Blog Twenty

I dream of Sigmund Freud

Since starting this, I have been experiencing a recurring dream. This is strange as I rarely remember my dreams, and apart from one other - skipping with Dorothy, in a state of terror, along the yellow brick road - this is my only other recurring one. 

My mobile rings - an overseas number - and I answer it. It is Sigmund Freud. He is complimentary about the blog, and asks in a thick Austrian accent, if I might be willing to accompany him on a lecture tour and tell my story. He says that the blog illustrates many of the things he is researching, and he would greatly appreciate my help. Of course I agree. 

I imagine that I will be standing at up in front of small distinguished crowds in oak panelled rooms, and talking about how my experience, as the father of a dancer in training, illustrates some of the basic principals of psychoanalysis. Our son living at Ballet school is clearly exposing some of my own primal feelings of abandonment - most likely still unresolved. I am clearly in an 'enmeshed' relationship with my children, unaware of where I end, and they begin. Perhaps I am encouraging an unhealthy dependency rather than facilitating our inter-dependency with one another. This must be symptomatic of my own codependent addiction and need to feel loved. I am struggling to support my vision of the universe while acknowledging that my children do not see the world from my self-oriented perspective. My subjective vision is absolute and I am unable to grasp that another more objective reality is actually more likely to be the truth.  I talk about recovery and how as an adult I was defining myself as a parent and little else. I have been on a quest to fill the void, and all this has been a strain for me to contain - hence the blog. These and other topics are the ones that I imagine myself sharing with the distinguished tweed-clad men and women sitting in the penumbra of Sigmund Freud's audience.

The day arrives and I step out onto the stage. Sigmund is there to welcome me. The audience applauds enthusiastically. I nod with humble appreciation. Then, to my horror, Sigmund gestures to a couch - brown studded leather with well-used patches of grazed hide. It dawns on me that I am not there to speak or lecture. I am a patient - an analysand in one of Sigmund's public lectures. Reluctantly, I climb onto the couch and lie down. I shut my eyes and struggle for darkness despite the bright stage lighting. The couch supports me. I sink in further and the audience seem to disappear. Everything fades out to black. It's just me and Sigmund. I am only aware of him because I can hear his breathing and his occasional Austrian grunts of acknowledgement. I listen to my own voice as I speak. Then, I am skipping along a yellow brick road. 

I fear that this blog entry reveals more about me than any of the others.