Recollections (revised) Part 1A

I don't talk about dreams much in therapy.  I don't ask about them, nor do I think that they are the window into the unconscious. But sometimes they do trigger interesting discussions.  In many ways they are kind of the neurological cleaning out of the flotsam left in the brain at the end of the day. For me, I know that I have to be more careful about what I read after I get into bed.  I often fall asleep and then suffer with blurred visions of the Taliban or Sarah Palin running through my mind, disturbing my rest.

But I had a dream the other day which was clearer than most and the feelings that came with it stayed with me for a while, making me wonder what is going on in my own head.  In the first part of the dream I was an MC of a big party, like a wedding or something.  I was making all kinds of clever cracks, entertaining everyone.  But that quickly morphed into a scene where someone, a good friend, was telling me how I had insulted his mother, and that she was very hurt by things that I said.  The dream then quickly shifted to an image of me and this same kid, whose mother I had insulted, riding on a bus.  He was saying to me something like, "isn't this great, we are finally growing up and going off to college."  I sat there, on the bus, on one of those plastic seats of city buses.  I was nodding in agreement, but I said, yes this really is great, but I feel as if I have done all this before."

When I awoke from the dream I was in a good mood.  I remembered those parts of the dream very clearly and I loved the irony of the last line.  I enjoyed how good I was at recognizing, as I rode of to college, that I had already done that, even though, in the dream, I was confused by what I was feeling.

All of this made be reflect upon what I was really like when I shuffled off to college. What I remember clearly, was that unlike in the dream,  when I went to college the real time, I had little insight and even less  perspective.  I was really pretty clueless about how the world worked, and what I could do to make it work better.  I was having a tough time figuring out where I fit into the whole scheme of things.

I already had developed a very quick and sarcastic wit, mostly because I needed something to protect me, as I was very skinny and did not project an image of physical power.  But my wit was very unconventional and disarming.  One of my high school teachers told me that I was really funny, even if most of what I said went right over the head of most of my classmates.  He added that he hoped that the things I said would not get me killed some day, if per chance, someone did get the joke.

But even in high school my attitude about the world was becoming established. Because I was slighter than most of the boys, and this was because I was younger than most of the boys due to my mother sending me off to school early,  Look, she said, he's smart enough and he's just wasting his time being a pain in the ass at home.  So they started me at school two days after I turned five.  I didn't have to wait for the next year.  I was about ten months younger than most of the kids in my class, which, in fourth grade, is a lot.

I think I had to protect myself by paying closer attention to what other kids were doing and thinking.  I got to be a pretty good at predicting what people were going to do.  I could tell what songs were going to be "hits" the first time I heard them.  I could tell which I my friends were going to be dumped by their girlfriends.  This sense of observation developed to the degree that I began to be a ble to tell which of my teachers really didn't know what they were talking about. I had some really good teachers, and some who were real phonies. Some of them knew that I knew, and that wasn't helpful for me in school, but I knew that this kind of knowledge was what I really should be leaning.

The more I paid attention, and by my Junior year, it was a lot, I developed an awareness that most people were being played for suckers.  They were being lured to put their efforts, beliefs and money into things that were either, illusionary, worthless, harmful or nuts.  At the time it was things like big houses, constant new cars, and bomb shelters.  I also was confused by all the fuss made about religion and patriotism.  I didn't get it.  For me it just didn't make sense to get all worked up because I happened to be born in a certain place.  I mean, I am that different from the people who happened to be born over there?

I didn't get it .  And no one did a very good job explaining it to me.

So I made a lot of sly, kind of sideways remarks. I knew enough not to say anything directly, especially about religion and patriotism.  I could tell that could get me in real trouble.  So I remained, just kind of confused. I had no solution.  I had nothing else to offer in their place, so I kept a lot of it quiet. I didn't really know what to say.

I also realized, that few other kids that I knew even gave these things a thought. They did what was being done around them.  They just kind of accepted that this was the way it was, and went on.  Most of my friends were much more concerned with hitting a baseball and getting their hands up under a girl's sweater.
With that, we shared a common interest, so I was accepted and did Ok.

Because of my confusion I was voted the "most individualistic" kid out of about 700 in my class.  That meant that people thought I was weird, but I guess I was clever enough to make it seem interesting.

And that's why I became a psychologist. 

I thought, geez, if what I'm thinking about is so weird, what the hell is everyone else really thinking about?

For the past forty years, people have been coming in and telling me.  So that part has worked out.