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Showing posts sorted by relevance for query jesse raben. Sort by date Show all posts
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query jesse raben. Sort by date Show all posts
Thursday, June 16, 2011
A Curious Interest in Akin Gump's Eastern Airlines Paralegals
Friday, March 12, 2010
Social Security Document Submission: June 1993
Pages 86-88 of Social Security Document Submission
FAX NO. 609 235 5569 MEREDITH FINANCIAL SERVICES
transmittal for Mrs. Edward Jacobson c/o Mr. Edward Jacobson
Dear Stell,
I have some more somewhat related anecdotes, analysis of which may provide some further insight into why people react to me the way they do. I’m wondering what the reactions described here are typical of: are they a typical reaction to a shy person, a socially maladroit person (the “goof” factor), a homosexual, a homosexual pretending not be a homosexual, or some other factor(s) or combination of factors.
1. Late in the afternoon, on February 11, 1987, Craig [W. Dye] stopped into the office [at Hogan & Hartson] where I was working to get some supplies, which were kept in a closet in that particular office. Craig and I never had much to say to each other, but that afternoon I said, “Craig, you and I have had some really great conversations, haven’t we?” Craig said, “Yes, scintillating.” I said, “we’re like two mutes passing in the night.” If I recall correctly, Craig really laughed at that one. He left the office. A brief time later, I heard Daniel Cutler say, outside my closed door, “So what does he have to talk about?” (I inferred that Craig had told Daniel that I was talking to him and that Daniel’s statement was a response to Craig’s communication to Daniel. What did Daniel’s response mean? Note that if I had talked to Daniel, the probable response would have been, “Gary is trying to make Craig jealous”; a double-bind that [R.D.] Laing and Dr. [Harold] Searles would call an “untenable position.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_bind
On one occasion in about early June 1987, while I was talking to Clarence Pollard I overheard Esperanza Rebollar say to someone, “He’s trying to make Craig jealous.”
http://www.avvo.com/attorneys/10031-ny-clarence-pollard-233119.html
(Combine all this with Craig’s own ambivalent reactions to me and you get into triple and quadruple binds.) Later that afternoon [February 11, 1987], Craig stopped by the office again to get something else from the supply closet, and said something to the effect, “Scintillating conversation, Part II.” I had the feeing at that time that Craig had responded favorably to my retarded foray into sociability. There was no reference at that time to homo shtick.
The next day, February 12, 1987 [Lincoln's birthday], at around noon (I can remember the date because it was that morning that Sheryl Ferguson announced to the group that she was leaving the firm), Craig and I were standing together, and Craig, referring to a women’s clothing catalogue in the office, said, “Say, Gar, maybe there’s something in that catalogue for you.” I got angry, and said to Craig, “Maybe there’s a nice pink negligee for you in there.” Craig looked at me with a kind of knowing smile, as if he were thinking, “I had him figured.” (Why the change in Craig’s attitude from the previous afternoon?)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groupthink
2. In late August 1987 (if I recall correctly, it was Friday afternoon August 28), Cindy [Rodda] stopped by the office [at Hogan & Hartson] where I was working. During the course of a conversation, Cindy said to me, “Why aren't you friendly with Craig? The two of you have so much in common. You don’t have any friends. Craig could be a good friend for you. Why, the two of you could end up being friends for life!” (I told Craig this anecdote at lunch on about Friday April 28, 1989. Craig said, “I’ll have to talk to Cindy about that.”
A week or two later, in early September 1987, I moved out into a large common area where Craig and Daniel worked. Craig, Daniel and I started having lunch together for the first time since we had been working together. Cindy said to me at that time, “Why don’t you ask Miriam if you can move out of here and into a private office?” Based on what Cindy had said on August 28th, one would have assumed that Cindy would have welcomed my sharing office space with Daniel and Craig. Another double bind. He’s not friendly -- crime. He is friendly -- crime.
3. During the summer of 1988, while working at Akin Gump, I used to perform a certain task on Eastern [Airlines] for legal assistant Phil Fagen,
http://www.pattonboggs.com/pfeigen/
who shared office space with legal assistant Jesse Raben.
http://www.apa.org/about/offices/ogc/staff.aspx
One day Phil telephoned requesting that I stop down to his office to pick up some work. When I arrived, Jesse Raben was very friendly. It was, in fact, the first time that Jesse was friendly with me since he started working at the firm on June 13, 1988 [the anniversary of Franz Kafka's bar mitzvah]. As Jesse and I engaged in some banter, [legal assistant coordinator] J.D. Neary stopped at the doorway of the office. Not saying a word, J.D. simply nodded at Jesse, as though cuing Jesse to a prearranged plan.
http://dailstrug.blogspot.com/2010/02/did-akin-gump-operate-like-cult.html
I took a stack of documents to a nearby Xerox room to make copies for the task I was doing for Phil. Moments later, Jesse stopped by the Xerox room, and continued his banter in a lively manner. The next day, I stopped at Phil’s and Jesse’s office to perform more of the same task I had been doing the previous day. But this day, Jesse seemed his normal self.
http://dailstrug.blogspot.com/2009/11/i-still-suffer-from-psychiatric.html
[The link above contains the following statement: "I continue to believe that one day during the summer of 1988 I went to the office of another legal assistant (Jesse Raben), who had been coached to harass me. During my conversation with Raben, another employee (the legal assistant coordinator, Neary) walked by and, without saying a word, nodded to Raben. Later, Raben entered the Xerox room where I was making copies and continued the conversation in an affectedly buoyant manner. The next day Raben's earlier buoyant manner was noticeably gone. See Brief of Appellee District of Columbia at 7-8. On an occasion in November 1989 and again in about March 1990 I asked Raben if he would go to lunch with me; he initially agreed but later backed out."]
Some time in late January or early February 1989, I was doing some work in the Eastern file room, arranging the files for Continental Airlines for legal assistant Jennifer Meader.
[At Akin Gump's All-Attorney's Dinner held at the Westin Hotel on May 3, 1989, I sat at a table with Jennifer Meader, Jesse Raben, Gary Zanfagna, and others.]
(I can recall specifically that it was a Friday afternoon, but I can’t recall the date.) Jesse Raben stopped by the office, and I embarked on yet another one of my retarded forays into sociability, I asked Jesse Raben if he liked poetry, and further asked him whether he was familiar with the line from the poem by Edgar Allen Poe, “Quoth the Raben nevermore.” Despite the almost grotesque lameness of what I said to him, Jesse’s response seemed favorable in that he offered some personal information about himself, including the fact that his mother’s name was Frieda and that his family name had originally been Rabenstein, but was changed to Raben because, as Jesse said, “My grandfather was an assimilationist.”
[The above conversation was creatively transformed in my book, Significant Moments:"
[He] looked at me, and said: “I have seen you before, I think. You are . . .”
Hugo Wolf, Letter to His Parents in Romain Rolland, Hugo Wolf.
. . . Rabenstein?
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Faust.
Ah, no, no!
Richard Wagner, Letter to Mathilde Wesendonk (April 7, 1858).
. . . pardon the slip!
Richard Wagner, Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg.
. . . Raben?
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Faust.
I must confess that . . .
Primo Levi, The Periodic Table.
. . . I was born . . .
Matt Ridley, Genome: The Autobiography of a Species in 23 Chapters.
. . . Rabensteiner, . . .
Franz Kafka, The Trial.
. . . a Jew:
Primo Levi, The Periodic Table.
. . . but I sign . . .
Arthur Rubinstein, My Young Years.
. . .Raben . . .
Richard Wagner, Gotterdammerung.
. . . as a pen name . . .
E. James Lieberman, Acts of Will: The Life and Work of Otto Rank.
. . . now and then.
Johann Wolfang von Goethe, Faust.
(During lunch with Craig and Daniel on May 13, 1988 [the anniversary of Sigmund Freud's circumcision]--at which I gave Craig as a gift a copy of Fritz Stern’s Gold and Iron--following Daniel’s comment that he was reading Hesse’s novel, Demian, Craig mentioned that his mother’s maiden name was Hess.)
Later that afternoon [in February 1989], Jesse stopped by the office again. He wasn’t at all friendly, and I had the (perhaps paranoid) inference that he was piqued. (I had the paranoid inference that Jesse had told someone about our earlier conversation, and that someone had said to Jesse, “He’s using you.”) Also, later that afternoon, the attorney Jon Geier stopped by the Eastern file room where I was working. He didn’t say more than hello to me. My paranoid reading of the expression on his face, was, “Uh oh, you did something forbidden.”
(Compare the sequence of events in paragraph 1).
See Jon A. Geier, Esq.:
http://http://www.paulhastings.com/ProfessionalDetail.aspx?ProfessionalId=443491
See Jack Gallagher:
http://http://www.paulhastings.com/ProfessionalDetail.aspx?ProfessionalId=368735
[Jack Gallagher, Esq. and Jon Geier, Esq., both attorneys at Akin Gump, worked on Eastern Airlines litigation. Gallagher was the billing partner on Eastern. Geier was an associate. Both attorneys--together with Labor Group paralegal Jennifer Meader--left Akin Gump suddenly in about the year 1990 to work at the D.C. law firm of Paul Hastings.]
See Groupthink:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groupthink
[Oddly -- or uncannily -- Wagner's stepfather had been named Geyer, and Wagner himself used that name till about age 14. I reference this in my book Significant Moments.
He was known as Richard Geyer at least until his confirmation at the age of fourteen, six years after Geyer's death; sometime thereafter he . . .
Robert W. Gutman, Richard Wagner: The Man, His Mind, and His Music.
. . . changed his name to . . .
Johannes Ehrmann, Float Like a Butterfly.
. . . Wagner. Not only had the Norns of destiny in a malevolent
hour given the boy a Jewish name; they had also placed his birth on the Bruhl, the center of the Leipzig Jewish quarter, and had, to crown their mischief, given his features a hawklike cast with a prominent nose, pointed jaw, and high, intellectual brow; . . . in short, the boy had physical characteristics which ignorance and prejudice associate exclusively with the Jews. It is not unlikely that young Richard Geyer was considered Jewish by various classmates and townsfolk and that his denial was expressed by a vigorous anti-Semitism.
Robert W. Gutman, Richard Wagner: The Man, His Mind, and His Music.
4. In the 6th grade, when I was 10-11 years old, I can recall that Mark Needleman once said to me, “Arthur Koren* says you’re just using me.” (*I think it was Arthur Koren, but can’t be 100% sure now. I can recall specifically that he [Mark Needleman] said someone told him I was just using him.)
[I attended Mark Needleman's bar mitzvah in November 1966. His birthday was November 19 -- the anniversary of Lincoln's Gettysburg Address.]
_________________
My own reading of all this is that this is the response to a charismatic person who people fight over. Hard to believe, but I can’t see any other conclusion.
GF
FAX NO. 609 235 5569 MEREDITH FINANCIAL SERVICES
transmittal for Mrs. Edward Jacobson c/o Mr. Edward Jacobson
Dear Stell,
I have some more somewhat related anecdotes, analysis of which may provide some further insight into why people react to me the way they do. I’m wondering what the reactions described here are typical of: are they a typical reaction to a shy person, a socially maladroit person (the “goof” factor), a homosexual, a homosexual pretending not be a homosexual, or some other factor(s) or combination of factors.
1. Late in the afternoon, on February 11, 1987, Craig [W. Dye] stopped into the office [at Hogan & Hartson] where I was working to get some supplies, which were kept in a closet in that particular office. Craig and I never had much to say to each other, but that afternoon I said, “Craig, you and I have had some really great conversations, haven’t we?” Craig said, “Yes, scintillating.” I said, “we’re like two mutes passing in the night.” If I recall correctly, Craig really laughed at that one. He left the office. A brief time later, I heard Daniel Cutler say, outside my closed door, “So what does he have to talk about?” (I inferred that Craig had told Daniel that I was talking to him and that Daniel’s statement was a response to Craig’s communication to Daniel. What did Daniel’s response mean? Note that if I had talked to Daniel, the probable response would have been, “Gary is trying to make Craig jealous”; a double-bind that [R.D.] Laing and Dr. [Harold] Searles would call an “untenable position.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_bind
On one occasion in about early June 1987, while I was talking to Clarence Pollard I overheard Esperanza Rebollar say to someone, “He’s trying to make Craig jealous.”
http://www.avvo.com/attorneys/10031-ny-clarence-pollard-233119.html
(Combine all this with Craig’s own ambivalent reactions to me and you get into triple and quadruple binds.) Later that afternoon [February 11, 1987], Craig stopped by the office again to get something else from the supply closet, and said something to the effect, “Scintillating conversation, Part II.” I had the feeing at that time that Craig had responded favorably to my retarded foray into sociability. There was no reference at that time to homo shtick.
The next day, February 12, 1987 [Lincoln's birthday], at around noon (I can remember the date because it was that morning that Sheryl Ferguson announced to the group that she was leaving the firm), Craig and I were standing together, and Craig, referring to a women’s clothing catalogue in the office, said, “Say, Gar, maybe there’s something in that catalogue for you.” I got angry, and said to Craig, “Maybe there’s a nice pink negligee for you in there.” Craig looked at me with a kind of knowing smile, as if he were thinking, “I had him figured.” (Why the change in Craig’s attitude from the previous afternoon?)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groupthink
2. In late August 1987 (if I recall correctly, it was Friday afternoon August 28), Cindy [Rodda] stopped by the office [at Hogan & Hartson] where I was working. During the course of a conversation, Cindy said to me, “Why aren't you friendly with Craig? The two of you have so much in common. You don’t have any friends. Craig could be a good friend for you. Why, the two of you could end up being friends for life!” (I told Craig this anecdote at lunch on about Friday April 28, 1989. Craig said, “I’ll have to talk to Cindy about that.”
A week or two later, in early September 1987, I moved out into a large common area where Craig and Daniel worked. Craig, Daniel and I started having lunch together for the first time since we had been working together. Cindy said to me at that time, “Why don’t you ask Miriam if you can move out of here and into a private office?” Based on what Cindy had said on August 28th, one would have assumed that Cindy would have welcomed my sharing office space with Daniel and Craig. Another double bind. He’s not friendly -- crime. He is friendly -- crime.
3. During the summer of 1988, while working at Akin Gump, I used to perform a certain task on Eastern [Airlines] for legal assistant Phil Fagen,
http://www.pattonboggs.com/pfeigen/
who shared office space with legal assistant Jesse Raben.
http://www.apa.org/about/offices/ogc/staff.aspx
One day Phil telephoned requesting that I stop down to his office to pick up some work. When I arrived, Jesse Raben was very friendly. It was, in fact, the first time that Jesse was friendly with me since he started working at the firm on June 13, 1988 [the anniversary of Franz Kafka's bar mitzvah]. As Jesse and I engaged in some banter, [legal assistant coordinator] J.D. Neary stopped at the doorway of the office. Not saying a word, J.D. simply nodded at Jesse, as though cuing Jesse to a prearranged plan.
http://dailstrug.blogspot.com/2010/02/did-akin-gump-operate-like-cult.html
I took a stack of documents to a nearby Xerox room to make copies for the task I was doing for Phil. Moments later, Jesse stopped by the Xerox room, and continued his banter in a lively manner. The next day, I stopped at Phil’s and Jesse’s office to perform more of the same task I had been doing the previous day. But this day, Jesse seemed his normal self.
http://dailstrug.blogspot.com/2009/11/i-still-suffer-from-psychiatric.html
[The link above contains the following statement: "I continue to believe that one day during the summer of 1988 I went to the office of another legal assistant (Jesse Raben), who had been coached to harass me. During my conversation with Raben, another employee (the legal assistant coordinator, Neary) walked by and, without saying a word, nodded to Raben. Later, Raben entered the Xerox room where I was making copies and continued the conversation in an affectedly buoyant manner. The next day Raben's earlier buoyant manner was noticeably gone. See Brief of Appellee District of Columbia at 7-8. On an occasion in November 1989 and again in about March 1990 I asked Raben if he would go to lunch with me; he initially agreed but later backed out."]
Some time in late January or early February 1989, I was doing some work in the Eastern file room, arranging the files for Continental Airlines for legal assistant Jennifer Meader.
[At Akin Gump's All-Attorney's Dinner held at the Westin Hotel on May 3, 1989, I sat at a table with Jennifer Meader, Jesse Raben, Gary Zanfagna, and others.]
(I can recall specifically that it was a Friday afternoon, but I can’t recall the date.) Jesse Raben stopped by the office, and I embarked on yet another one of my retarded forays into sociability, I asked Jesse Raben if he liked poetry, and further asked him whether he was familiar with the line from the poem by Edgar Allen Poe, “Quoth the Raben nevermore.” Despite the almost grotesque lameness of what I said to him, Jesse’s response seemed favorable in that he offered some personal information about himself, including the fact that his mother’s name was Frieda and that his family name had originally been Rabenstein, but was changed to Raben because, as Jesse said, “My grandfather was an assimilationist.”
[The above conversation was creatively transformed in my book, Significant Moments:"
[He] looked at me, and said: “I have seen you before, I think. You are . . .”
Hugo Wolf, Letter to His Parents in Romain Rolland, Hugo Wolf.
. . . Rabenstein?
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Faust.
Ah, no, no!
Richard Wagner, Letter to Mathilde Wesendonk (April 7, 1858).
. . . pardon the slip!
Richard Wagner, Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg.
. . . Raben?
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Faust.
I must confess that . . .
Primo Levi, The Periodic Table.
. . . I was born . . .
Matt Ridley, Genome: The Autobiography of a Species in 23 Chapters.
. . . Rabensteiner, . . .
Franz Kafka, The Trial.
. . . a Jew:
Primo Levi, The Periodic Table.
. . . but I sign . . .
Arthur Rubinstein, My Young Years.
. . .Raben . . .
Richard Wagner, Gotterdammerung.
. . . as a pen name . . .
E. James Lieberman, Acts of Will: The Life and Work of Otto Rank.
. . . now and then.
Johann Wolfang von Goethe, Faust.
(During lunch with Craig and Daniel on May 13, 1988 [the anniversary of Sigmund Freud's circumcision]--at which I gave Craig as a gift a copy of Fritz Stern’s Gold and Iron--following Daniel’s comment that he was reading Hesse’s novel, Demian, Craig mentioned that his mother’s maiden name was Hess.)
Later that afternoon [in February 1989], Jesse stopped by the office again. He wasn’t at all friendly, and I had the (perhaps paranoid) inference that he was piqued. (I had the paranoid inference that Jesse had told someone about our earlier conversation, and that someone had said to Jesse, “He’s using you.”) Also, later that afternoon, the attorney Jon Geier stopped by the Eastern file room where I was working. He didn’t say more than hello to me. My paranoid reading of the expression on his face, was, “Uh oh, you did something forbidden.”
(Compare the sequence of events in paragraph 1).
See Jon A. Geier, Esq.:
http://http://www.paulhastings.com/ProfessionalDetail.aspx?ProfessionalId=443491
See Jack Gallagher:
http://http://www.paulhastings.com/ProfessionalDetail.aspx?ProfessionalId=368735
[Jack Gallagher, Esq. and Jon Geier, Esq., both attorneys at Akin Gump, worked on Eastern Airlines litigation. Gallagher was the billing partner on Eastern. Geier was an associate. Both attorneys--together with Labor Group paralegal Jennifer Meader--left Akin Gump suddenly in about the year 1990 to work at the D.C. law firm of Paul Hastings.]
See Groupthink:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groupthink
[Oddly -- or uncannily -- Wagner's stepfather had been named Geyer, and Wagner himself used that name till about age 14. I reference this in my book Significant Moments.
He was known as Richard Geyer at least until his confirmation at the age of fourteen, six years after Geyer's death; sometime thereafter he . . .
Robert W. Gutman, Richard Wagner: The Man, His Mind, and His Music.
. . . changed his name to . . .
Johannes Ehrmann, Float Like a Butterfly.
. . . Wagner. Not only had the Norns of destiny in a malevolent
hour given the boy a Jewish name; they had also placed his birth on the Bruhl, the center of the Leipzig Jewish quarter, and had, to crown their mischief, given his features a hawklike cast with a prominent nose, pointed jaw, and high, intellectual brow; . . . in short, the boy had physical characteristics which ignorance and prejudice associate exclusively with the Jews. It is not unlikely that young Richard Geyer was considered Jewish by various classmates and townsfolk and that his denial was expressed by a vigorous anti-Semitism.
Robert W. Gutman, Richard Wagner: The Man, His Mind, and His Music.
4. In the 6th grade, when I was 10-11 years old, I can recall that Mark Needleman once said to me, “Arthur Koren* says you’re just using me.” (*I think it was Arthur Koren, but can’t be 100% sure now. I can recall specifically that he [Mark Needleman] said someone told him I was just using him.)
[I attended Mark Needleman's bar mitzvah in November 1966. His birthday was November 19 -- the anniversary of Lincoln's Gettysburg Address.]
_________________
My own reading of all this is that this is the response to a charismatic person who people fight over. Hard to believe, but I can’t see any other conclusion.
GF
Saturday, June 12, 2010
The Dream of "Murder in the Lobby"
Between September 1992 and the end of June 1996 I was an out-patient at the George Washington University Medical Center Department of Psychiatry. I saw Suzanne M. Pitts, M.D. in psychotherapy from late October 1992 till the end of June 1994. In June 1993 I submitted the following letter to Dr. Pitts, which contains my reflections on a dream I recently had.
President Clinton had started his first term in office just a few months earlier, on January 20, 1993. An important element in the dream interpretation is the assassination attempt on President Reagan, which took place in March 1981, just a few months after President Reagan had taken office.
In April 1993 I filed for disability benefits from the U.S. Social Security Administration. I submitted a copy of this letter to Paul G. Yessler, M.D., an SSA consultant who performed a psychiatric assessment of me in early June 1993, in support of my disability claim.
In early July 1993 I spoke by telephone with a former coworker from the law firm of Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld, where I used to work, Patricia McNeil. It was from Pat McNeil that I learned for the first, in early July 1993, that after I had been terminated by Akin Gump on October 29, 1991, my supervisor had told her employees that she was afraid that I might return to the office to kill her. At the time I wrote this letter to Dr. Pitts in June 1993, I was unaware that my supervisor had purported fears that I was potentially homicidal.
In August 1993 -- a few months after I wrote this letter -- I filed a complaint against Dr. Pitts with the D.C. Medical Board, charging her with incompetence. In late August 1993 I met with a former treating psychiatrist, Stanley R. Palombo, M.D. to complain about Dr. Pitts and to discuss my Medical Board Complaint about her.
I recall that when I met with Dr. Palombo in late August 1993 he said: "You're striking out." He meant that I was engaging in an act of aggression against Dr. Pitts. Note, however, that the term "striking out" is also a baseball term. Perhaps Dr. Palombo was saying "You are simply aggressing against Dr. Pitts" and "You're just going to end up back in the dugout." In other words, he was saying "You are going nowhere with this complaint."
http://dailstrug.blogspot.com/2010/05/stanley-r-palombo-md-first-hand.html
An index of all my dream interpretations can be found at the following site:
http://dailstrug.blogspot.com/2010/06/birth-of-joseph-dreamer.html
June 18, 1993
3801 Connecticut Avenue, NW
#136
Washington, DC 20008
Suzanne M. Pitts, MD
Dept. of Psychiatry
GW Univ. Medical Center
2150 Pennsylvania Ave, NW
Washington, DC 20037
Dear Dr. Pitts:
This letter memorializes and amplifies my narrative of, and associations to, a dream [I reported] at our session on Wednesday June 16, 1993. I had the dream upon retiring on Tuesday evening June 15, 1993.
DREAM OF “MURDER IN THE LOBBY”
I am in the lobby of an unidentified building. The lobby is crowded with people, all milling about. Present in the lobby is a former co-worker at Akin Gump, Jesse Raben. An unidentified individual enters the room, pulls out a gun, and shoots Jesse Raben, then walks out. Jesse Raben falls to the floor; he lies prostate, unconscious, and bleeding profusely. I have the feeling that everyone in the room knows Jesse, but does nothing. They seem to ignore what has just occurred. I feel I have a special mission to save Jesse Raben. I telephone an ambulance. I am overcome with a feeling of futility. I think that even if a doctor arrives in a very brief time, Jesse Raben will have bled to death before he can be treated.
[The issue of bleeding to death is a theme in The Dream of the Blue Oxford:
http://dailstrug.blogspot.com/2009/10/dream-of-blue-oxford.html]
1. In the session on Tuesday June 15, 1993, I complain about my failure to make progress in therapy, and restate my desire to be re-assigned to another psychiatrist. The resistance has a phallic-sadistic quality characterized by “vituperations, disparagements and threats” directed at the therapist. See Reich, W. Character Analysis at 59 (Noonday: 1990). The therapist, a resident, states that if I want to be reassigned, I should telephone Dr. Tsao to request reassignment. I had met with Dr. Tsao on May 28, 1993 to request such a reassignment; that request was denied. I experienced my interaction with Dr. Tsao as emotionally and intellectually satisfying. Dr. Tsao is apparently of Chinese ethnic origin.
2. On the afternoon of Tuesday June 15, 1993 I took a walk down Connecticut Avenue. Upon reaching the intersection of Connecticut and T street, I turn down T street. The Washington Hilton Hotel is located at this intersection. I look at the hotel building and notice a sign that says “Ballroom Entrance.”
[Note the word "Ballroom" and its possible association to the game of baseball, a topic discussed below.]
A shiver runs through me at the moment I recognize that this is the entrance where President Ronald Reagan was wounded in an assassination attempt in March 1981. (President Reagan was treated in the emergency room at George Washington University Medical Center. I recall once hearing that President Reagan had nearly bled to death--that a delay of only a few minutes in his treatment would have been fatal.)
[In December 1988 I attended the Akin Gump Christmas party, held at the Four Seasons Hotel in Georgetown. I spent a few minutes speaking to Jesse Raben at the party. I remember that, earlier in the evening, when I arrived at the party I saw Jesse Raben chatting with J.D. Neary -- the firm's legal assistant coordinator -- in the hotel lobby. Jesse Raben had a look of shock when he saw me enter; word "on the street" at the firm was that I was extremely shy and unsociable -- not someone who would show up at a party alone. It was as if a shiver had run through Jesse Raben when he saw me enter the lobby.
An important theme in the Dream of the Four Miltons is "hotels," particularly the similarities and dissimilarities between hotels and hospitals.
http://dailstrug.blogspot.com/2009/10/dream-of-four-miltons.html]
3. On Monday evening June 14, 1993 I saw a movie on television, Stealing Home. The movie concerned an ex-baseball player (portrayed by Mark Harmon; Mark Harmon had previously portrayed a physician on the television series St. Elsewhere) who returns home after the death of his childhood friend (portrayed by Jodie Foster; John Hinckley, who shot President Reagan, had been obsessed with the actress Jodie Foster.) Most of the movie is a flashback that portrays an adolescent friendship between two males, including the ex-baseball player.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stealing_Home
[Stealing Home focuses on the childhood of Harmon's character ("Billy Wyatt"), especially the time the character spent with his father with whom he had a very affectionate relationship, and with best friend Alan Appleby with whom he had a great friendship full of adventure, challenge, conversation, struggles, learning, and more.
The fantasy of having a special friend or twin sibling is an important element in the Dream of the Blue Oxford:
http://dailstrug.blogspot.com/2009/10/dream-of-blue-oxford.html
The fantasy of having a twin sibling is oedipal in origin according to the psychoanalyst Dorothy Burlingham. As revenge against the parents who have not gratified the latency child's wishes, the child murders the parents in fantasy, but erects in substitution a fantasy of having a twin sibling who will comfort the child in his loneliness. The ensuing fantasy friendship between the twin siblings is full of adventure, challenge, conversation, struggles, learning, and more.]
4. In early August 1989 I had dinner with Jesse Raben and his roommate at a Chinese Restaurant. I asked Jesse if he played softball. He said no. He asked me if I played softball. I said, “No, because I throw like this” (I gestured in a manner suggesting a female ball toss). Jesse said, “Because you’re a homosexual? I said, “Yea.”
http://dailstrug.blogspot.com/2010/03/getting-dumped-and-writing-book-about.html
5. Jesse Raben’s father is a physician, Dr. Milton Raben.
6. Some time later in August 1989 a co-worker at Akin Gump stated to me, “We’re all afraid of you. We’re all afraid you’re going to buy a gun, bring it in and shoot everybody. Even the manager of your apartment building [Elaine Wranik] is afraid of you.”
7. Act III of Wagner’s Gotterdammerung depicts the death of the hero Siegfried.
Gunther: What do I hear?
(Two ravens [Raben] fly from a bush, circle over Siegfried and fly away over the Rhine).
Hagen: Can you read the speech of those ravens?
(Siegfried starts up quickly and looks after the ravens, turning his back towards Hagen).
Hagen: Revenge they rouse in me!
(He thrusts his spear into Siegfried’s back, Gunther catches his arm, too late).
Gunther and the Men: Hagen, what are you doing?
Siegfried swings his shield aloft with both hands to crush Hagen with it; his strength leaves him; the shield falls back and he himself falls upon it).
Hagen: (pointing at the prostate figure.) I have avenged perjury! [Meineid recht ich!]
(He turns coolly away and gradually disappears over the hills where his retreating form is for some time visible. Gunther, who has sworn an oath of Blood-Brotherhood with Siegfried, is seized with anguish, and bends down by Siegfried’s side. The men gather in sympathy around the dying Siegfried. Dusk commences to fall with the apparition of the ravens [Raben]).
[Note that Siegfried and Gunther had sworn an oath of blood-brotherhood. The opera Gotterdammerung -- The Dusk of the Gods -- ends in the destruction of the world. In psychoanalytical terms two important themes of the opera parallel the fantasy of the twin sibling described by Dorothy Burlingham. The latency child "destroys his world" and erects in fantasy a twin sibling who will comfort him in his loneliness.
http://dailstrug.blogspot.com/2006/04/gotterdammerung-in-memoriam-paulina.html]
7. In the days immediately prior to the dream, I contemplate filing a complaint with the D.C. Attorney Disciplinary Board against the Akin Gump attorney who terminated my employment, Dennis M. Race. (An attempt to “avenge perjury.”) The D.C. Code of Professional Responsibility contains rules specifically applying to the ethical conduct of attorneys in their capacity as employers, rules that may have been violated in my case.
I fear that if I file a complaint that I will be depicted as a troublemaker. In the days immediately prior to the dream, I think of a clever means of avoiding the allegation of spiteful troublemaker. I will advise the Disciplinary Board that I am licensed to practice law in Pennsylvania and plan in the near future to apply for admission on motion to the D.C. Bar; that I have information regarding the possible unethical practices of an attorney-manager; that I wish to inquire whether my failure to report these possible ethical violations will prejudice my application for admission. In effect, I will be soliciting an invitation from the Disciplinary Board to file a complaint.
This plan, which in psychoanalytical terms suggests the use of passive means to carry out a phallic-sadistic revenge, may be psychologically revealing.
[Paragraph 7 is misnumbered in the original document.]
8. In March 1981, at the time of the attempted assassination of President Reagan, I was in my second year of law school. I learned of the assassination attempt while in a class on “Remedies" taught by Professor Jerome L. Sloan. Professor Sloan canceled the class upon being advised by a student in the class of what had happened. When I walked out of the classroom into the lobby area of the law school building, students were milling about. Many students appeared to have a strained mournful expression. The atmosphere in the lobby was noticeably subdued. (The Temple University Law School Building is named the "Charles Klein" building. At the end of the session on Wednesday June 16, 1993, I state to the therapist that our discussion is starting to sound “Kleinian.”)
http://www.law.temple.edu/servlet/RetrievePage?site=TempleLaw&page=Faculty_Emeritus
[I had an aunt named Ella Klein who was married to a man named Leon Klein, but who went by the name "Chuck." I refer to Ella Klein in The Dream of the Blue Oxford. Ella Klein used to live on Oxford Street in North Philadelphia, a largely Jewish neighborhood.
http://dailstrug.blogspot.com/2009/10/dream-of-blue-oxford.html
The term Kleinian refers to the theories of the ground-breaking psychoanalyst Melanie Klein. The work of Otto Kernberg, M.D. in object relations is an offshoot of Kleinian theory.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melanie_Klein]
9. In about 1982 I read in a newspaper article that Professor Sloan’s license to practice law had been suspended for six months by the Pennsylvania Disciplinary Board. It had been determined that Jerome Sloan had forged the signature of a dead person.
10. Students in Professor Sloan’s class on “Remedies” on occasion complained to him about his reaching technique, which was said to be perfunctory. Professor Sloan used to flip through the assigned cases in the casebook without any discussion and say, “This case is the same as the last case. It’s all the same case.” Case after case he would say, “It’s all the same case.” (I frequently complained to my psychiatrist that she fails to see distinguishing features in my case.) (I own a recording of Act III of Gotterdammerung, sung in English, in which the role of Siegfried is sung by a tenor named Alberto Remedios).
[Jerry Sloan was one of Jeffrey Orchinik's law professors when he was a student at Temple Law School. Jeffrey Orchinik, Esq. was an associate at Sagot & Jennings when I clerked at that law firm in Philadelphia in 1981-1982. One one occasion at Sagot & Jennings I heard Orchinik talking about Sloan; how he used to say "It's all the same case."
http://www.doriangoldstein.com/Attorneys/Jeffery-S-Orchinik.shtml]
[Jesse Raben graduated law school in the spring of 1993, at about the time of this dream. An unconscious element of the dream may have been my feelings of envy toward him. That envy would parallel the feelings of spite I expressed against Dennis Race, Esq. and Suzanne Pitts, M.D., both of whom were targets of complaints I filed against them with their respective professional licensing boards.
http://dailstrug.blogspot.com/2006/07/s-for-spite.html
The character Siegfried was murdered by Hagen partly out of spite.]
11. On occasion I happened to see professor Sloan at a Philadelphia Orchestra concert at the Academy of Music. In a strange coincidence, I noticed that seated near me was a Temple Law School student. I pointed out to the student that Jerry Sloan was seated nearby. She looked over at Sloan and said “Let’s kill him.”
12. Professor Sloan struck me as having a high intellect and a unique and charismatic personality. He had a law degree from a French university and, on occasion, referred in class to French legal principles. I recall especially the phrase, “Les droits morales d’artistes” [the “moral rights of artists”].
13. In my interpretation of the dream I pointed out to the therapist, Dr. Pitts, that the dream suggested the oral injury I suffered as a small child--a puncture wound in the soft palate. In later years, in recounting the incident, my mother used to say that I bled profusely and that she feared that I would bleed to death before she could get me to a doctor. The incident occurred in the kitchen while my mother was talking on the telephone.
[The issue of bleeding to death is a theme in The Dream of the Blue Oxford:
http://dailstrug.blogspot.com/2009/10/dream-of-blue-oxford.html]
At the time of the injury my pediatrician, Dr. Bloom, was on vacation. I was treated by a young physician to whom Dr. Bloom had referred his patients, Dr. Schley. I assume that my mother’s inability to contact Dr. Bloom upon the occurrence of the injury heightened my mother’s sense of panic.
I assume that in terms of the transference that the young Dr. Schley may share some identity with the young resident, Dr. Pitts, and that the absent Dr. Bloom may share some identity with Dr. Wiener/Dr. Tsao.
[Jerry Wiener, M.D. was the Chairman of the Psychiatry Department at GW in 1993.]
Sincerely,
Gary Freedman
President Clinton had started his first term in office just a few months earlier, on January 20, 1993. An important element in the dream interpretation is the assassination attempt on President Reagan, which took place in March 1981, just a few months after President Reagan had taken office.
In April 1993 I filed for disability benefits from the U.S. Social Security Administration. I submitted a copy of this letter to Paul G. Yessler, M.D., an SSA consultant who performed a psychiatric assessment of me in early June 1993, in support of my disability claim.
In early July 1993 I spoke by telephone with a former coworker from the law firm of Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld, where I used to work, Patricia McNeil. It was from Pat McNeil that I learned for the first, in early July 1993, that after I had been terminated by Akin Gump on October 29, 1991, my supervisor had told her employees that she was afraid that I might return to the office to kill her. At the time I wrote this letter to Dr. Pitts in June 1993, I was unaware that my supervisor had purported fears that I was potentially homicidal.
In August 1993 -- a few months after I wrote this letter -- I filed a complaint against Dr. Pitts with the D.C. Medical Board, charging her with incompetence. In late August 1993 I met with a former treating psychiatrist, Stanley R. Palombo, M.D. to complain about Dr. Pitts and to discuss my Medical Board Complaint about her.
I recall that when I met with Dr. Palombo in late August 1993 he said: "You're striking out." He meant that I was engaging in an act of aggression against Dr. Pitts. Note, however, that the term "striking out" is also a baseball term. Perhaps Dr. Palombo was saying "You are simply aggressing against Dr. Pitts" and "You're just going to end up back in the dugout." In other words, he was saying "You are going nowhere with this complaint."
http://dailstrug.blogspot.com/2010/05/stanley-r-palombo-md-first-hand.html
An index of all my dream interpretations can be found at the following site:
http://dailstrug.blogspot.com/2010/06/birth-of-joseph-dreamer.html
June 18, 1993
3801 Connecticut Avenue, NW
#136
Washington, DC 20008
Suzanne M. Pitts, MD
Dept. of Psychiatry
GW Univ. Medical Center
2150 Pennsylvania Ave, NW
Washington, DC 20037
Dear Dr. Pitts:
This letter memorializes and amplifies my narrative of, and associations to, a dream [I reported] at our session on Wednesday June 16, 1993. I had the dream upon retiring on Tuesday evening June 15, 1993.
DREAM OF “MURDER IN THE LOBBY”
I am in the lobby of an unidentified building. The lobby is crowded with people, all milling about. Present in the lobby is a former co-worker at Akin Gump, Jesse Raben. An unidentified individual enters the room, pulls out a gun, and shoots Jesse Raben, then walks out. Jesse Raben falls to the floor; he lies prostate, unconscious, and bleeding profusely. I have the feeling that everyone in the room knows Jesse, but does nothing. They seem to ignore what has just occurred. I feel I have a special mission to save Jesse Raben. I telephone an ambulance. I am overcome with a feeling of futility. I think that even if a doctor arrives in a very brief time, Jesse Raben will have bled to death before he can be treated.
[The issue of bleeding to death is a theme in The Dream of the Blue Oxford:
http://dailstrug.blogspot.com/2009/10/dream-of-blue-oxford.html]
1. In the session on Tuesday June 15, 1993, I complain about my failure to make progress in therapy, and restate my desire to be re-assigned to another psychiatrist. The resistance has a phallic-sadistic quality characterized by “vituperations, disparagements and threats” directed at the therapist. See Reich, W. Character Analysis at 59 (Noonday: 1990). The therapist, a resident, states that if I want to be reassigned, I should telephone Dr. Tsao to request reassignment. I had met with Dr. Tsao on May 28, 1993 to request such a reassignment; that request was denied. I experienced my interaction with Dr. Tsao as emotionally and intellectually satisfying. Dr. Tsao is apparently of Chinese ethnic origin.
2. On the afternoon of Tuesday June 15, 1993 I took a walk down Connecticut Avenue. Upon reaching the intersection of Connecticut and T street, I turn down T street. The Washington Hilton Hotel is located at this intersection. I look at the hotel building and notice a sign that says “Ballroom Entrance.”
[Note the word "Ballroom" and its possible association to the game of baseball, a topic discussed below.]
A shiver runs through me at the moment I recognize that this is the entrance where President Ronald Reagan was wounded in an assassination attempt in March 1981. (President Reagan was treated in the emergency room at George Washington University Medical Center. I recall once hearing that President Reagan had nearly bled to death--that a delay of only a few minutes in his treatment would have been fatal.)
[In December 1988 I attended the Akin Gump Christmas party, held at the Four Seasons Hotel in Georgetown. I spent a few minutes speaking to Jesse Raben at the party. I remember that, earlier in the evening, when I arrived at the party I saw Jesse Raben chatting with J.D. Neary -- the firm's legal assistant coordinator -- in the hotel lobby. Jesse Raben had a look of shock when he saw me enter; word "on the street" at the firm was that I was extremely shy and unsociable -- not someone who would show up at a party alone. It was as if a shiver had run through Jesse Raben when he saw me enter the lobby.
An important theme in the Dream of the Four Miltons is "hotels," particularly the similarities and dissimilarities between hotels and hospitals.
http://dailstrug.blogspot.com/2009/10/dream-of-four-miltons.html]
3. On Monday evening June 14, 1993 I saw a movie on television, Stealing Home. The movie concerned an ex-baseball player (portrayed by Mark Harmon; Mark Harmon had previously portrayed a physician on the television series St. Elsewhere) who returns home after the death of his childhood friend (portrayed by Jodie Foster; John Hinckley, who shot President Reagan, had been obsessed with the actress Jodie Foster.) Most of the movie is a flashback that portrays an adolescent friendship between two males, including the ex-baseball player.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stealing_Home
[Stealing Home focuses on the childhood of Harmon's character ("Billy Wyatt"), especially the time the character spent with his father with whom he had a very affectionate relationship, and with best friend Alan Appleby with whom he had a great friendship full of adventure, challenge, conversation, struggles, learning, and more.
The fantasy of having a special friend or twin sibling is an important element in the Dream of the Blue Oxford:
http://dailstrug.blogspot.com/2009/10/dream-of-blue-oxford.html
The fantasy of having a twin sibling is oedipal in origin according to the psychoanalyst Dorothy Burlingham. As revenge against the parents who have not gratified the latency child's wishes, the child murders the parents in fantasy, but erects in substitution a fantasy of having a twin sibling who will comfort the child in his loneliness. The ensuing fantasy friendship between the twin siblings is full of adventure, challenge, conversation, struggles, learning, and more.]
4. In early August 1989 I had dinner with Jesse Raben and his roommate at a Chinese Restaurant. I asked Jesse if he played softball. He said no. He asked me if I played softball. I said, “No, because I throw like this” (I gestured in a manner suggesting a female ball toss). Jesse said, “Because you’re a homosexual? I said, “Yea.”
http://dailstrug.blogspot.com/2010/03/getting-dumped-and-writing-book-about.html
5. Jesse Raben’s father is a physician, Dr. Milton Raben.
6. Some time later in August 1989 a co-worker at Akin Gump stated to me, “We’re all afraid of you. We’re all afraid you’re going to buy a gun, bring it in and shoot everybody. Even the manager of your apartment building [Elaine Wranik] is afraid of you.”
7. Act III of Wagner’s Gotterdammerung depicts the death of the hero Siegfried.
Gunther: What do I hear?
(Two ravens [Raben] fly from a bush, circle over Siegfried and fly away over the Rhine).
Hagen: Can you read the speech of those ravens?
(Siegfried starts up quickly and looks after the ravens, turning his back towards Hagen).
Hagen: Revenge they rouse in me!
(He thrusts his spear into Siegfried’s back, Gunther catches his arm, too late).
Gunther and the Men: Hagen, what are you doing?
Siegfried swings his shield aloft with both hands to crush Hagen with it; his strength leaves him; the shield falls back and he himself falls upon it).
Hagen: (pointing at the prostate figure.) I have avenged perjury! [Meineid recht ich!]
(He turns coolly away and gradually disappears over the hills where his retreating form is for some time visible. Gunther, who has sworn an oath of Blood-Brotherhood with Siegfried, is seized with anguish, and bends down by Siegfried’s side. The men gather in sympathy around the dying Siegfried. Dusk commences to fall with the apparition of the ravens [Raben]).
[Note that Siegfried and Gunther had sworn an oath of blood-brotherhood. The opera Gotterdammerung -- The Dusk of the Gods -- ends in the destruction of the world. In psychoanalytical terms two important themes of the opera parallel the fantasy of the twin sibling described by Dorothy Burlingham. The latency child "destroys his world" and erects in fantasy a twin sibling who will comfort him in his loneliness.
http://dailstrug.blogspot.com/2006/04/gotterdammerung-in-memoriam-paulina.html]
7. In the days immediately prior to the dream, I contemplate filing a complaint with the D.C. Attorney Disciplinary Board against the Akin Gump attorney who terminated my employment, Dennis M. Race. (An attempt to “avenge perjury.”) The D.C. Code of Professional Responsibility contains rules specifically applying to the ethical conduct of attorneys in their capacity as employers, rules that may have been violated in my case.
I fear that if I file a complaint that I will be depicted as a troublemaker. In the days immediately prior to the dream, I think of a clever means of avoiding the allegation of spiteful troublemaker. I will advise the Disciplinary Board that I am licensed to practice law in Pennsylvania and plan in the near future to apply for admission on motion to the D.C. Bar; that I have information regarding the possible unethical practices of an attorney-manager; that I wish to inquire whether my failure to report these possible ethical violations will prejudice my application for admission. In effect, I will be soliciting an invitation from the Disciplinary Board to file a complaint.
This plan, which in psychoanalytical terms suggests the use of passive means to carry out a phallic-sadistic revenge, may be psychologically revealing.
[Paragraph 7 is misnumbered in the original document.]
8. In March 1981, at the time of the attempted assassination of President Reagan, I was in my second year of law school. I learned of the assassination attempt while in a class on “Remedies" taught by Professor Jerome L. Sloan. Professor Sloan canceled the class upon being advised by a student in the class of what had happened. When I walked out of the classroom into the lobby area of the law school building, students were milling about. Many students appeared to have a strained mournful expression. The atmosphere in the lobby was noticeably subdued. (The Temple University Law School Building is named the "Charles Klein" building. At the end of the session on Wednesday June 16, 1993, I state to the therapist that our discussion is starting to sound “Kleinian.”)
http://www.law.temple.edu/servlet/RetrievePage?site=TempleLaw&page=Faculty_Emeritus
[I had an aunt named Ella Klein who was married to a man named Leon Klein, but who went by the name "Chuck." I refer to Ella Klein in The Dream of the Blue Oxford. Ella Klein used to live on Oxford Street in North Philadelphia, a largely Jewish neighborhood.
http://dailstrug.blogspot.com/2009/10/dream-of-blue-oxford.html
The term Kleinian refers to the theories of the ground-breaking psychoanalyst Melanie Klein. The work of Otto Kernberg, M.D. in object relations is an offshoot of Kleinian theory.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melanie_Klein]
9. In about 1982 I read in a newspaper article that Professor Sloan’s license to practice law had been suspended for six months by the Pennsylvania Disciplinary Board. It had been determined that Jerome Sloan had forged the signature of a dead person.
10. Students in Professor Sloan’s class on “Remedies” on occasion complained to him about his reaching technique, which was said to be perfunctory. Professor Sloan used to flip through the assigned cases in the casebook without any discussion and say, “This case is the same as the last case. It’s all the same case.” Case after case he would say, “It’s all the same case.” (I frequently complained to my psychiatrist that she fails to see distinguishing features in my case.) (I own a recording of Act III of Gotterdammerung, sung in English, in which the role of Siegfried is sung by a tenor named Alberto Remedios).
[Jerry Sloan was one of Jeffrey Orchinik's law professors when he was a student at Temple Law School. Jeffrey Orchinik, Esq. was an associate at Sagot & Jennings when I clerked at that law firm in Philadelphia in 1981-1982. One one occasion at Sagot & Jennings I heard Orchinik talking about Sloan; how he used to say "It's all the same case."
http://www.doriangoldstein.com/Attorneys/Jeffery-S-Orchinik.shtml]
[Jesse Raben graduated law school in the spring of 1993, at about the time of this dream. An unconscious element of the dream may have been my feelings of envy toward him. That envy would parallel the feelings of spite I expressed against Dennis Race, Esq. and Suzanne Pitts, M.D., both of whom were targets of complaints I filed against them with their respective professional licensing boards.
http://dailstrug.blogspot.com/2006/07/s-for-spite.html
The character Siegfried was murdered by Hagen partly out of spite.]
11. On occasion I happened to see professor Sloan at a Philadelphia Orchestra concert at the Academy of Music. In a strange coincidence, I noticed that seated near me was a Temple Law School student. I pointed out to the student that Jerry Sloan was seated nearby. She looked over at Sloan and said “Let’s kill him.”
12. Professor Sloan struck me as having a high intellect and a unique and charismatic personality. He had a law degree from a French university and, on occasion, referred in class to French legal principles. I recall especially the phrase, “Les droits morales d’artistes” [the “moral rights of artists”].
13. In my interpretation of the dream I pointed out to the therapist, Dr. Pitts, that the dream suggested the oral injury I suffered as a small child--a puncture wound in the soft palate. In later years, in recounting the incident, my mother used to say that I bled profusely and that she feared that I would bleed to death before she could get me to a doctor. The incident occurred in the kitchen while my mother was talking on the telephone.
[The issue of bleeding to death is a theme in The Dream of the Blue Oxford:
http://dailstrug.blogspot.com/2009/10/dream-of-blue-oxford.html]
At the time of the injury my pediatrician, Dr. Bloom, was on vacation. I was treated by a young physician to whom Dr. Bloom had referred his patients, Dr. Schley. I assume that my mother’s inability to contact Dr. Bloom upon the occurrence of the injury heightened my mother’s sense of panic.
I assume that in terms of the transference that the young Dr. Schley may share some identity with the young resident, Dr. Pitts, and that the absent Dr. Bloom may share some identity with Dr. Wiener/Dr. Tsao.
[Jerry Wiener, M.D. was the Chairman of the Psychiatry Department at GW in 1993.]
Sincerely,
Gary Freedman
Thursday, August 05, 2010
Workplace Mobbing: You Look Like You Need Some Chocolate
In its Initial Determination in Freedman v. Akin, Gump, Hauer & Feld (June 30, 1993), my unlawful job termination complaint, the D.C. Department of Human Rights made the following Finding of Fact:
4(g) Upon Complainant’s return to the office from lunch one afternoon during the summer of 1991, his supervisor, Chris Robertson, offered Complainant a piece of chocolate, and stated to Complainant the peculiar phrase, “Here, you look like you need some chocolate.”
Complainant specifically recalls that he told Messrs. Race and Lassman that he interpreted the phrase, “Here, you look like you need some chocolate” as a reference to anal intercourse. Complainant specifically recalls his using the phrase “anal intercourse.”
I recently came across the following one-page document among my papers. It appears to have been written in 1992:
APPENDIX
The following lists prior events at Akin Gump that I associate with my supervisor's offer of a piece of chocolate on a day during the summer of 1991.
1. In December 1988 I attended the firm Christmas party at the Four Seasons Hotel on Pennsylvania Avenue, near Georgetown. I talked with Jesse Raben at the party. At that time I was assigned to a private office on the fifth floor near the office of David Hardee, a partner. The day after the Christmas party, Lisa Hassell, David Hardee's secretary, who occupied a work cubicle just outside my office, engaged in a lot of loud carrying on that featured a lot of sexual double entendres. Late that afternoon, Lisa Hasell offered me a piece of candy, which I vaguely recall was a piece of chocolate. It was exceedingly rare for Lisa Hassell to initiate any social interaction with me.
2. During the summer of 1989 Jesse Raben was scheduled for day-long computer training in the sixth floor training room adjacent to my work station on the sixth floor. I talked with him that day; I think it was that day that he warned me about the health hazards of chewing on cigars. He was wearing jeans that day--Jesse looked good in jeans. Later that afternoon, an unidentified lone male stated as he passed by my desk, "He caught a big one." Jesse Raben is about 6'5" in height.
3. On November 14, 1989 Jesse Raben was supposed to join Craig [W. Dye] and me for lunch. Jesse Raben had to decline at the last minute. Late that afternoon, the legal assistant administrator, Maggie Sinnott stopped by my desk on the ninth floor. She told me that the firm had just received a telephone request from the president of Eastern Airlines, Phil Bakes--that Phil Bakes was interested in any documents in the firm's possession regarding some union activity. At the time I found the incident unusual. This was the only occasion I had been posed such a request by Maggie Sinnott or anyone. (Also, in view of Maggie Sinnott's professed fear of me, one wonders why she did this.) (I formed the paranoid feeling that she was engaged in ego bolstering, as if she were symbolically saying "You're an important person here. When the president of Eastern Airlines has a document request, I seek you out. If you want to leave early without permission, it's OK--nothing will happen to you. I want you to know that we think you're indispensable." I had the paranoid feeling she felt that she was building on my request that Jesse Raben join Craig and me for lunch, which she may have interpreted as already having bolstered what she perceived as my feeble masculinity. Note the symmetry between Maggie Sinnott's professed fear of me and her apparent attribution of intense fear to me, consistent with her possible use of confidence building, or ego bolstering, actions as a manipulative ploy.)
__________________________________________
Note another instance of what I saw as ego bolstering, or confidence-building, behavior:
I continue to believe that in September or October 1990 my female supervisor (Robertson), who was handing documents to me, pulled the documents back towards herself in such a way that, as I was reaching for them, I touched her breasts, see Brief of Appellee District of Columbia at 11, and that the supervisor's conduct was intentionally sexual in nature. The documents in question concerned trademark litigation involving the client National Football League, a client represented by Tanenbaum. [Larry Tanenbaum, Esq. had been married to Maggie Sinnott, the firm's legal assistant administrator.] The incident occurred a day or two before I was scheduled to visit my sister and her family in New Jersey. I formed the belief at that time, and continue to believe, that Robertson intended that the transaction serve as an ego-bolstering maneuver, overdetermined in nature and consistent with certain predicate thinking. I believe that the content of the documents Robertson handed to me (relating to the "masculine" sport of football) was insidiously related to her act of having me touch her breast. I believe that Robertson was trying to bolster my sense of masculinity so that I would gain the assurance to make frank comments to my family about my perceptions of coworkers, without fear of reprisal; or, perhaps, take more days off from work than I had originally requested. In terms of predicate thinking I applied the following formula: football = touching female breast = masculinity = absence of castration fears = ability to talk frankly without fear of reprisal or job termination = engage in other risky behavior that might endanger job security (such as taking time off from work). Contrariwise, we have the following formulation: homosexuality = castration fears = job insecurity = fear of job termination = strict adherence to rules (cf. Orthodox Jews) out of fear of being seen and punished = fear of taking risks. Robertson was later found to have made a racially-inappropriate statement about a minority person, and was alleged to have colluded with another supervisor in the discriminatory termination of a black employee. McNeil v. Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld, no. 93-0477 (D.D.C., Nov. 29, 1993). Robertson reportedly told her employees, in the period immediately following my job termination, that she was afraid I might return to the firm’s premises to kill her.
See also the following report that is contained in a document I submitted to the U.S. Social Security Administration:
One morning during the summer of 1991 employees made repeated references that seemed to relate to legal assistant Jesse Raben, with whom I had been somewhat friendly, and who had left the firm in the spring of 1990 to attend law school. I inferred that perhaps Jesse had had some communication with a firm employee and had referred to me in the communication. Upon returning to the office from lunch that afternoon, Chris Robertson offered me a piece of chocolate, with the peculiar statement, “Here, you look like you need some chocolate.” The statement could perhaps be interpreted as a reference to anal intercourse. Ms. Robertson’s statement was strangely reminiscent of my written message to [legal assistant coordinator] J.D. Neary in early August 1989 (“I could use all the 'coordinating' I can get.”) and J.D.'s written response dated August 7, 1989, “If you ever need any ‘coordinating’ don’t hesitate to call me” (see paragraph 26).
[I was hired as a full-time employee in August 1989. I had given a box of chocolates as a gift to Legal Assistant Administrator Maggie Sinnott (together with a note of appreciation) and a necktie as a gift to J.D. Neary (together with the aforementioned note.)]
4(g) Upon Complainant’s return to the office from lunch one afternoon during the summer of 1991, his supervisor, Chris Robertson, offered Complainant a piece of chocolate, and stated to Complainant the peculiar phrase, “Here, you look like you need some chocolate.”
Complainant specifically recalls that he told Messrs. Race and Lassman that he interpreted the phrase, “Here, you look like you need some chocolate” as a reference to anal intercourse. Complainant specifically recalls his using the phrase “anal intercourse.”
I recently came across the following one-page document among my papers. It appears to have been written in 1992:
APPENDIX
The following lists prior events at Akin Gump that I associate with my supervisor's offer of a piece of chocolate on a day during the summer of 1991.
1. In December 1988 I attended the firm Christmas party at the Four Seasons Hotel on Pennsylvania Avenue, near Georgetown. I talked with Jesse Raben at the party. At that time I was assigned to a private office on the fifth floor near the office of David Hardee, a partner. The day after the Christmas party, Lisa Hassell, David Hardee's secretary, who occupied a work cubicle just outside my office, engaged in a lot of loud carrying on that featured a lot of sexual double entendres. Late that afternoon, Lisa Hasell offered me a piece of candy, which I vaguely recall was a piece of chocolate. It was exceedingly rare for Lisa Hassell to initiate any social interaction with me.
2. During the summer of 1989 Jesse Raben was scheduled for day-long computer training in the sixth floor training room adjacent to my work station on the sixth floor. I talked with him that day; I think it was that day that he warned me about the health hazards of chewing on cigars. He was wearing jeans that day--Jesse looked good in jeans. Later that afternoon, an unidentified lone male stated as he passed by my desk, "He caught a big one." Jesse Raben is about 6'5" in height.
3. On November 14, 1989 Jesse Raben was supposed to join Craig [W. Dye] and me for lunch. Jesse Raben had to decline at the last minute. Late that afternoon, the legal assistant administrator, Maggie Sinnott stopped by my desk on the ninth floor. She told me that the firm had just received a telephone request from the president of Eastern Airlines, Phil Bakes--that Phil Bakes was interested in any documents in the firm's possession regarding some union activity. At the time I found the incident unusual. This was the only occasion I had been posed such a request by Maggie Sinnott or anyone. (Also, in view of Maggie Sinnott's professed fear of me, one wonders why she did this.) (I formed the paranoid feeling that she was engaged in ego bolstering, as if she were symbolically saying "You're an important person here. When the president of Eastern Airlines has a document request, I seek you out. If you want to leave early without permission, it's OK--nothing will happen to you. I want you to know that we think you're indispensable." I had the paranoid feeling she felt that she was building on my request that Jesse Raben join Craig and me for lunch, which she may have interpreted as already having bolstered what she perceived as my feeble masculinity. Note the symmetry between Maggie Sinnott's professed fear of me and her apparent attribution of intense fear to me, consistent with her possible use of confidence building, or ego bolstering, actions as a manipulative ploy.)
__________________________________________
Note another instance of what I saw as ego bolstering, or confidence-building, behavior:
I continue to believe that in September or October 1990 my female supervisor (Robertson), who was handing documents to me, pulled the documents back towards herself in such a way that, as I was reaching for them, I touched her breasts, see Brief of Appellee District of Columbia at 11, and that the supervisor's conduct was intentionally sexual in nature. The documents in question concerned trademark litigation involving the client National Football League, a client represented by Tanenbaum. [Larry Tanenbaum, Esq. had been married to Maggie Sinnott, the firm's legal assistant administrator.] The incident occurred a day or two before I was scheduled to visit my sister and her family in New Jersey. I formed the belief at that time, and continue to believe, that Robertson intended that the transaction serve as an ego-bolstering maneuver, overdetermined in nature and consistent with certain predicate thinking. I believe that the content of the documents Robertson handed to me (relating to the "masculine" sport of football) was insidiously related to her act of having me touch her breast. I believe that Robertson was trying to bolster my sense of masculinity so that I would gain the assurance to make frank comments to my family about my perceptions of coworkers, without fear of reprisal; or, perhaps, take more days off from work than I had originally requested. In terms of predicate thinking I applied the following formula: football = touching female breast = masculinity = absence of castration fears = ability to talk frankly without fear of reprisal or job termination = engage in other risky behavior that might endanger job security (such as taking time off from work). Contrariwise, we have the following formulation: homosexuality = castration fears = job insecurity = fear of job termination = strict adherence to rules (cf. Orthodox Jews) out of fear of being seen and punished = fear of taking risks. Robertson was later found to have made a racially-inappropriate statement about a minority person, and was alleged to have colluded with another supervisor in the discriminatory termination of a black employee. McNeil v. Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld, no. 93-0477 (D.D.C., Nov. 29, 1993). Robertson reportedly told her employees, in the period immediately following my job termination, that she was afraid I might return to the firm’s premises to kill her.
See also the following report that is contained in a document I submitted to the U.S. Social Security Administration:
One morning during the summer of 1991 employees made repeated references that seemed to relate to legal assistant Jesse Raben, with whom I had been somewhat friendly, and who had left the firm in the spring of 1990 to attend law school. I inferred that perhaps Jesse had had some communication with a firm employee and had referred to me in the communication. Upon returning to the office from lunch that afternoon, Chris Robertson offered me a piece of chocolate, with the peculiar statement, “Here, you look like you need some chocolate.” The statement could perhaps be interpreted as a reference to anal intercourse. Ms. Robertson’s statement was strangely reminiscent of my written message to [legal assistant coordinator] J.D. Neary in early August 1989 (“I could use all the 'coordinating' I can get.”) and J.D.'s written response dated August 7, 1989, “If you ever need any ‘coordinating’ don’t hesitate to call me” (see paragraph 26).
[I was hired as a full-time employee in August 1989. I had given a box of chocolates as a gift to Legal Assistant Administrator Maggie Sinnott (together with a note of appreciation) and a necktie as a gift to J.D. Neary (together with the aforementioned note.)]
Wednesday, January 04, 2012
The Dream of Greensboro -- Revised
Highlighted in yellow are several additions to the original dream interpretation I made in the days following December 9, 1992.
Highlighted in blue are comments I have made as of this posting on January 4, 2011.
December 3, 1992
3801 Connecticut Avenue, NW
Apt. 136
Washington, DC 20008
Dr. Suzanne M. Pitts
Dept. of Psychiatry
GW Univ. Medical Center
2150 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20037
Dear Dr. Pitts:
I had some additional thoughts regarding a dream I related at our session on Tuesday December 1, 1992. I decided to reduce these thoughts to a writing because of the complexity of the factual data, but I would also like to discuss this with you.
The materials may provide important insights regarding my homosexuality. Further the materials seem to provide some evidence that in my case the resistance is the functional equivalent of the transference.
Thank you very much.
Sincerely,
Gary Freedman
________________________
December 9, 1992
3801 Connecticut Avenue, NW
Apartment 136
Washington, DC 20008
Dr. Suzanne M. Pitts
Department of Psychiatry
GW University Medical Center
2150 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20037
Dear Dr. Pitts:
I respectfully submit a summary of our discussion of a dream originally discussed at our session on December 1, 1992. The materials are submitted for the sake of completeness of the clinical record.
Thank you very much.
Sincerely,
Gary Freedman
Dr. Pitts:
Please note that emendations to my letter to you dated December 3, 1992 are indicated by double-bar lines in the left-hand margin.
_____________________
The Dream of Greensboro
Tuesday November 24, 1992
Telephone call to sister: Sister discusses her plans for Thanksgiving, explaining plans to go to friends' house for dinner. Says she saw on television a film of a coronary artery bypass procedure. My father had undergone such a procedure on June 30, 1976 (he died following the operation, on July 1, 1976). I mentioned that the name of the surgeon who performed the procedure was Dr. Michael Strong, and noted that Dr. Strong is now a professor of cardiothoracic surgery at Hahnemann. (Dr. Strong is a native of North Carolina.) (Note that the issues of loneliness at Thanksgiving and sclerotic heart disease can be related at a basic symbolic level, with the loneliness symbolizing oral frustration and sclerotic heart disease symbolizing myocardial "frustration," or ischemia. Prolonged oral frustration leads to death by starvation just as prolonged ischemia leads to death by infarction.)
Wednesday night, November 25, 1992
Dream: I find myself in Greensboro, North Carolina. I am in a residential section that appears to be deserted. The houses appear to built on sand. There are sand dunes everywhere. Feelings of isolation and anxiety. Am aware that this is place where Jesse Raben, a former co-worker, is from. (Jesse Raben's father is a professor of Radiology at the University of North Carolina). I see a building that appears to be a school. The building's cornerstone has the inscription "1954." I note that the building's design suggests that the school was built much earlier than 1954; this strikes me as peculiar,. The building has a tower.
[Note that the Dream About Craig at Wanamakers featured the clock tower of the Philadelphia City Hall. The tower is a phallic symbol.]
I am filled with feelings of awe, and imagine that Jesse Raben must have attended this school. I want to leave the town. I am afraid to ask anyone where the train station is located lest I reveal that I am desperate to leave. I fear that questions will be raised concerning what I am doing in the town; I have the feeling that I am not supposed to be here and fear that others will discover my "transgression." Instead of asking where the train station is located, I ask where the business district is located, reasoning that the train station must be located somewhere in the business district. I think that if I can be directed to the business district, I will be able to find the train station on my own. The locale begins to resemble the business district in Moorestown, New Jersey, where my sister lives. (During my session with Dr. Pitts on Tuesday December 1, 1992, I omit this last fact in my narration of the dream.)
Thursday November 26, 1992 (Thanksgiving)
Prepare a letter for Dr. Pitts about the issue of political retaliation concerning the composer Richard Wagner. The letter discusses Wagner's possible sense of guilt, the importance of the superego in Wagner’s music, the Nazis' reinterpretation of Wagner's work, and the ban on the performance of Wagner's music in Israel.
Saturday November 28, 1992
Prepare a parable about the ban on the performance of Wagner’s music in Israel.
The parable reads: In the 1930's a group of scientists is gathered together under a physicist named Wagner to develop nuclear fission. It is the aim of Wagner to develop nuclear fission for the ultimate purpose of developing a nuclear reactor to generate electric power. The development program has a socially beneficial aim and a peaceful purpose. The program is successful, nuclear fission is achieved, and nuclear reactors are built in various countries around the world. The reactors are viewed as a boon, providing a ready source of cheap electric power. (In Japan, nuclear power plants become quite popular; many attribute the growth of the Japanese economy to nuclear power. Wagner is personally venerated in Japan. There is a saying: No one loves Wagner like the Japanese.) At the same time, however, there are those who question the safety of nuclear reactors. These individuals cite the fact that nuclear reactors use radioactive fuel, a lethally toxic substance, and also generate nuclear waste, which also is toxic. They claim that nuclear reactors are intrinsically dangerous and threatening. Popular thinking, however, does not associate nuclear reactors with nuclear weapons and the possible devastation of entire cities, since nuclear weapons have not yet been developed. The horror of nuclear war is not part of the mythology of nuclear fission in the popular mind, though some individuals do view nuclear fission as an evil. Years later there is a war. As part of the war effort, the technology of nuclear fission is used to develop nuclear weapons. The physicist Wagner had no part in this latter effort, though his original work on nuclear fission is the essential sine qua non
Sunday November 29, 1992:
I faxed the above parable to my sister with the note: "I wrote the "Notes Regarding an Aspect of the Resistance" on 12/31/91-1/1/92, at the exact same time that the controversy over Wagner in Israel was going on. I suspect that whatever Janusian thought lies in the above piece is a central conflict for me."
Tuesday December 1, 1992:
Session with D. Pitts. Discussed the dream about Greensboro, North Carolina. State various associations to the dream:
1. Jesse Raben
2. Jesse Raben's father as a professor of radiology at the University of North Carolina, and association to the issue of radiation in the Wagner parable. (This observation emerges in the session as a startling eruption, as if it had been repressed.)
3. Fact that Jesse Raben had lived in Israel, and association with ban on performance of Wagner's music in Israel as discussed in letter to Dr. Pitts.
4. Discuss desire in childhood for special friend.
[Note the discussion of the fantasy of having a twin sibling in various of my dreams.]
5. Discuss difficulties in learning how to read in the first grade.
6. Discuss anecdote concerning incident in first grade in which I felt shamefully different and defective with respect to all the other students; I was the only student who had a spiral notebook--all the other students had bound composition books. Connected these childhood feelings to adult feelings of alienation.
7. Noted phallic quality of school building in dream.
8. Noted two pictures in Dr. Pitts' office depict beach scenes, which resemble the beach-like quality of the dream. (This observation emerges at very end of the session as a spontaneous insight. Had not made the connection earlier in session despite fact that I had been looking at the pictures during the session.)
9. Noted personal identification with school building in dream, whose cornerstone is inscribed "1954." (I was born in late December 1953; in calculating my age I always think "1954." (In the movie Wagner, Wagner lays the cornerstone of his festival theater, "the Temple on the Hill," on his birthday, May 22. See infra.)
[This dream interpretation dates from November 1992. I did not begin work on my book Significant Moments until April 1993. A section of the book is devoted to Wagner laying the cornerstone at his theater in Bayreuth on May 22, 1872, the composer's birthday.]
10. Narrate dream to Dr. Pitts, which I told Dr. Palombo: I am at a school reunion. There is a crowd of persons there, who don't mean anything to me. Am waiting for Craig Dye (really Dr. Wiener? See paragraph 13) to arrive, but he never shows up. Feelings of isolation and loneliness.
11. Analogize houses in dream about Greensboro to crowd of people whose faces are indistinct. State that school building was different from the other buildings in that it had an individual identity, which I could describe. The school building, I believe I said, was like a person who stands out in a crowd. Mentioned that Jesse Raben is tall, about 6'5". Also compared the design of the school building to a church.
12. In my associations I failed to connect Jesse Raben's father, a professor of medicine, with Dr. Michael Strong, the surgeon who operated on my father at Temple, and now a professor of medicine. (Note the word play: the dream image of the school that looked like a church, or "temple." Compare the geographic location of the main campus of the University of North Carolina: Chapel Hill). I had mentioned Dr. Strong in the conversation with my sister on Tuesday November 24.
13. Noted that GW, where I meet with Dr. Pitts, is also a school, like the school in the dream. (Dr. Pitts did not seem to think this was significant. But see paragraph 12. Did Dr. Pitts unconsciously perceive that the dream symbolically indicated my desire to be in therapy with Dr. Wiener, a fact that she could not acknowledge?)
14. In my narration I left out the fact that at the end of the dream, as I walked past the school, the buildings began to resemble the business district in Moorestown, New Jersey, where my sister lives. The only occasions I have been to my sister’s house were in the fall of 1990, 1991, and 1992, around the time of the Jewish New Year to attend services at the University of Pennsylvania (see paragraph 16). [Note the connection between a school and a place of worship. Note that Wagner compared his opera theater to a "temple."]
15. Noted that I had encountered Jesse Raben on an elevator at work, at Akin Gump, the afternoon before Thanksgiving in 1989 (November 22, 1989--the anniversary of JFK's assassination. Once again, the theme of "the death of the 'father.'" I had learned about JFK's assassination upon leaving my own elementary school on the afternoon of Friday November 22, 1963).
Failed to narrate to Dr. Pitts the fact that I had telephoned Jesse Raben at home on the evening of Thursday September 29, 1989 to ask if he wanted to go to lunch the next day. He said he couldn't meet me the next day for lunch because he was going to Greensboro. The Jewish New Year began Friday evening September 29th that year. He said, "If you want to meet me at the airport, I'd be glad to have lunch with you."
[I felt in September 1989 that Jesse Raben's attitude toward me was one of arrogance. "If you want to meet me at the airport, I'd be glad to have lunch with you. But other than that, I can't meet you for lunch." I interpreted his arrogant behavior as typical of the phallic narcissist. I never went to lunch with Mr. Raben despite my persistent efforts to befriend him.]
(Oral frustration here possibly expressed in anxieties in dream, specifically anxieties in connection with finding the train station [symbolic equivalent of airport]. Inability to have lunch with Jesse Raben = ban on Wagner in Israel? Cf. paragraph 17.)
17. Failed to narrate fact that on morning of Tuesday November 24, 1992, before session with Dr. Pitts, I had walked out into corridor adjacent to Dr. Wiener's office. I had a feeling of awe when I saw him, but thought, "I'm intruding, I'm not supposed to be in this corridor; I have committed a transgression." Inability to be in therapy with Dr. Wiener = ban on Wagner in Israel? (Note the element of intrusive phallic-exhibitionistic/voyeuristic impudence in my walking into a nonpublic space adjacent to Dr. Wiener's office, apparently with the secret hope of catching a glimpse of the doctor. Cf. Erikson, E. Insight and Responsibility, at 189 (Norton: 1964) (analyzing Freud's dream of Count Thun, which also is, incidentally, a railroad dream). My reaction to Dr. Wiener's presence may have represented feelings in childhood upon seeing my father naked. The theme of intrusive phallic exhibitionistic/voyeuristic impudence is overdetermined in my dream: my intrusive presence in Greensboro, and the phallic-like school building whose presence among the nondescript houses was a kind of intrusion.)
18. Failed to note that the Yiddish word schul means both school and synagogue.
Tuesday December 1, 1992:
After session with Dr. Pitts, had insight about dream. Occurs to me that dream can be related to something concrete from childhood. When I was a child of about 5 or 6 my mother had purchased as a Christmas present: a set of toy trains. The village in the dream was probably a representation of this toy village. The houses on sand in the dream represented the toy houses on the artificial grass: granulated wood pulp that had been dyed green, hence Greensboro. I later acquired a toy church for the village, which was apparently represented by the school building in the dream. (I once narrated a dream to Dr. Palombo in which my mother’s funeral was held in my elementary school. The dream thoughts about the train station correspond to the toy train set. The toy trains were powered by electricity; the electricity was attenuated by a transformer. The toy train transformer seems to correspond to the image of the nuclear powered electric generating plants in the parable about Wagner. (It was as if I had a surplus of imagery that needed to be expressed, only part of which could be expressed in the dream. This surplus of imagery was employed consciously after the dream in the letter to Dr. Pitts about Wagner and the parable to my sister about Wagner.)
Wednesday December 2, 1992:
It occurs to me that he dream about Greensboro can be related to he movie Wagner, a dramatization of the composer's life, specifically the final scenes of the movie, which take place in Venice. This final part of the film opens with Wagner reminiscing with his father-in-law, the composer-pianist, Franz Liszt. Liszt by that time had taken minor orders in the church, and was dressed in the scene in clerical garb (=surgical scrubs?). The reference in the Wagner parable to "Shinto priest" may refer to Liszt. (In the interpretation of an earlier dream I had associated Liszt with Dr. Palombo, thus, perhaps, the reference to "Shinto Priest" also refers to Dr. Palombo. In one scene in the movie, Wagner says, referring to a certain melody, "I stole that from you, Liszt!" My autobiographical sketch includes the following acknowledgment: "The contribution of Stanley R. Palombo, M.D. to this paragraph is kindly acknowledged." It is the only such acknowledgment in the paper.) Liszt and Wagner discuss Wagner's friendship with the conductor Hermann Levi, whose father was a rabbi. Thus "son of a Shinto priest" also refers to Levi, the rabbi's son and, by implication, to Jesse Raben, the physician’s son.
Wagner discusses the fact that his 1876 opera festival was a financial disaster. "We had to sell everything," he says, "lighting, machinery, costumes, scenery, to pay for it." This statement may relate to the image of Greensboro in the dream, which as a symbolic representation of my childhood toy train village, had the quality of a stage setting. Thus, a latent dream image is my unconscious perception of myself as living in an unreal world, a world of actors and stage sets rather than one inhabited by real people. Also, Wagner's discussion of his debts in connection with this suggests guilt. [In German the word schuld means both debt and guilt.] (The reference to "costumes" might also relate to the Thanksgiving Day parade in Philadelphia that I attended as a child on a few occasions with my father, sometimes accompanied by my sister. I can specifically recall that on one such occasion, as we rode to center city Philadelphia (the "business district") on the subway, my father pointed out that were were really riding on a train, which struck me as a novel observation at the time.)
Wagner had gone to Venice for a vacation. One scene depicts Wagner bathing in the Adriatic with his children. This may correspond to the beach-like atmosphere in the dream image of Greensboro. Further, this association suggests that the dream image of Greensboro also relates to Atlantic City where we used to vacation every year when I was a child.
(My father's death on July 1 occurred at about the same time of the year as our annual trips to Atlantic City, in early July.) (Note the recurring theme of periodicity: the annual trips to Atlantic City in early July, the annual celebration of Thanksgiving, the annual celebration of Christmas at which time I would have played with my toy trains, the weekly visits to Dr. Pitts, the regular revolutions of the toy trains around the track--all possibly symbolizing that most fundamental and vital periodic event, the contractions of the heart.)
[Note added 1/4/12: Compare the Dream of the Four Miltons.
Compare especially the idea of Jesse Owens running around the track.]
[Compare also Erik Erikson's observation about Freud in Insight and Responsibility: "Freud at times expressed some despair and confessed to some neurotic symptoms which reveal phenomological aspects of a creative crisis. He suffered from a 'railroad phobia' and from acute fears of an early death—both symptoms of an over-concern with the all too rapid passage of time. 'Railroad phobia' is an awkwardly clinical way of translating Reisefieber—a feverish combination of pleasant excitement and anxiety. But it all meant, it seems, on more than one level that he was 'coming too late,' that he was 'missing the train,' that he would perish before reaching some 'promised land.' He could not see how he could complete what he had visualized if every single step took so much 'work, time and error.'"
In one flashback, Wagner is shown escorting the painter Joukowsky in the Cathedral at Siena. The Cathedral has a tower, like the school in the dream. The scene's symbolic meaning is suggested by the music that accompanies it: the transformation music from the first act of Parsifal that depicts Parsifal's entry into the Temple of the Grail with his mentor, the character Gurnemanz. The dream image of the school may suggest the issue of mentoring or, in the case of the dream, the failure to find a mentor.
[Gurnemanz says to Parsifal: "You see, my son, space changes here to time." "Du siehst, mein Sohn, zum Raum wird hier die Zeit."
Note the sounding of the bells (Glocken) at 12:17 on the video.]
Wagner discusses his old friends, saying, "They're all gone now, all my so-called friends who would support me to the ends of life." This observation parallels the feelings of isolation in the dream.
The movie closes with Wagner's death. Wagner's family is shown gathered around a table, eating; Wagner is in another room, writing. The scene at the eating table is suggestive of a Thanksgiving dinner.
A servant arrives at the door to deliver a letter, which is read by Wagner's wife. The letter is a from a paramour of Wagner’s who beseeches him to meet with her. (This scene suggests a correspondence between Wagner's wife and Dr. Pitts, the recipient of my "love letters." Also the relationship between Wagner's wife, Cosima, and her father, Liszt, and it correspondence to the relationship between Dr. Pitts and her symbolic father, Dr. Wiener (and possibly to Dr. Palombo: "I supervise residents at GW"--again the Liszt/Dr. Palombo identification)].
Wagner's wife walks to the adjoining room where Wagner is working and confronts him with the letter He rises from his chair, is stricken with a fatal heart attack, and sinks back into the chair. His last words are, "my watch."
[Note that in The Dream of the Blue Oxford a wristwatch was an element of the events of the previous day. In a broadcast of the O.J. Simpson preliminary hearing that I watched on television the witness Steven Schwab is directed to describe his watch by the prosecutor.]
The depiction of Wagner's death suggests that my dream about Greensboro was in some way related to the telephone conversation with my sister about my father's operation. Certainly, the juxtaposition of material in the movie--the family meal, death--parallels the conversation with my sister, which concerned her plans for Thanksgiving and her discussion of the television depiction of heart surgery.
The following details are not depicted in the movie, but are worthy of note because of the correspondence to my dream. After Wagner's death his remains were taken to the train station at Venice, from which location they were transported by rail back to his home in Germany. At one point along the route, Levi ("the son of the Shinto priest") joined the entourage to accompany Wagner's remains; he later served as a pallbearer.
Wagner's last words, "my watch" are noteworthy. In light of certain observations by Erikson, the phrase, which symbolically expresses a concern regarding the passage of time, carries certain existential implications (though certainly unintended by Wagner) that may have significance with regard to the interpretation of my dream. Erikson's comments may shed light on the theme of the train station in my dream and its underlying relation to my father’s death from heart disease. Erikson writes, "During these years [the 1890s] Freud at times expressed some despair and confessed to some neurotic symptoms which reveal phenomenological aspects of a creative crisis. He suffered from a 'railroad phobia' and from acute fears of an early death--both symptoms of an over-concern with the all too rapid passage of time. 'Railroad phobia' is an awkwardly clinical way of translating what in German is Reisefieber--a feverish combination of pleasant excitement and anxiety. But it all meant, it seems, on more than one level that he was 'coming too late,' that he was 'missing the train,' that he would perish before reaching some 'promised land.' He could not see how he could complete what he had visualized if every single step took so much 'work, time and error.' As is often the case, such preoccupation with time leads to apprehension centered on the heart, that metronome and measure of endurance." Insight and Responsibility, at 39 (Norton: 1964).
Dr. Pitts noted that my presentation lacked affect.
Sigmund Freud's Dream of Count Thun:
THE DREAM ABOUT COUNT TAAFE AND THE TIRED HORSE
Highlighted in blue are comments I have made as of this posting on January 4, 2011.
December 3, 1992
3801 Connecticut Avenue, NW
Apt. 136
Washington, DC 20008
Dr. Suzanne M. Pitts
Dept. of Psychiatry
GW Univ. Medical Center
2150 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20037
Dear Dr. Pitts:
I had some additional thoughts regarding a dream I related at our session on Tuesday December 1, 1992. I decided to reduce these thoughts to a writing because of the complexity of the factual data, but I would also like to discuss this with you.
The materials may provide important insights regarding my homosexuality. Further the materials seem to provide some evidence that in my case the resistance is the functional equivalent of the transference.
Thank you very much.
Sincerely,
Gary Freedman
________________________
December 9, 1992
3801 Connecticut Avenue, NW
Apartment 136
Washington, DC 20008
Dr. Suzanne M. Pitts
Department of Psychiatry
GW University Medical Center
2150 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20037
Dear Dr. Pitts:
I respectfully submit a summary of our discussion of a dream originally discussed at our session on December 1, 1992. The materials are submitted for the sake of completeness of the clinical record.
Thank you very much.
Sincerely,
Gary Freedman
Dr. Pitts:
Please note that emendations to my letter to you dated December 3, 1992 are indicated by double-bar lines in the left-hand margin.
_____________________
The Dream of Greensboro
Tuesday November 24, 1992
Telephone call to sister: Sister discusses her plans for Thanksgiving, explaining plans to go to friends' house for dinner. Says she saw on television a film of a coronary artery bypass procedure. My father had undergone such a procedure on June 30, 1976 (he died following the operation, on July 1, 1976). I mentioned that the name of the surgeon who performed the procedure was Dr. Michael Strong, and noted that Dr. Strong is now a professor of cardiothoracic surgery at Hahnemann. (Dr. Strong is a native of North Carolina.) (Note that the issues of loneliness at Thanksgiving and sclerotic heart disease can be related at a basic symbolic level, with the loneliness symbolizing oral frustration and sclerotic heart disease symbolizing myocardial "frustration," or ischemia. Prolonged oral frustration leads to death by starvation just as prolonged ischemia leads to death by infarction.)
Wednesday night, November 25, 1992
Dream: I find myself in Greensboro, North Carolina. I am in a residential section that appears to be deserted. The houses appear to built on sand. There are sand dunes everywhere. Feelings of isolation and anxiety. Am aware that this is place where Jesse Raben, a former co-worker, is from. (Jesse Raben's father is a professor of Radiology at the University of North Carolina). I see a building that appears to be a school. The building's cornerstone has the inscription "1954." I note that the building's design suggests that the school was built much earlier than 1954; this strikes me as peculiar,. The building has a tower.
[Note that the Dream About Craig at Wanamakers featured the clock tower of the Philadelphia City Hall. The tower is a phallic symbol.]
I am filled with feelings of awe, and imagine that Jesse Raben must have attended this school. I want to leave the town. I am afraid to ask anyone where the train station is located lest I reveal that I am desperate to leave. I fear that questions will be raised concerning what I am doing in the town; I have the feeling that I am not supposed to be here and fear that others will discover my "transgression." Instead of asking where the train station is located, I ask where the business district is located, reasoning that the train station must be located somewhere in the business district. I think that if I can be directed to the business district, I will be able to find the train station on my own. The locale begins to resemble the business district in Moorestown, New Jersey, where my sister lives. (During my session with Dr. Pitts on Tuesday December 1, 1992, I omit this last fact in my narration of the dream.)
Thursday November 26, 1992 (Thanksgiving)
Prepare a letter for Dr. Pitts about the issue of political retaliation concerning the composer Richard Wagner. The letter discusses Wagner's possible sense of guilt, the importance of the superego in Wagner’s music, the Nazis' reinterpretation of Wagner's work, and the ban on the performance of Wagner's music in Israel.
Saturday November 28, 1992
Prepare a parable about the ban on the performance of Wagner’s music in Israel.
The parable reads: In the 1930's a group of scientists is gathered together under a physicist named Wagner to develop nuclear fission. It is the aim of Wagner to develop nuclear fission for the ultimate purpose of developing a nuclear reactor to generate electric power. The development program has a socially beneficial aim and a peaceful purpose. The program is successful, nuclear fission is achieved, and nuclear reactors are built in various countries around the world. The reactors are viewed as a boon, providing a ready source of cheap electric power. (In Japan, nuclear power plants become quite popular; many attribute the growth of the Japanese economy to nuclear power. Wagner is personally venerated in Japan. There is a saying: No one loves Wagner like the Japanese.) At the same time, however, there are those who question the safety of nuclear reactors. These individuals cite the fact that nuclear reactors use radioactive fuel, a lethally toxic substance, and also generate nuclear waste, which also is toxic. They claim that nuclear reactors are intrinsically dangerous and threatening. Popular thinking, however, does not associate nuclear reactors with nuclear weapons and the possible devastation of entire cities, since nuclear weapons have not yet been developed. The horror of nuclear war is not part of the mythology of nuclear fission in the popular mind, though some individuals do view nuclear fission as an evil. Years later there is a war. As part of the war effort, the technology of nuclear fission is used to develop nuclear weapons. The physicist Wagner had no part in this latter effort, though his original work on nuclear fission is the essential sine qua non
Sunday November 29, 1992:
I faxed the above parable to my sister with the note: "I wrote the "Notes Regarding an Aspect of the Resistance" on 12/31/91-1/1/92, at the exact same time that the controversy over Wagner in Israel was going on. I suspect that whatever Janusian thought lies in the above piece is a central conflict for me."
Tuesday December 1, 1992:
Session with D. Pitts. Discussed the dream about Greensboro, North Carolina. State various associations to the dream:
1. Jesse Raben
2. Jesse Raben's father as a professor of radiology at the University of North Carolina, and association to the issue of radiation in the Wagner parable. (This observation emerges in the session as a startling eruption, as if it had been repressed.)
3. Fact that Jesse Raben had lived in Israel, and association with ban on performance of Wagner's music in Israel as discussed in letter to Dr. Pitts.
4. Discuss desire in childhood for special friend.
[Note the discussion of the fantasy of having a twin sibling in various of my dreams.]
5. Discuss difficulties in learning how to read in the first grade.
6. Discuss anecdote concerning incident in first grade in which I felt shamefully different and defective with respect to all the other students; I was the only student who had a spiral notebook--all the other students had bound composition books. Connected these childhood feelings to adult feelings of alienation.
7. Noted phallic quality of school building in dream.
8. Noted two pictures in Dr. Pitts' office depict beach scenes, which resemble the beach-like quality of the dream. (This observation emerges at very end of the session as a spontaneous insight. Had not made the connection earlier in session despite fact that I had been looking at the pictures during the session.)
9. Noted personal identification with school building in dream, whose cornerstone is inscribed "1954." (I was born in late December 1953; in calculating my age I always think "1954." (In the movie Wagner, Wagner lays the cornerstone of his festival theater, "the Temple on the Hill," on his birthday, May 22. See infra.)
[This dream interpretation dates from November 1992. I did not begin work on my book Significant Moments until April 1993. A section of the book is devoted to Wagner laying the cornerstone at his theater in Bayreuth on May 22, 1872, the composer's birthday.]
10. Narrate dream to Dr. Pitts, which I told Dr. Palombo: I am at a school reunion. There is a crowd of persons there, who don't mean anything to me. Am waiting for Craig Dye (really Dr. Wiener? See paragraph 13) to arrive, but he never shows up. Feelings of isolation and loneliness.
11. Analogize houses in dream about Greensboro to crowd of people whose faces are indistinct. State that school building was different from the other buildings in that it had an individual identity, which I could describe. The school building, I believe I said, was like a person who stands out in a crowd. Mentioned that Jesse Raben is tall, about 6'5". Also compared the design of the school building to a church.
12. In my associations I failed to connect Jesse Raben's father, a professor of medicine, with Dr. Michael Strong, the surgeon who operated on my father at Temple, and now a professor of medicine. (Note the word play: the dream image of the school that looked like a church, or "temple." Compare the geographic location of the main campus of the University of North Carolina: Chapel Hill). I had mentioned Dr. Strong in the conversation with my sister on Tuesday November 24.
13. Noted that GW, where I meet with Dr. Pitts, is also a school, like the school in the dream. (Dr. Pitts did not seem to think this was significant. But see paragraph 12. Did Dr. Pitts unconsciously perceive that the dream symbolically indicated my desire to be in therapy with Dr. Wiener, a fact that she could not acknowledge?)
14. In my narration I left out the fact that at the end of the dream, as I walked past the school, the buildings began to resemble the business district in Moorestown, New Jersey, where my sister lives. The only occasions I have been to my sister’s house were in the fall of 1990, 1991, and 1992, around the time of the Jewish New Year to attend services at the University of Pennsylvania (see paragraph 16). [Note the connection between a school and a place of worship. Note that Wagner compared his opera theater to a "temple."]
15. Noted that I had encountered Jesse Raben on an elevator at work, at Akin Gump, the afternoon before Thanksgiving in 1989 (November 22, 1989--the anniversary of JFK's assassination. Once again, the theme of "the death of the 'father.'" I had learned about JFK's assassination upon leaving my own elementary school on the afternoon of Friday November 22, 1963).
Failed to narrate to Dr. Pitts the fact that I had telephoned Jesse Raben at home on the evening of Thursday September 29, 1989 to ask if he wanted to go to lunch the next day. He said he couldn't meet me the next day for lunch because he was going to Greensboro. The Jewish New Year began Friday evening September 29th that year. He said, "If you want to meet me at the airport, I'd be glad to have lunch with you."
[I felt in September 1989 that Jesse Raben's attitude toward me was one of arrogance. "If you want to meet me at the airport, I'd be glad to have lunch with you. But other than that, I can't meet you for lunch." I interpreted his arrogant behavior as typical of the phallic narcissist. I never went to lunch with Mr. Raben despite my persistent efforts to befriend him.]
(Oral frustration here possibly expressed in anxieties in dream, specifically anxieties in connection with finding the train station [symbolic equivalent of airport]. Inability to have lunch with Jesse Raben = ban on Wagner in Israel? Cf. paragraph 17.)
17. Failed to narrate fact that on morning of Tuesday November 24, 1992, before session with Dr. Pitts, I had walked out into corridor adjacent to Dr. Wiener's office. I had a feeling of awe when I saw him, but thought, "I'm intruding, I'm not supposed to be in this corridor; I have committed a transgression." Inability to be in therapy with Dr. Wiener = ban on Wagner in Israel? (Note the element of intrusive phallic-exhibitionistic/voyeuristic impudence in my walking into a nonpublic space adjacent to Dr. Wiener's office, apparently with the secret hope of catching a glimpse of the doctor. Cf. Erikson, E. Insight and Responsibility, at 189 (Norton: 1964) (analyzing Freud's dream of Count Thun, which also is, incidentally, a railroad dream). My reaction to Dr. Wiener's presence may have represented feelings in childhood upon seeing my father naked. The theme of intrusive phallic exhibitionistic/voyeuristic impudence is overdetermined in my dream: my intrusive presence in Greensboro, and the phallic-like school building whose presence among the nondescript houses was a kind of intrusion.)
18. Failed to note that the Yiddish word schul means both school and synagogue.
Tuesday December 1, 1992:
After session with Dr. Pitts, had insight about dream. Occurs to me that dream can be related to something concrete from childhood. When I was a child of about 5 or 6 my mother had purchased as a Christmas present: a set of toy trains. The village in the dream was probably a representation of this toy village. The houses on sand in the dream represented the toy houses on the artificial grass: granulated wood pulp that had been dyed green, hence Greensboro. I later acquired a toy church for the village, which was apparently represented by the school building in the dream. (I once narrated a dream to Dr. Palombo in which my mother’s funeral was held in my elementary school. The dream thoughts about the train station correspond to the toy train set. The toy trains were powered by electricity; the electricity was attenuated by a transformer. The toy train transformer seems to correspond to the image of the nuclear powered electric generating plants in the parable about Wagner. (It was as if I had a surplus of imagery that needed to be expressed, only part of which could be expressed in the dream. This surplus of imagery was employed consciously after the dream in the letter to Dr. Pitts about Wagner and the parable to my sister about Wagner.)
Wednesday December 2, 1992:
It occurs to me that he dream about Greensboro can be related to he movie Wagner, a dramatization of the composer's life, specifically the final scenes of the movie, which take place in Venice. This final part of the film opens with Wagner reminiscing with his father-in-law, the composer-pianist, Franz Liszt. Liszt by that time had taken minor orders in the church, and was dressed in the scene in clerical garb (=surgical scrubs?). The reference in the Wagner parable to "Shinto priest" may refer to Liszt. (In the interpretation of an earlier dream I had associated Liszt with Dr. Palombo, thus, perhaps, the reference to "Shinto Priest" also refers to Dr. Palombo. In one scene in the movie, Wagner says, referring to a certain melody, "I stole that from you, Liszt!" My autobiographical sketch includes the following acknowledgment: "The contribution of Stanley R. Palombo, M.D. to this paragraph is kindly acknowledged." It is the only such acknowledgment in the paper.) Liszt and Wagner discuss Wagner's friendship with the conductor Hermann Levi, whose father was a rabbi. Thus "son of a Shinto priest" also refers to Levi, the rabbi's son and, by implication, to Jesse Raben, the physician’s son.
Wagner discusses the fact that his 1876 opera festival was a financial disaster. "We had to sell everything," he says, "lighting, machinery, costumes, scenery, to pay for it." This statement may relate to the image of Greensboro in the dream, which as a symbolic representation of my childhood toy train village, had the quality of a stage setting. Thus, a latent dream image is my unconscious perception of myself as living in an unreal world, a world of actors and stage sets rather than one inhabited by real people. Also, Wagner's discussion of his debts in connection with this suggests guilt. [In German the word schuld means both debt and guilt.] (The reference to "costumes" might also relate to the Thanksgiving Day parade in Philadelphia that I attended as a child on a few occasions with my father, sometimes accompanied by my sister. I can specifically recall that on one such occasion, as we rode to center city Philadelphia (the "business district") on the subway, my father pointed out that were were really riding on a train, which struck me as a novel observation at the time.)
[Note added 1/4/12: Compare the Dream of the Blue Oxford:
[Prosecutor]: Now, if you can tell us. You walked along Montana past Bundy, and you went left on Gretna Green?
[Witness]: Yes.
[Prosecutor]: How long did it take you to get to Gretna Green?
[Witness]: Well, I looked at my watch, when I turned to go down Gretna Green and that was 10:37. I remember that my dog had taken care of its business. I was deciding whether to return home or continue walking. And it was a nice night, so I decided to continue walking.
[Witness]: Yes.
[Prosecutor]: How long did it take you to get to Gretna Green?
[Witness]: Well, I looked at my watch, when I turned to go down Gretna Green and that was 10:37. I remember that my dog had taken care of its business. I was deciding whether to return home or continue walking. And it was a nice night, so I decided to continue walking.
Wagner had gone to Venice for a vacation. One scene depicts Wagner bathing in the Adriatic with his children. This may correspond to the beach-like atmosphere in the dream image of Greensboro. Further, this association suggests that the dream image of Greensboro also relates to Atlantic City where we used to vacation every year when I was a child.
(My father's death on July 1 occurred at about the same time of the year as our annual trips to Atlantic City, in early July.) (Note the recurring theme of periodicity: the annual trips to Atlantic City in early July, the annual celebration of Thanksgiving, the annual celebration of Christmas at which time I would have played with my toy trains, the weekly visits to Dr. Pitts, the regular revolutions of the toy trains around the track--all possibly symbolizing that most fundamental and vital periodic event, the contractions of the heart.)
[Note added 1/4/12: Compare the Dream of the Four Miltons.
[Compare also Erik Erikson's observation about Freud in Insight and Responsibility: "Freud at times expressed some despair and confessed to some neurotic symptoms which reveal phenomological aspects of a creative crisis. He suffered from a 'railroad phobia' and from acute fears of an early death—both symptoms of an over-concern with the all too rapid passage of time. 'Railroad phobia' is an awkwardly clinical way of translating Reisefieber—a feverish combination of pleasant excitement and anxiety. But it all meant, it seems, on more than one level that he was 'coming too late,' that he was 'missing the train,' that he would perish before reaching some 'promised land.' He could not see how he could complete what he had visualized if every single step took so much 'work, time and error.'"
The term 'coming too late' might also refer biologically to ejaculatory delay:
In one flashback, Wagner is shown escorting the painter Joukowsky in the Cathedral at Siena. The Cathedral has a tower, like the school in the dream. The scene's symbolic meaning is suggested by the music that accompanies it: the transformation music from the first act of Parsifal that depicts Parsifal's entry into the Temple of the Grail with his mentor, the character Gurnemanz. The dream image of the school may suggest the issue of mentoring or, in the case of the dream, the failure to find a mentor.
[Gurnemanz says to Parsifal: "You see, my son, space changes here to time." "Du siehst, mein Sohn, zum Raum wird hier die Zeit."
Note the sounding of the bells (Glocken) at 12:17 on the video.]
Wagner discusses his old friends, saying, "They're all gone now, all my so-called friends who would support me to the ends of life." This observation parallels the feelings of isolation in the dream.
The movie closes with Wagner's death. Wagner's family is shown gathered around a table, eating; Wagner is in another room, writing. The scene at the eating table is suggestive of a Thanksgiving dinner.
A servant arrives at the door to deliver a letter, which is read by Wagner's wife. The letter is a from a paramour of Wagner’s who beseeches him to meet with her. (This scene suggests a correspondence between Wagner's wife and Dr. Pitts, the recipient of my "love letters." Also the relationship between Wagner's wife, Cosima, and her father, Liszt, and it correspondence to the relationship between Dr. Pitts and her symbolic father, Dr. Wiener (and possibly to Dr. Palombo: "I supervise residents at GW"--again the Liszt/Dr. Palombo identification)].
Wagner's wife walks to the adjoining room where Wagner is working and confronts him with the letter He rises from his chair, is stricken with a fatal heart attack, and sinks back into the chair. His last words are, "my watch."
[Note that in The Dream of the Blue Oxford a wristwatch was an element of the events of the previous day. In a broadcast of the O.J. Simpson preliminary hearing that I watched on television the witness Steven Schwab is directed to describe his watch by the prosecutor.]
The depiction of Wagner's death suggests that my dream about Greensboro was in some way related to the telephone conversation with my sister about my father's operation. Certainly, the juxtaposition of material in the movie--the family meal, death--parallels the conversation with my sister, which concerned her plans for Thanksgiving and her discussion of the television depiction of heart surgery.
The following details are not depicted in the movie, but are worthy of note because of the correspondence to my dream. After Wagner's death his remains were taken to the train station at Venice, from which location they were transported by rail back to his home in Germany. At one point along the route, Levi ("the son of the Shinto priest") joined the entourage to accompany Wagner's remains; he later served as a pallbearer.
Wagner's last words, "my watch" are noteworthy. In light of certain observations by Erikson, the phrase, which symbolically expresses a concern regarding the passage of time, carries certain existential implications (though certainly unintended by Wagner) that may have significance with regard to the interpretation of my dream. Erikson's comments may shed light on the theme of the train station in my dream and its underlying relation to my father’s death from heart disease. Erikson writes, "During these years [the 1890s] Freud at times expressed some despair and confessed to some neurotic symptoms which reveal phenomenological aspects of a creative crisis. He suffered from a 'railroad phobia' and from acute fears of an early death--both symptoms of an over-concern with the all too rapid passage of time. 'Railroad phobia' is an awkwardly clinical way of translating what in German is Reisefieber--a feverish combination of pleasant excitement and anxiety. But it all meant, it seems, on more than one level that he was 'coming too late,' that he was 'missing the train,' that he would perish before reaching some 'promised land.' He could not see how he could complete what he had visualized if every single step took so much 'work, time and error.' As is often the case, such preoccupation with time leads to apprehension centered on the heart, that metronome and measure of endurance." Insight and Responsibility, at 39 (Norton: 1964).
Tuesday December 8, 1992
During session with Dr. Pitts discuss additional interpretations of dream. State that my having seen Dr. Wiener on the morning of Tuesday November 24, 1992 may have symbolically represented occasions in childhood when I may have seen my father naked.
State that the dream image of Greensboro may have represented my father's body after his death. Explain that the last time I spoke with my father was on the telephone on the morning of his surgery, June 30, 1976. My father told me that he was being prepared for surgery and that "they just shaved me." These are the last words I can specifically recall my father saying. The image of Greensboro as being denuded of all vegetation, as being a sandy wasteland, may have been an image representing my father's last words. Noted that the dream image of the phallic-like school in Greensboro may have represented my father's penis.
Noted that the immediate cause of my father's death was cardiac fibrillation, and that defibrillators were used on my father in an attempt to restore normal heart contractions. The references to nuclear powered electric generating plants in the parable about Wagner may have referred to the cardiac defibrillators.
Noted that the one and only time I saw Dr. Strong, the surgeon who operated on my father, was in the Cardiac Care Intensive Care Unit at Temple University Hospital, upon viewing my father's body. I recall Dr. Strong at the time as somber and silent, as if he had suffered a personal loss. Dr. Strong was about 34 years old; his character might be termed phallic. The surgical procedure performed by Dr. Strong attempted to salvage a heart chronically starved of oxygenated blood. (The dream may have been based in part on an unconscious equation of oral frustration and myocardial "frustration," or ischemia.)
Explained that my mother used to arrange my toy trains on the floor on a white sheet. Stated hypothesis that I may have unconsciously related this sheet with the sheet that covered my father's body at the hospital and possibly with the table cloth that would have covered our dining room table at Thanksgiving. Noted possible primary process equivalence in my case of death, eating, and play.
[Note 1/4/12: The Dream of the Blue Oxford includes a reference to nudity and the covering up of a naked corpse:
The corpses, you mean?
Corpses. He says: "Well, they have a problem. If a Jew dies and the family wants a burial, they have to pay tax on it. So they just throw them in the street."
Because they cannot pay the tax?
Yes. They cannot afford it. So then he says: "Every rag counts. So they take their clothing. And then once the body, the corpse, is on the street, the Judenrat [i.e., the Jewish Council] has to take care of it."]
Corpses. He says: "Well, they have a problem. If a Jew dies and the family wants a burial, they have to pay tax on it. So they just throw them in the street."
Because they cannot pay the tax?
Yes. They cannot afford it. So then he says: "Every rag counts. So they take their clothing. And then once the body, the corpse, is on the street, the Judenrat [i.e., the Jewish Council] has to take care of it."]
Noted that my father's body resembled the lifeless, plastic toy train village and the lifeless quality of the dream image of Greensboro. Also noted that the objects of the toy train village arranged on the white sheet may be interpreted as resembling plates of food and eating utensils arranged on a tablecloth.
Based on the above associations, offered the tentative hypothesis that the dream indicates that my idealization of certain males is based on an identification of these males' total personality with may father's penis. Put another way, my homosexuality seems to center not on the fact that certain persons have a penis, but that their total personality represents my father's penis. An open question--the ultimate question in my case--is how this phallic identification relates to the issues of oral frustration and a decathexis of the mother.
Sigmund Freud's Dream of Count Thun:
THE DREAM ABOUT COUNT TAAFE AND THE TIRED HORSE
Before reciting the next dream Freud presents some preliminary remarks. I shall summarize them briefly.
On the preceding day he was on the platform at the station awaiting his train, as he was leaving on his vacation. Count Thun arrived on the platform and waved back the gate keeper who did not know him with a curt gesture and without explanation. After the train which the minister took had left, Freud was told to leave the platform and had some difficulty to be allowed to remain. He passed the time noting whether anybody got a whole compartment because of his connections. He decided to make a row, that is, t o demand the same privilege. He was in high spirits. He sang the aria from The Marriage of Figaro:
"If my lord Count would tread a measure,
Let him but say his pleasure” .
Count Thun (tun-do) is jokingly called Count Do-Nothing.
The dream. “A crowd, a students’ meeting. . . . A certain Count Thun (or Taaffe) is making a speech. Being asked to say something about the Germans, he declares with a contemptuous gesture, that their favorite flower is colts-foot, and he then puts into his button-hole something tike a fern leaf, really the crumpled skeleton of a leaf. I jump up, that is, I jump up (sic), but I am surprised at my implied attitude” .
Then follows an indistinct part of the dream which because of its length I do not repeat in folio (it can be read in the original): a hall, it is necessary to escape, all exits are barred, he makes his way through handsomely appointed governmental apartments with furniture in brown and violet, past an elderly housekeeper with a lamp, he “avoids speaking to her” , and “it seems to me that I am very clever to evade her control “. He ascends a steeply rising path . . . escapes again to the station in a cab drawn by one tired horse. “I can’t ride on the railway tracks” . The seats are all taken. Finally in the train and “I find a peculiar, long braided thing in my buttonhole” . Again in front of the station, with an elderly gentleman who is blind. He gives him a glass urinal, sees his genital “plastically” . He wants “to think out a scheme to remain unrecognized” . hopes to get away without being seen.
Freud gives a long chain of associations of memories and ideas for the interpretation, of which I wish to take up but a few.
"This phantasy which attaches itself to the thoughts evoked by the sight of Count Thun is, like the façade of an Italian church, without organic connection with the structure behind it, but unlike such a façade it is full of gaps, and confused, and in many places portions of the interior break through” .
"Here in Vienna white carnations have become the badge of the antisemites, red ones of the Social Democrats. Behind this is the recollection of an antisemitic challenge during a railway journey in beautiful Saxony “... ‘” Being a green youth, full of materialistic doctrines, I thrust myself forward in a German students’ society in order to defend an extremely one-sided position, I jump up” .
"The elderly man. obviously my father, for the blindness in one eye signifies his one-sided glaucoma, is now urinating before me... since he is blind, I must hold the glass in front of him.... I make fun of him.... Glaucoma ... cocaine” . “The analysis shows these three dreams fragments to be impertinent boasts as the result of a ridiculous megalomania which in my waking life I have long since overcome” . “In this dream I am not concerned with the reasons which force me to hide the solution, but with the motives of the inner censor who hides the true content of the dream from me” .
My interpretation. Freud again experiences an offense, he has difficulty to remain on the platform. He has occasion to make a comparison with the haughty attitude of the count. As a Jew he feels insulted, therefore he remembers Saxony and an anti-semitic incident in a train while there. His feeling of equal right which is inherent in everybody and the affront on the platform again prompt the wish to “demand the same privilege” , not only at the departure of the train but always and everywhere-this is the la tent content of the dream.
Count Taaffe stands for baptism (Taufe). “Favorite flower” is known from Freud’s associations to a previous dream and means “Crucifer” (leaf skeleton). Later in the dream, in the train, he has a “thing in his buttonhole” . Before “all seats had been taken “. Progress in his career is symbolized by walking through ministerial rooms. The only control, the housekeeper, and we recognize her from a previous dream, is his mother.” It seems to me that I am very clever to evade the control in the end” . He finds a steeply rising path. Many a Jew who escaped from the Ghetto, far from his home town, has taken the secret blessings of baptism in order to ascend the steep path of life without hindrance.
He is alone in his struggle for existence, tired and exhausted, he himself is the tired horse of the one-horse cab. Like a tired nag is the poor Jewish physician to whom a scientific career has been closed, who has been refused recognition of his attainments and for whom the struggle for existence is made difficult. “He can not ride on the railroad track” , there, where everybody finds the road laid out. For him alone everything is “taken” .
The doctor who has studied philosophy and medicine, and who could say with Faust:
"Then, too, Iive neither lands nor gold,
Nor the world’s least pomp or honor hold . . ."
hears the spirit of doubt whispering the words of Figaro:
"If my lord Count would tread a measure
Let him but say his pleasure . . . “
In the dream “He jumps up” . He has the “thing” in his buttonhole, he is no more in the one-horse cab, but in “the train” . Is not the violet color which is mentioned twice in the dream the color of the tempter, the Roman church, consecrated to the ritual of Baptism?
The dream cannot end. The fugitive has evaded “the control” of the mother. But his father’s eye directed toward the son will paralyze him, he wants to “invent a scheme, to remain unrecognized” . As Jacob once obtained his blind father’s blessing, without being recognized, so another son of a blind father makes an effort to “remain unrecognized” in order to escape the curse. Since the time of this arch father, through hundreds of generations, loyalty to the tribe has been guarded, and what the son sees “plastically” ere he becomes his father’s lost son is that part of the body into which this loyalty is carved with a knife.
And yet, his conscience participated in this trick, he becomes his father’s “nurse” , who does not want to bury those who brought him into the world. The plan of the previous dream was refused the tempter by the unconscious. Instead of burying the parents (as in the previous dream) one could keep the step a secret, deceive the mother (hinters Licht führen—lamp), present to the blind father a glass that is not meant for seeing, then climb the ascending path, get into the train, drive onward.
"Yet I am surprised at this attitude of mine” .
* * *
Before continuing I should like to explain an important factor to the reader who may not be very familiar with the psychoanalytic theory. The night dreams even of highly ethical people, just as the dreams of innocent children, may contain veiled death wishes (desires to kill) which are especially directed towards parents, brothers and sisters, husband or wife, one’s own children. In their waking life these people will be self-sacrificing and affectionate. Only the true criminal does not need the disguise which occurs in the dream work, he carries out his wishes in his life.
We are, therefore, not justified to say: behold, here are the evil intentions of killing the parents or of doing something sinful in secrecy, thus the dreamer is a sinner. We find, on the contrary, that those thoughts have been repressed and banished from consciousness and the light of day into the darkness of the night and of the dream; and even there they remain veiled and concealed, so that the dreamer, be he even Freud himself, should not have to hear the suppressed voice of the banished sinner.
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