Imaginary, Until Now.

Overall, I found Freud's exploration of the uncanny to be fascinating. I really enjoyed learning about the word's ties with "home" and "familiarity" because it's something I've always subconsciously associated with the word--it doesn't just evoke the sense of the utterly bizarre, but of the almost familiar, the almost normal. And that's why we often have such powerful responses to it; we can relate in some way to the situation or object, while being simultaneously repulsed because there is something not quite "right."

The statement that came closest to the way I personally view the uncanny was on the bottom of page 150: "...an uncanny effect often arises when the boundary between fantasy and reality is blurred, when we are faced with the reality of something that we have until now considered imaginary, when a symbol takes on the full function and significance of what it symbolizes." The "we have until now considered imaginary" is particularly striking, because to me, that gets to the heart of the word--the uncanny threatens what we think we know. And from both the examples in the article and my own understanding of the word, it tends to attack directly at an instinctual, emotional level. The fear response, the uneasiness, comes first. The rational mind doesn't realize it's being attacked until the doubt is already there. Which, as a writer, I love. I thought "[tricking the reader] by promising [them] everyday reality and then going beyond it" sounded like fun. But maybe that's just me.

One point of contention I'd like to bring up, however. Freud talks a bit about "surmounting primitive beliefs," operating under the assumption that it is these beliefs that cause our experience of the uncanny, rather than the reverse. He seems to believe all mysteries are knowable and if we can simply become intellectual enough, we will escape the uncanny. But I'd like to think the uncanny would follow us anyway, changing our views on reality, proving how much we don't know.