In 1933, Carl Jung was asked by a physician to interpret the dream of a patient, without any information about him other than the following dream:
Someone beside me kept asking me something about oiling some machinery. Milk was suggested as the best lubricant. Apparently I thought that oozy slime was preferable. Then, a pond was drained and amid the slime there were two extinct animals. One was a minute mastodon. I forget what the other one was.
Jung correctly diagnosed this patient as having an organic problem–a blockage of of the cerebro-spinal fluid, probably due to a tumor. Although few of us would recognize the source of the dreamer’s physical problem, everyone is capable of observing the dream image of a malfunctioning machine in need of lubrication. (Reference to follow when I re-access it).
I’m having difficulty deciding whether events are one or the other. Perhaps both? Today I experienced what I would judge to be a minor S or S. I’ll tell you about it. I was at a friend’s house last night just engaged in a kindly bit of gossiping, I guess you could call it. I was trying to remember the name of a man who had visited our poetry group once and invited us to another regular poetry reading venue in town. I told her his name would probably come to me on the way home, bu it didn’t. Although I am not a member of Phi Beta Kappa, I was reading “The American Scholar” tonight –it had been in a free bin or something–and the article on the last page brought Will Dewess’ name to mind. The article’s author was William Deresiewicz. Wait–don’t go away, there’s more. Another name I couldn’t think of was very frustrating. I could remember the book he wrote (The Birth of Consciousness in the Bi-Cameral Mind), but not his name. Again, that was during my visit last night, and tonight while reading the same issue of “The American Scholar,” I came across a discusson of his book and his name–Julian Jaynes. Now that isn’t a great example of S and S, but I’m going to start noticing them and sharing them. The journal was a real gold mine, since it also contained some interesting info for another post on the Our Shadow Selves page. (See next posting)
blogging is the connection-with-others’ part, and to do a blog anonymously and let it all hang out does not seem a solution–I still might bring some others down to my level of craziness. . I know, therapy, but for me only a group would work and I don’t find too many kindred souls in this neck of the woods.
cabin there. There was one cabin available, and I was given the landlord’s phone number. The year was 1976.
NANMYKEL.COM 