2008 Student Essay Contest Winner: Dan Livney

Winning Essay in the Student Essay Contest "On encountering the unconscious"

Encountering the Unconscious: A More Than Twice Told Tale

by Dan Livney

Dan Livney is a 2nd year clinical psychology doctoral student at Chestnut Hill College in Philadelphia.

I'm a frustrated fiction writer, there I've said it. But I have a few stories which weave subtle and ambiguous threads of meaning through my life.

Take this one, for instance. I woke up in the morning, this was some years ago, and in my mind was the remainder of a dream. I tried to hold it in my mind and recall as much as I could about it. It had a rare quality. Though dreams having a literary quality may not be uncommon, my dreams, at least, don't usually translate so directly into the written word. This one felt like a short story that I could put down on paper, almost (but not entirely) without modification. Even as I first began to turn it over in my mind, I thought that it seemed to have coherence, structure, and even tone—all the things a good story needs.

I've written a number of things before and since, most of them started and then abandoned. But here was one piece that coalesced from beginning to end, almost effortlessly, onto paper. And I felt that it was, of all things, quite good. I've reread that story dozens of times and shared it with pride with friends. True to its source, it is very much a snapshot out of my subconscious. Over the years I've found that the better I've gotten to know myself the more of myself I've found in it, each time I come back to it.

The dream, and the short story which came out of it, date back about 10 years now. And in that time no new work emerged anywhere near as good as that one. But from time to time, as I continued to show this story to new people, I found that I began to tell another story about that first one. That second story is the topic of this essay. And so here then, recursively, is my "encounter with the unconscious."

The tale, or perhaps part fable, I found myself telling others about a brief moment when one particular desire, to write good fiction, came true.

"When I was a little boy of about 7 or 8, we had a plum tree in our garden
that never gave forth any plums. Then one year, out of nowhere, two appeared, side by side. It was an exciting moment. My father and I watched them grow and bulge, and I wondered how we would know when the right time to finally pick them would be. I came home one day to find that my father had made the decision without me; the plums were resting in the windowsill of our kitchen, which overlooked the garden. There the plums sat, ripening, until they had gotten to be brown and mushy on the inside. Looking for the perfect plums, in his greed and inexperience, he had ruined them. The short story, you see, is kind of like those plums. It showed up out of nowhere, and just sits there, unconnected to anything before or since.

This is a reconstruction of a metaphor I used several times, always to make a similar point. Although eventually I came to suspect that what that point was had never been really clear to me. In Freudian terms, jokes and parapraxes, and perhaps little curious metaphors like this one, suggest the presence of repressed motives. In order to help me try and uncover whatever possible hidden meanings may lie in my story of the plums, I'd like to try a little exercise. What I'd like to do is to make an in vivo examination of my "latent state of mental life" by using Freud's technique of free association. "If we make use of this procedure [psycho-analysis] upon ourselves, we can best assist the investigation by at once writing down what are at first unintelligible associations" (Freud, 1911/1989).

But before I do this, I'd like to ask: what brings my focus to this particular
example? It is, quite simply, its unexamined and maybe paradoxical state. Looked at rationally, my metaphorical tale adds little to my companion's understanding of the short story. In essence what it does do is repeat the idea that this story is unique to my experience. But it avoids other seemingly important questions, such as what meanings or explanations do I give it, or its solitary state. And also, it seems curious to me that I should have been so fond of this anecdote so as to repeat it more than once. To attempt and answer these kinds of questions I'm going to try and let my mind wander over the story of the plums. I will ask the reader to believe me that as I start this exploration I have no prepared answers which amount to any more than a rough outline of a hypothesis or two. Instead I ask the reader to come upon this psychoanalytic exercise along with me, so without prejudice we may both see where it leads.

As I now begin, I ask, what do I make of this narrative? If I were scoring it as a response on the Rorschach using the Exner system, I might note the presence of one "Cooperative" and one "Morbid" Special Scores; a "Botany,"Human" and "Food" content; and one Pair. Unfortunately, this seems like a rather intellectualized beginning, which speaks mostly to how difficult it is to be really honest with yourself and with others, in this case the reader. In finding myself starting out by immediately going to an interpretation which appears to speak more to mind than to emotion, I presume the presence of a resistance. This adds to my belief that the content of the narrative, as much as the content of the original short story-cum-dream, is laden with unconscious meaning. With awareness of my initial misstep, I'm going to try again. This time attempting to be more nearly true to Freud's recipe of saying whatever comes to mind:

Twin plums, testicles…old woman…fear…old shed to one side of the yard; broken down, door half open; gloom inside…fear…sex, adult sex, not childhood images…father…discontent…image: digging a hole in the back of the yard, with a little plastic sphere I was wearing on my head. I'm suddenly aware of someone behind me, I turn and its my father taking a photograph. He thinks it's cute (I suppose) that I'm wearing my little hat, but I feel humiliated. Plums, growth…unconnected. Pick, spic, ice pick, kick…soccer. Image: playing soccer with my father in a local park, falling over backwards after a kick, as if imitating professional players on TV.

I'm going to stop here. I think there should be enough material just in these
few lines to serve my purpose. What is the experience of free associating like for me? Anxiety-provoking. To dive into something with no preconception of where I might end up, it has always frightened me. It scares me most when I first start the process; fear attains a gilt-edge of exhilaration as I become more comfortable with it. Once I stop and come back to try again, perhaps after some days or weeks, the initial feeling is always one of anxiety. My stomach becomes tight, and my mouth dry. I become easily distracted, start thinking of things I'd rather be doing. I'm forced to bring myself back. Eventually I feel slightly flushed and I don't want to continue any longer.

Only now that I've finished with the free-association part of my task; and assuming I was honest, that is, by saying things as they came to mind without trying to edit or curb them, can I now go back and try to make sense of what appeared. I should first acknowledge that obviously this is not the same kind of free association that one might do on a therapist's couch. Whereas on the couch one says whatever comes to mind, here the situation is slightly altered. I'm free associating while contemplating a particular paragraph—it's a case of one episode of free association based upon another. A second difference, of course, is that I'm doing this with only a theoretical reader in mind, rather than with a real person present. Whether this is a "legitimate" methodology for looking at the contents of the unconscious, almost begs the question. I'm not conceptualizing the unconscious as a state or a place, or even as a subset of consciousness or ego, however one chooses to define those words. I believe that the "boundaries" of the unconscious are considerably harder to define. If one looks at the task I've chosen for myself, it would seem that the choice I've made is a conscious one. There are obviously other topics I could have chosen to focus on. I could have chosen to discuss the short story directly rather than the anecdote I've told about it. Or else I could have chosen some entirely other episode from my life to ponder. But I would argue that the choice itself has unconscious parameters—I chose it because with associations and feelings unknown it has been weighing on my mind.

I will put the argument regarding method aside for the moment, while I go back now and examine the contents of my free association sample. To start with, I've asked my father about his recollection of the story of the plums, and among other discrepancies to my own memories, to his recall there was only one plum. Perhaps, as an adult, he would be more likely to remember the situation accurately, or perhaps his unconscious is playing its own tricks, there's no way to know, and I don't think it really matters. Trying to decipher the unconscious residues from a memory is little different than trying to do so from a dream—you start with the recalled event as it is presented, rather than by trying to reconstruct an accurate picture of the event. Thus, the twin image of the plums, and the immediate connection to a sexual image, is noted.

The next image which came to mind was the old woman. During the period of time when we lived in a house with a plum tree in the back yard, an elderly woman who lived across the street was a significant nurturing figure in my life. The next feeling which comes up is fear, followed by a sinister image: the old, spooky shed. Next, fear again, then again a sexual image. The association proceeds to my father and an interaction with him from about the same period. In re-reading my words, I now see that an element of editorializing had crept in ("He thinks it's cute I suppose…"). So what I would note here is there might be a deflection of feelings. Because rather than simply describing the feeling this image evokes as it emerges, maybe sadness, I immediately add a concrete interpretation of the scene.

Moving along with the images, I now return to the plums, and I connect the words "growth" and "unconnected," perhaps related to the way I describe the appearance of the plums as unconnected "to anything before or since." Why this comes up here, I don't see for the moment. Next there is a rhyming association: "Pick, spic, ice pick, kick…soccer" I might interpret the presence of the word "spic" as representative of latent racist tendencies which I would assure the reader I don't have any particular inclination towards), but there could also be another meaning. The offensive quality of this word lies in its derogatory singling out of the (in this case, Hispanic) other as different, and therefore implicitly inferior. Coming as I do from an immigrant family, it seems quite plausible that, especially as a child, I would have felt the full weight of being "different." So, perhaps within this particular word are contained feelings not only of my own inferiority, but also of associated embarrassment of my parents, different as they were from other kids' parents. An "ice pick," which I've rarely encountered in my day to day life, except as murder weapon in spy novels, seems to be an aggressive association. The last image (playing soccer) is again one with my father, but this time it's a more positive one.

To further put the images into context, it should be noted that the free
associations were made a few hours before going with my girlfriend to spend the evening with some members of my family, including my father. It seems reasonable to assume that whatever unconscious representations of repressed mental states are assumed to exist, they can best be understood through the filter of current events.

In fact, as I now move on from a line-by-line reading to trying to organize what I see, it seems that there are two principal motifs appearing in the free associations: interactions with my father, and sexual themes. The question of whether the present draws out certain aspects of the past, or if the past casts a particular shade over the present immediately comes to mind, but I'm going to refrain from entertaining an idea I'm afraid could lead down a circuitous path. In either case the themes evidently coexist in some way. The one presumption I feel inclined to make is that they are not in fact separate, that is, their coexistence is not incidental or otherwise random. For instance, nurturance runs through both of them, and also contextualizes the appearance of the old woman.

I see, too, some ambiguity in the associations. There is fear, mentioned explicitly twice, and implied in the image of the creepy shed. There is humiliation, and aggression. But the sexual allusion is phrased "adult sex, not childhood images." Though not much elaborated on, it's a fairly sanguine phrasing, explicitly avoiding any juvenile connotations. So the juxtaposition of unpleasant images comes with at least two healthy ones: the sexual allusion, and the final image. That last image I read as a childhood expression of aspiration and idealization: "Teach me how to be a great soccer player, so I can grow up to be strong and successful like they are." Perhaps I associate the experience of becoming an adult, in part by having an adult to look up to, as connected to the successful formation of romantic relationships.

So far, I've tried to interpret what hidden meanings can be discerned in my associations to the "tale of the plums." But the other question that comes to mind is, what purpose does the story serve to the interaction? Why do I feel this need (perhaps shy of a compunction) to tell it, as a commentary of sorts on the short story? As I said earlier, I do see the tale as a sort of a distraction. It provides a metaphor for the idea that while I'm proud of this one short story, I'm saddened that I've found myself unable to write more like it. But it adds little beyond that, and thus seems a bit overly elaborate for its purpose. Prior to the metaphor, of course, the short story itself was a form of interaction. So then, when I say that I "I would like to be a writer," what I'm really saying is that this is a certain kind of communication that I would like to do more of.

According to Freud (at least as of the writing of The Interpretation of Dreams), the dream, and as I would claim by extension, any successful piece of fiction, is an attempt at "wish fulfillment." But strangely, with the plum metaphor what I find is perhaps the reverse. With the secondary interaction (the first being when I give another person the short story to read), I introduce a diversion. My stated goals, above, in giving another my short story are to share a personal piece of myself, and to share an accomplishment of which I'm proud. Those things should theoretically be at least some part of the focus of this secondary interaction. Instead my reader receives something else to consider, another tale, which besides its commentary on the short story, is also laden with its own multiple layers of meaning--they receive the dubious gift of plums.

I could postulate that this new gift is an attempt to undo, or at least divert from, the first gift. Perhaps there is some discomfort either with being proud of my accomplishments, or of disclosing so much of myself to another—after all, I am much more aware than a casual reader of how much the short story really tells about me. It could be that elements of my free associations point to either a source, or at one example, or at simply one expression of these discomforts. It could be that my current relationships, appearing here in the form of my girlfriend, are in some way affected by these patterns of hidden or adumbrated meanings. It is also possible that the short story, now perhaps become its own repressed symbol, plays the part in my unconscious of a"desire fulfilled." And perhaps there are other parts of my unconscious that battle away with it as "too good," and therefore unacceptable.

So if I were to summarize my predicament: I started with a dream, which is an unconscious process. While still groggily lying in bed I decide that this is not just any dream, but one that I can and should write down in the form of a short story. What combination of processes, conscious and unconscious, brought me to that decision is, like the source of the dream, far from clear. I surely do not, lying there in bed, think about form and structure and syntax. In writing the story I make an attempt to stay as true as I can to what I remember of my dream, but I believe that some level of conscious translation occurred nevertheless. Once the story is written, I share it with a number of others over a period of years, more than once telling those others a certain metaphor connected to this story. Only after a long time do I make note of the fact that it is a relatively static tale I've repeated—which makes it, like a recurring dream recounted in therapy, one worthy of particular note.

Several months ago when I first started thinking about this essay that I'm writing now, another apparently conscious "choice" started to form in my mind: that I should write about this metaphor of the plums. Then, when I started to write about it, I made yet another apparently conscious choice: that I was going to use the method of free association to examine this tale (that is based on a short story, which is based on a dream).

There are plausible conscious and rational explanations I could make for many of the links in this chain. For example, my desire to write fiction likely has a role to play in my decision to write my dream down as a short story, rather than, say, as a journal entry. And, taken at face value, the story of the plums does tell something about the appearance of the short story: it is certainly not a full-fledged attempt to hide all meanings. If I had wanted to do that I could have simply not shared the short story with anyone in the first place. But I think that, too, at every step there are aspects of my experiences, fears and behaviors, the impulse for which is not entirely apparent.

Of course, I could take an even further step back, and see the original dream itself as one that retains the content of both not fully apprehended experiences from my childhood, combined with, if one is to believe Freud in this, residual experiences from the day's events when the dream occurred. Given all this, and keeping in mind the title of this essay contest, Encountering the Unconscious; when, I would ask, along the thread which seems somehow to connect my childhood to this very moment, and which surely permeates the dream, the short story, the metaphor, the free association sample above, as well as this essay, is the unconscious not encountered? And so to get back now to my earlier question regarding the legitimacy or usefulness of this particular method—while what I have done here may differ from the classical way of apprehending the unconscious, if one accepts the idea that the unconscious is in fact in some way in play everywhere and all the time, (to the point that the differentiation between conscious and unconscious process is not entirely clear, although I grant that some such difference exists), then the discussion about what is the proper way to encounter it becomes little more than a semantic one. I would subscribe here to Freud's equally blurred delineation of the two states when he writes:

…We know for certain that they [latent states of mental life] have abundantpoints of contact with conscious mental processes, and all the categories whichwe employ to describe conscious mental acts, such as ideas, purposes, resolutionsand so on, can be applied to them. Indeed, we are obliged to say of some ofthese latent states that the only respect in which they differ from consciousones is precisely in the absence of consciousness. (Freud, 1915/1989.)

Lastly, I would underline the iterative nature of my encounter with the unconscious; each step involves a further exploration into the meanings found within previously delved layers of connections. To the extent that there is a conscious effort involved, its aim is to clarify and to attempt to make explicit the dynamics and emotions hidden behind the uncovered symbols.

References:

Freud, S. (1989). On Dreams. (J. Strachey, Trans.). In P. Gay (Ed.), The Freud Reader (p.144). London: W. W. Norton & Co. (Original work published in 1911)

Freud, S. (1989). The Unconscious. (J. Strachey, Trans.). In P. Gay (Ed.), The Freud Reader (p.575). London: W. W. Norton & Co. (Original work published in 1915)

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