Everything Old is New Again

Back in the day - WAY back - I was quite into dream interpretation. It was 1980. I was healing. I was an avid student of C. Jung, psychiatrist extraordinnaire. Now HIS dream interpretation, unlike, say Freud's or Aesop's - mostly Freud's, utilized free association of dream images. BUT. Whereas Freud would say, "Rocking chair - grandmother - old age - weakness - impotence" (as I recall ALL of Freud's 'associations ultimately landed in the gonadal lap, so to speak), Jung would say, "Rocking chair - JFK - back pain - comfort -persistence". So, this evening, having left myself but a parsimonious amount of time and energy to write, I went thumbing through old journals in a desultory fashion, hungry for inspiration - and pasta, for some reason. So engaged, I stumbled upon a stack of cheap leather (and thus externally cracked) "Dream Journals" circa 1978-1982. What ho! Just WHAT were the issues, the burning quests for understanding and, therefore improving that model of ME at that time. Pay dirt, folks. You know I have promised at least a serious glance into this writer's persona and, albeit dusty, what I'm about to share - just a taste - is as valid today as it was when written - with that quill.
The mechanics were simple. One kept a journal and pen bedside and whenever Orpheus skipped out - even if only for a sip of nectar - one hastily put bedside light on and madly scribbled any and all recollections of dreams thusly interrupted, whether whole or in obvious fragment modality. Then, at some point the following day, one would read this drivel and - without dwelling on motive - underline words that had some 'pop', 'vibe', or as Jung would say numinosity, to them. Now the keys were in your hand. These were the words with which one used the 'free-association' exercise on, stopping when one just knew to stop - the "aha experience". Put them all together, re-arrange, interpret and voila, you have what your subconscious is REALLY screaming at you. Ready? Comfy? I give you Friday, October 11, 1980 - "A day in the life of. . . ."
DREAM: I am in a car which is being driven by C. L. or some other person who has died. She goes past cemeteries. I think 'how odd' as I would think she would try to forget. Then there are scarves - many brilliantly-colored silk scarves. She is trying to arrange them to tell a story. At first I try to help but then I'm propelling myself ahead, full-force, doing something with these scarves, getting ready to die.

• I have watched the large tree shed the leaves that have died this year as I do every year;
• I am haunted by memories of those whom I knew and/or loved who have died;
• I don't really know whether those who have died really know me anymore;
• My life changed since my grandfather died when I was 6;
• I thought I died a little bit with each of my patients but perhaps I just intensified my fear of the reality of mortality;
• I wonder if anyone who has died ever talks to me;
• I think I would fear meeting or experiencing anyone who had died.

• I hate cemeteries;
• I don't see anything to be gained from visiting family graves or cemeteries;
• Cemeteries make me feel very cold and damp;
• I sometimes feel I hear the collective wailing of the trapped souls trying to push back the earth and get out when I pass cemeteries;
• I told my mother I would not visit her in the cemetery.
• My mother is not in the cemetery;
• Three years before their respective deaths, my mother and her brother, Paul, got stuck while driving through a cemetery. (Must have made Uncle P a tad nervous as he was also a member of The Family.)

• I get lots of odd feelings which tend to disorient me from my present reality;
• I like odd combinations of color, furniture, people;
• I often feel someone else's behavior is odd when no one else does'
• I really enjoy people who have odd ways of doing things;
• I have a preference for odd over even numbers;(always bet the 3-1-9 combo @ the track)
• My mother died on an odd-numbered day, in an odd-numbered month, of an odd-numbered year;
• I often think it odd that I ever married and have 3 children;
• I have an odd preoccupation with the passage of time;
• My husband used to say I was odd. Now he says I'm special.

• I feel I have forgotten at least 80% of everything I have ever studied or read;
• I forget people's names very easily;
• I never forget a face;
• I want to forget the major portion of my childhood;
• There are some very uncomfortable days in my life that I am unable to forget and which get no less traumatic with review;
• I almost always forget to call people back when I say that I will;
• I try not to forget people's birthdays but mine is remembered by only a few and that hurts;

• My mother had a large collection of and loved to wear scarves;
• Scarves are very flattering and show a classy attention to detail - and hide premature wrinkles on the neck;
• My favorite childhood cowboy heroes wore scarves;
• Scarves make me recall my wonderful year of living on the Upper East side with Ellen and borrowing from her silk 'Italian' Collection;
• I was quite shaken to read of how Isadora Duncan strangled herself accidentally while riding, standing up in an open roadster.

• Noel Coward, Oscar Wilde, Alexander Woolcott and Fran Lieberman wrote brilliantly;
• I want to write brilliantly and give hours of joy;
• I would never be able to argue/debate brilliantly because my emotions and mask get in the way;
• I have a brilliant in law whom I detest for his lack of sensitivity, humor and finesse;
• Sometimes when I am running, the sun shines on the road and environs so brilliantly as to make life almost understandable to me;
• I should like to move through life facilely, if not brilliantly.

• Silk makes me think of China and China makes me uncomfortable;
• I hate silk-screened clothing;
• I always thought whores and burlesque queens wore silk;
• My skin is no longer, by ANY stretch, as smooth as silk;
• I perspire and wrinkle too sloppily to wear good silk with any ease and panache;
• Silk is not the only thing standing between me and panache.

• Someday, my life experiences might be a useful reading experience for others;
• I was never able to make up stories to tell my children;
• I almost always embellish a story when I am recounting it, sometimes to the point of distortion;
• I must feel that the true 'story' of life needs my help to 'liven' it up;
• I enjoy becoming the characters when I am reading my children a story;
• I often miss the 'intended point' of a story even though I enjoy it a great deal;
• I have not learned to sit quietly and really honestly listen to the story of another;
• I am not able to sit quietly enough to listen to my own story.

• I have had very disturbing experiences which involve the feeling of being propelled (physically) at very great speeds;
• As a child, the rapid, propelling motions of rides at amusement parks were among my greatest thrills;
• I am often fatigued lately from the effort of propelling myself through this experience of living 'creatively';
• The propelling forces which seem responsible for my psychic growth are elusive, cyclical and can never be summoned at will.

• I am getting ready for a major change in my life;
• I knew I was getting ready for something that would require an intense increase in physical strength long before I even suspected that I was to have another child;
• Getting ready for changes, in seasons, for example, or events like holidays or parties, has become almost a compulsion for me lately, whereas it never consciously mattered that much before;
• Getting ready is exhausting - and often annoying.

Tomorrow will fill in the analytical blanks of this olio of associations as I conclude this segment on the "Making of a Magician." But, to be sure, it was big decision time for Lorane at the ole gut level and we were not amused. This whole business was a pain in the ass and neck and head. But I could not live with "Her Weakness" any longer. She was just going to have to speak to herself (me) of what REALLY hurts and if we can't cure it, perhaps we can alleviate the symptoms such that progress need not be aborted. I was already feeling like an incomplete deck but the cards were out there. It was the dealing that was painfully slow. But. I WAS the dealer; I HAD the cards and it was MY move. Did I have to have the Royal Flush or should I go for the not-so-flashy but solid Full House? Gotta have the Full House. Gotta get goin'. Gotta quit shittin' cause I'm losin' weight! Later, L. . . .