Wednesday, October 23, 2013
Play
Dreamed this morning of being in a field of dirt, playing with toys, with Ernest Hartman, my mother & wife. Then we go to Bonaventure in Savannah, GA, and sit on the lawn. Ernest has chest pain, stands, then collapses. I comfort him and ask my wife to call 911, while my mother gets hysterical and asks where she'll sleep tonight. Ernest, who sat on Freud's lap as a child, would appreciate my mothers Oedipal response.
I take his hand and say what a beautiful day we had. Then I say that the object of life, like therapy, was to learn how to play. I had swam mornings with Ernest at the dream association annual conferences, and gone to his poetry and dream workshops. He had learned how to play.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Dear Lou --
ReplyDeletethe October 23rd dream strikes me in the following double meaning ways. I will not comment much on what these might or might not mean.
You begin by saying you are playing with Earnest Hartman, my mother and wife. Are you saying, Earnest Hartman, who sat on Freud's lap was, in some sense your psychoanalytic "mother and wife?"
Hartmarn a kind of "mother and wife" collapse, you ask your wife to call 911. There are at least two meanings to "911" possible here -- as in the emergency service or as in 9/11/2001 which date will come to the rescue of an entire kind of culture, thought.
Is the object of therapy to learn how to play or to learn how to become adults?
It seems to me you are offering "play" here as a response to events like 9/11. Are there more Mature, less...Oedipal, meaning take the blame, responses possible?
Hummer
Thanks Hummer, There were three of us--Hartman, my mother & my wife.Hartman got a dream from me for a "9/11" study, so the date is a good suggestion. Dreams are grown-up play.
ReplyDelete