: Essays. The preface situates the following essay collection within the genre of contemporary creative nonfiction. Specifically, it argues that genre-bending or genre hybridity are inherent and unavoidable features of creative nonfiction writing and should be celebrated, rather than denied or lamented. It points to other writers who deliberately challenge the bounds of genre, and discusses some of the collection's innovations in form and other ways it offers experimentation, such as use of unusual or borrowed points of view, disruption of chronology, and adoption of elements from other genres of writing, including fiction, poetry, and academic. Ultimately, embracing the artistic side of creative nonfiction (as opposed to its "purely" journalistic side) allows for heightened intimacy with the reader, a much wider breadth of storytelling, and a more vulnerable—and therefore more truthful—interrogation of legacy and the human experience. Resurrection Attempts is a collection of essays exploring the writer's rural Texas childhood and the early and tragic losses of her parents, including the effect of those experiences on her adult life and performance of motherhood. The voices of the writer's sisters sometimes intertwine with hers, especially as she examines the converging and diverging lenses of their shared experience. She works throughout to "resurrect" her parents and even to resurrect earlier versions of other family members, including herself. The collection is particularly fascinated with dreams, drawing a parallel between the subconscious lives of the dreamer and their waking constructions of their memories and experiences.

Stories of the Wind is an audiovisual performance exploring various media to tell a story, integrating media at the intersection of visual arts and music, leveraged by technology. Different materials and technologies coexist as pieces of an audiovisual performance, with images, sound objects and interactive works. The production of this work was informed by artistic-scholarship, which involved the combination of aesthetic education and aesthetic experience with research and analysis in the process of artistic and academic creation. This project was meant to be exhibited in the Cube, at the Moss Arts Center, at Virginia Tech. Because of the Covid-19 pandemic, it was not possible to present the project in the space that it was created for, so a video adaptation was made to be submitted for the thesis defense. The video submitted as the thesis project pandemic adaptation can be seen through the following link: https://youtu.be/dH8ce9KO41w / M.F.A. / Stories of the Wind is an audiovisual performance telling a story using visual arts and music. It was created to be performed in the Cube, at the Moss Arts Center, at Virginia Tech. Because of the Covid-19 pandemic, it was not possible to perform the project. A video adaptation was made instead, which can be seen through the following link: https://youtu.be/dH8ce9KO41w

Bien que les rêves dysphoriques, comme les mauvais rêves et les cauchemars, surviennent du moins occasionnellement chez la majorité des adultes, les facteurs impliqués dans l’occurrence de ces rêves, d’une nuit à l’autre, demeurent incertains. Par le biais d’un devis prospectif multiniveaux, nous avons étudié l’impact interactif des facteurs d’état et de trait sur l’occurrence de rêves dysphoriques d’une nuit à l’autre. Nous avons également exploré dans quelle mesure le contenu affectif et négatif des rêves de tous les jours était affecté par les mêmes facteurs. Des femmes adultes ont complété des mesures de trait de personnalité et de psychopathologie suivies de jusqu’à quatre semaines de journaux quotidiens de rêves et d’anxiété avant le coucher, ainsi que d’inventaires hebdomadaires de stress perçu. En contrôlant pour le rappel de rêve, une hausse hebdomadaire du stress perçu a significativement augmenté la probabilité d’avoir un rêve dysphorique une nuit donnée, alors que la psychopathologie a modéré positivement cette relation. Ces résultats suggèrent que les femmes adultes ayant un niveau plus élevé de psychopathologie seraient particulièrement sensibles au stress quotidien et donc plus susceptibles de faire des mauvais rêves ou cauchemars les nuits suivantes. Les analyses ont aussi révélé des effets positifs différentiels des variables d’état et de trait sur le contenu émotionnel et négatif des rêves de tous les jours. Ces résultats concordent avec le modèle neurocognitif des rêves dysphoriques proposé récemment et l’hypothèse de continuité des rêves. Les implications de cette étude et des recommandations futures sont émises. / Although disturbing dreams, such as bad dreams and nightmares, are experienced at least occasionally by a majority of adults, the factors involved in the night-by-night occurrence of these dreams remain unclear. Using a prospective design and multilevel modeling, we investigated the interactive impact of state and trait factors on the nightly occurrence of disturbing dreams. We further explored the extent to which emotionally intense and negative everyday dream content was affected by the same variables. Adult women completed measures of personality and psychopathology followed by up to four weeks of daily dream logs, daily pre-sleep anxiety logs, and weekly perceived stress inventories. After controlling for dream recall, upsurges in weekly perceived stress significantly increased the likelihood of having a disturbing dream on a given night, whereas psychopathology positively moderated that relationship. These results suggest that adult women reporting higher levels of psychopathology are particularly sensitive to everyday stress and thus more likely to experience bad dreams or nightmares on subsequent nights. Analyses also revealed differential positive effects of state and trait variables on the emotional and negative content of everyday dreams. These findings are in line with a recently proposed neurocognitive model of disturbed dreaming and the continuity hypothesis of dreaming. The implications of this study and future recommendations are emitted.

De nombreux cliniciens œuvrant en périnatalité constatent que l’activité onirique est plus foisonnante et perturbée durant la grossesse. Certains croient d’ailleurs que le caractère plus vif, réaliste et marquant des rêves de cette période permette aux femmes d’avoir une plus grande accessibilité à leur monde intrapsychique, ce qui faciliterait la résolution d’enjeux relationnels laissés jusqu’alors en suspens. D’autres avancent aussi que les rêves permettent aux futures mères d’intérioriser leur rôle maternel grâce au développement de représentations mentales ayant trait, entre autres, à la future relation mère-bébé. Or, bien que ces notions soient fortement ancrées dans la littérature clinique, elles demeurent, en revanche, peu étudiées sur le plan empirique. Le premier objectif de cette thèse visait à offrir une meilleure description de l’activité onirique au troisième trimestre (≥26 semaines) d’une première grossesse, incluant le rappel onirique, la prévalence des rêves dysphoriques et le contenu des rêves. Nos résultats montrent pour la première fois que, lorsqu’ils sont collectés prospectivement, les rêves des femmes enceintes ne sont pas plus fréquents, mais ils sont nettement plus perturbés (article 1) et globalement plus négatifs (article 2) que ceux d’un groupe témoin constitué de femmes non enceintes et sans enfant. Le deuxième article montre aussi que, sur le plan thématique, les rêves de la grossesse incorporent, en plus des préoccupations typiques de cette période, des images de la femme en relation avec un enfant. Les processus plus généraux de la formation d’imageries oniriques, tels que le développement de la trame narrative et la valence des interactions entre personnages, se montrent quant à eux similaires entre les femmes enceintes et non enceintes. Le deuxième objectif de cette thèse visait à évaluer le rôle prédictif des rêves de la grossesse dans l’adaptation psychologique à la maternité, via l’étude de caractéristiques oniriques affectives et représentationnelles bien spécifiques (article 3). Nous montrons pour la première fois que les rêves qui dépeignent négativement la rêveuse et ceux qui incorporent la relation de la rêveuse avec sa propre mère prédisent indépendamment, et au-delà des symptômes dépressifs prénataux, l’adaptation de la femme aux chamboulements affectifs et relationnels que suscite la venue d’un premier enfant. Les résultats de cette thèse appuient l’hypothèse de la continuité onirique, qui stipule que les préoccupations de l’éveil transparaissent dans les rêves. Ce travail s’inscrit également dans la lignée des conceptions théoriques voulant que les rêves occupent une fonction adaptative pour l’équilibre psychologique. / According to many perinatal health care professionals, dreams are more frequent and disturbed during pregnancy. Some suggest that in being more vivid, realistic and impactful than during any other period of life, pregnancy dreams might increase women’s awareness to their intrapsychic world and therefore facilitate the resolution of past relational issues. Other clinicians suggest that dreams during pregnancy might help women to integrate their maternal role through the elaboration of various mental representations, such as the future mother-baby relationship. While these notions have been frequently mentioned in the clinical literature, empirical evidence is lacking. The first objective of this thesis was to provide a better description of changes occurring in the dreams of the third trimester (≥26 weeks) of a first pregnancy, using measures of dream recall, dysphoric dreams prevalence, and dream content. Our results show—for the first time—that when pregnant women’s dreams are prospectively collected, they are not more frequent, but they are more disturbed (study 1) and generally more dysphoric (study 2) than non-pregnant women’s dreams. The second study also reveals that during pregnancy, dreams do not only express typical concerns of pregnant women, but they also depict the elaboration of representations of the woman’s relationship with her unborn child. However, more general dream attributes, such as development of the dream’s narrative and interactions between dream characters, are similar between pregnant and non-pregnant women. The second objective of this thesis was to assess the predictive role of pregnancy dreams in the psychological adaptation to motherhood through the evaluation of specific affective and representational characteristics (study 3). Our results show for the first time that more frequent masochistic dreams and dreams about mother-daughter relationships predict independently, and above and beyond prenatal depression symptoms, better maternal adaptation to affective and relational changes concurrent with the arrival of a new baby. The results of this thesis thus support the view that dreams are continuous with emotionally important waking life concerns. The work also supports theoretical conceptions suggesting that dreams have an adaptive function in maintaining psychological equilibrium.

The artist uses herself as the object of study. Her subjective position is validated within a theoretical framework provided by feminism, existentialism and Freudian theory. The three world views provide the context for an analysis of sculpture produced between the years 1988 and 1997. Three one-person exhibitions held in 1990, 1993 and 1996, are examined in terms of their iconographic emphasis and their theoretical bias. The role of the unconscious in the genesis of the sculptures and the problem of author/reader dichotomies in interpretation are dealt with as thematic threads throughout the dissertation. / Department of History of Art and Fine Arts / M.A. (Fine Arts)

La schizophrénie découle d’une modification du fonctionnement du cerveau et entraîne divers symptômes qui ont pour conséquence une altération de la perception de la réalité, des troubles cognitifs, et des dysfonctionnements sociaux et comportementaux. En plus des observations cliniques de jour, la schizophrénie montre également des signes nocturnes qui peuvent se manifester durant le rêve. Cette thèse vise à caractériser les rêves dans la schizophrénie et cherche à explorer les relations qui existent entre les caractéristiques du contenu onirique des personnes atteintes de schizophrénie et les symptômes de cette maladie. Pour ce faire, nous avons comparé diverses mesures de l’activité onirique recueillies auprès de 14 participants atteints de schizophrénie traités sous antipsychotiques atypiques et 15 participants témoins par le biais de questionnaires et de collectes de rêves en laboratoire à la suite d’éveils provoqués en sommeil paradoxal (SP) et en sommeil lent (SL). Les résultats obtenus au questionnaire révèlent que les participants atteints de schizophrénie rapportent un nombre de cauchemars plus élevé comparativement aux participants témoins. Les collectes en laboratoire démontrent une fréquence de rappel de rêves équivalente au sein des deux groupes de participants, indépendamment du stade de sommeil durant lequel elles sont effectuées. Les récits de rêves du SL des deux groupes de participants sont généralement plus courts et comprennent un nombre moins élevé d’items quantifiables comparativement à ceux du SP. Les récits de rêves recueillis en SP et en SL chez les participants atteints de schizophrénie s’avèrent plus courts que ceux des participants témoins et, lorsque le nombre de mots est pondéré, la plupart des différences observées dans le contenu de rêve entre les deux groupes tendent à disparaître. En comparaison aux participants témoins, ceux atteints de schizophrénie évaluent leurs rêves comme étant moins bizarres, en dépit d’un nombre équivalent d’éléments bizarres dans leurs récits. Finalement, bien qu’il n’y ait pas de différence dans la densité des mouvements oculaires rapides (MORs) entre les deux groupes de participants, seuls les participants témoins montrent une corrélation positive entre les MORs et certaines variables du contenu onirique. Les résultats de la présente thèse suggèrent que les caractéristiques du contenu onirique des personnes atteintes de schizophrénie peuvent refléter certaines des manifestations psychopathologiques de cette maladie. / Schizophrenia is a chronic, severe, and disabling brain disease which is characterized by symptoms which cause altered reality perception, cognitive deficits, and impairment in social or vocational functioning. In addition to clinical symptoms, schizophrenia can be accompanied with nocturnal characteristics which could manifest during dreaming. Using both questionnaire-based measures and laboratory REM sleep and non-REM sleep awakenings, we sought to characterize the dream content of 14 participants with schizophrenia under atypical antipsychotic medication. Results were compared with those from 15 healthy individuals. The relationship between dream content and daytime functioning in schizophrenia was also explored. Questionnaire data revealed that when compared to controls, patients with schizophrenia report experiencing a greater number of nightmares. Laboratory awakenings revealed that there was no significant difference between the two groups in the number of dream reports with reportable content, regardless of the sleep stage in which dreams were collected. In addition, when compared to their REM dream counterparts, both groups’ non-REM dream reports were shorter and included significantly fewer reportable items on several content scales. Laboratory REM and non-REM dream narratives from the patients were shorter and, after controlling for report length, most significant differences in dream content between the two groups disappeared. Patients with schizophrenia spontaneously rated their dream reports as being less bizarre than did controls, despite a similar density of bizarre elements as scored by external judges. Finally, both groups had a comparable density of rapid eye movements during REM sleep but a significant positive correlation between eye-movement density and dream content variables was only found in controls. Taken together, these findings suggest that dream content characteristics in schizophrenia may reflect psychopathological parameters specific to this disorder.

This thesis documents my research, rehearsal, and performance of the role of Alceste in Moliere’s The Misanthrope, which includes, a biography of Moliere, character analysis, role development, a rehearsal journal, character research, acting process, evaluation of my performance, and script analysis. The Misanthrope was produced by the UNO Department of Film and Theatre, under the direction of David W. Hoover. The play was performed in the Robert E. Nims Theatre of the Performing Arts Center September 17 - 19, 24 - 26 at 7:30pm, and September 27, 2015 at 2:30pm.

Mon travail de doctorat porte sur l’implication des enfants et des jeunes gens dans les phénomènes de sorcellerie qui se sont déroulés au Pays Basque de la fin du XVe siècle au début du XVIIe siècle. Mon corpus d'analyse comporte des traités de l'époque, des minutes de procès inquisitoriaux, ainsi que des documents officiels provenant des autorités. A travers l'examen en archives des différentes pièces, j'ai cherché à savoir qui étaient ces enfants et ces jeunes gens, à connaître leur âge, leur condition sociale et leur profil psychologique. D'autres questions ont surgi au cours de ma recherche : combien y a-t-il eu d'enfants concernés en fonction des années et du contexte socio-économique ? Quelle a été la place des rêves et de l’imagination dans ces phénomènes de sorcellerie ? Quelles ont été les répercussions des procès sur l'ensemble de la société ? J'ai pu mettre au jour le rôle joué par ces enfants et ces jeunes gens dans la progression, la propagation, l’expression et la matérialisation des actes tenant à la sorcellerie. Dans un deuxième temps, je me suis intéressée plus particulièrement à un évènement majeur de cette histoire : la chasse aux sorcières de Zugarramurdi qui a conduit à l’autodafé de Logroño en 1610. Je tente grâce aux documents d’époque, qu’il s’agisse de procès, de traités, de documents officiels en tous genres, de faire surgir un profil type de ces enfants et de ces jeunes gens et de proposer des faits une interprétation globale. Mon hypothèse de départ est que certains ont revêtu un habit de victime, d’autres de bourreau, et certains des deux à la fois dans un jeu subtil. J’essaie également de déterminer quelle fut la réaction et la réponse des autorités, des élites et du peuple face à cette dynamique de peur du diable et de châtiment alimentée en grande partie par les enfants eux-mêmes. Enfin, je m’emploie à déterminer la spécificité de la Péninsule Ibérique en matière de sorcellerie et à montrer que l’autodafé de Logroño de 1610 a marqué une évolution décisive dans la prise en compte de ces phénomènes de sorcellerie — notamment à travers l'écriture de traités sur la question novateurs —, ce qui signale un changement des mentalités de l’époque. / My PHD thesis tackles children’s and young people’s involvement in the witchcraft phenomena which happened in the Basque Country at the end of the 15th Century and at the beginning of the 17th century. My corpus of analysis is composed of treatises written at that time, of minutes from inquisitorial trials, as well as of official documents issued by authorities. By examining the different texts in the archives, I endeavoured to find out who these children and young people were, their age, their social statuses and their psychological profiles. More questions arose during my research: how many children were involved depending on the years and on the socio-economical context? What part did dreams and imagination play in those witchcraft phenomena? What were the repercussions of the trials for the whole society? I managed to bring to light the role played by these children and these young people in the progression, the spreading, the expression and the materialization of the acts relating to witchcraft. Secondly, I particularly turned my attention to a major event of this period that is Zugarramurdi witch hunt, which led to Logroño auto-da-fé in 1610. Thanks to the documents written at that period – trial minutes, treatises, and various official documents alike – I tried to discover the typical profile of those children and those young people and to suggest a global interpretation for the facts. My premise is that some of the children and young people played the part of victims, others of torturers, and some of both in a subtle way. I also attempted to establish what were the responses and reaction of the authorities, the elite and the people in that climate of Fear of the Devil and that of Punishment, a fear which was mainly fed by children themselves. Finally, I applied myself to determining the specificity of the Iberian Peninsula in terms of witchcraft and to showing that the Logroño auto-da-fé of 1610 marked a decisive evolution in the way people perceived those phenomena of witchcraft, which can be notably noticed in the innovative treatises that were written after that date. This new vision indicates a change in mentalities at that period.