Enantiodromia, Imagination and Dreams

Saturday’s Memory for June 21, 2025

I think it was in eighth grade when the teacher assigned us to write a short story. I had a dream then, that was about what happened to the world when dreams stopped. So I wrote a story from this dream prompt. The teacher gave me an “F,” the one and only F I had ever received. When I asked her why, she said I had copied it from somewhere. I was stunned by this accusation. The next time I wrote any fiction was in college. I took a short story class. There were twelve students in the class. When our first attempt was returned, there were 11 Fs and 1 D. I had received the D. Improvement! At least I was not accused of plagiarism. I did try to write my first short story again many times but always failed to complete it. Almost 40 years later, I decided to take another class in writing fiction. The instructor was the well-known author, writing coach, and editor Gloria Kempton. She has been a prolific contributor to Writer’s Digest.

“Imagine an apple,“ she directed. She then led a discussion on what we had experienced. Everyone complied, and she pointed out that our experiences were not gripping. They all amounted to putting a coin in a machine, and out popped an apple image, a compound of memories of apples and such. No drama, no tension, no plot, no story. She then proposed a writing prompt in which a minimally described character was on the verge of a crucial decision. She wanted us to be prompt in our response as well. Then, as we went around the room, the room was filled with story possibilities. No one seemed to suffer any writer’s block, perhaps because we were not writing, just “imagining.” She pointed out that all the proffered story lines were realistic, as if we all were aiming to mimic Flaubert. Then, she said, “Now, the hard part. Close your eyes; let all contents drop away. No prompt, no need to be prompt. See what comes. Don’t try to do anything.” I don’t recall how long this went on, but after a time of such spacing out, “something” happened that was different. No one could name it, but there were references to “electricity in the air” and “sparks flying.” The teacher said that we had contacted, to one degree or another, the story engine. She said she wanted us to write our short stories from “there.” No one could say exactly where “there” was, but we had had a taste. This experience broke the logjam I had suffered for so long, and I began writing my first novel, Dreams: The Final Heresy. I am writing the final chapter now, and I will publish it this year.

Wednesday Thought for the Day 

June 18, 2025 

Humanity is failing in many ways, not the least of which is the failure to be an effective steward of resources, whether those resources are economic, social, cultural, scientific, artistic, or anything else. At bottom, this is nothing less than suicidal. For the first time, Homo sapiens are facing extinction, and much of the impetus for this ineluctable reality is the result of our own unbounded hubris.

One resource so far exempt from this ubiquitous mayhem is what happens when our ego consciousness and our body become paralyzed. I am referring to dreams. The likely reason for this exemption is that for the vast majority of individuals, collectives, and organizations, this resource is ignored.

Dreams are a resource other than conscious intentions, and for this reason are likely to be the source of “outside the box” ways of being, doing, and functioning. Where dreams are an object of attention, most of this attention is interpreting, explaining, or trying to understand dreams only in relation to consciousness. This is not the most fruitful way of working with dreams. The “otherness” of dreams requires recapturing the early sense of dreams as “alien.” So, to relate to dreams would be relating to an other. In this mutuality, this eros potentiality, the ego may find ways of “serving” the hints and possibilities presented by the other.

Recall the scene in The Day When the Earth Stood Still. Klatu, the alien, holds up a device, but the military decides it’s a weapon, destroys it, and injures Klatu. It was a gift from the alien for the president to be able to understand life in the universe. This scene provides a riveting example of wrongheadedness in the face of the other. It also mirrors how most humans treat the gift of dreams.

Saturday Memory
June 14, 2025

The first “girl Friday” was a young male selected by Robinson Crusoe to be a helpful servant on that day. “Girl Friday” came from the movie title. My first real job was as a “boy Friday,” as the owner called it, to be an all-around helpful hand in his local stationery store. I would stock stuff, sweep the floors, and run errands.
It was the summer of 1953, I was 14 going on 15, and my pay was $0.75/hour. The best thing, though, was what I fell in love with in the back room: a print shop, complete with an old-style Chandler & Price press, a Chandler & Price paper cutter, and several type cases and type stands. The owner set type by hand for business cards, stationery, envelopes, and a variety of other printed items. He noticed my interest and over the summer taught me to set type and to use the press and the cutter and even let me do real jobs as he began to trust me to do a good job. I was hooked.

I started high school in the fall of 1953 and immediately volunteered for the school newspaper, which, as I had discovered, also included a press room. I became the business manager after a while, and my girlfriend became editor in our senior year. I spent a good bit of time in the print shop. I gave one of the graduation speeches (entitled “Franklin and Einstein”). I spoke of Ben Franklin’s love of printing and talked about the importance of doing what one loved. In spite of all his achievements, which were extraordinary by any standard, his gravestone refers to only one thing: Printer.
In the fall of 1956, I started college, and one of the first things I did was to secure a volunteer position in the university’s Typography Laboratory, as it was called. It was indeed the most advanced such place I had ever seen, but it was still, basically, a print shop. But as my studies began to consume my time through the college years and then graduate school, my involvement in printing fell away.

Saturday Memory
May 31, 2025

Arthur C. Clarke’s Childhood’s End, was one of my favorite books during my early teenage years, along with J. D. Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye, both published in 1951, the year I turned 13. It was also the year that Citation became the first horse to win a million dollars. My dad and I were at the rail to see our favorite horse win. We danced and shouted. In those joyous moments, I became dimly aware that this was the end of my childhood. The was the year I also stopped playing the piano. My parents purchased that piano in 1945, before I was 7 years old. Tomorrow, June 1, 2025, and 80 years later, the movers will haul the piano to the recycler. Another kind of end of childhood.

Russ

Saturday Memory
May 24, 2025

One effect of “remembering,” is often to increase desire for something left behind. A typical experience is the high school dream or memory coming late in adulthood. Such dreams and memories bring up the “road not taken” [see Robert Frost’s 1916 poem]. It comes back again as a potential aspect for completing one’s life. This remembering can bring up the oddest things at the oddest times. For example, my main computer is a Windows 10 desktop which is about 3 years old. Microsoft is ending support for Windows 10 in October of this year. Unfortunately, my computer does not have the necessary hardware to upgrade to Windows 11. Microsoft suggests buying a new computer with Windows 11 already installed. The thrifty Scot in me rebels at this. So, as I was mulling over what to do, I was flooded with memories of making my own high-fidelity system in the early 60’s, and more than 60 years ago. I have not thought of this in decades and here it comes again very late in my life. What I remember was the great joy I experienced in building the system. With that, a started to feel joy again and saw perhaps that building my own computer now was the solution to my dilemma. I haven’t fully decided to do this until I do some research, but I’m leaning toward fulfilling this desire this old memory instills in me. Now, I recall as well, the first thing I listened to on my new DynaKit hi-fi system: Beethoven’s 9th symphony and how stunning it was to hear Ode to Joy.

Thought for the Day

Wednesday, May 21, 2025

As noted last week, I am taking olmelleon as a new word that is meant to name the utter destruction that is ubiquitous across cultural, political, economic, and social landscapes as well as the ravages of climate change and the unseen dynamics of the sixth extinction. While nihilism gained prominence in the late 19th century (particularly under the influence of Frederick Nietzsche), it never gained ground in the halls of power as a way of dealing with the sense of meaningless which is at the heart of nihilism. However, as post modernism gained footing and relativism gained ground, the potential for developing personal meaning not dependent on the essentialism of philosophy, morality, or religion began to emerge. This is where the deep psyche in the form of dreams from “the other” becomes crucial as a meaningful way to engage olmelleon. So far, dreams seem to be free of the destructive effects of olmelleon as if protected because they are so deeply internal and so ignored by the powers that be. I believe that the ways of consciousness focused in typical ways for solving global problems will not work. Dreams from the depths offer the possibility of something new and unique and not only that but are likely to have a deeper sense of what the threats are than even consciousness knows. In next week’s Thought for the Day, I will try to illustrate this more fully.

Saturday Memory
May 17, 2025

It was the mid-seventies. I had just become a Jungian analyst. We lived in Santa Monica. People in the neighborhood were well known or would be one day. Among several people I got to meet and know, one was Frank Gehry. He was an architect and graduated from the USC School of Architecture a couple of years before I began my studies at USC. I would encounter him from time to time in my walks around the area. He lived a couple of blocks away. In 1978, I think it was, he began an extraordinary renovation of his home. I believe this was his first “deconstructionist” project. His renovations caused an uproar. He would leave the interior of walls exposed, ducts could be seen, a lot of what is usual unseen and hidden became fore fronted and visible. It was about this time that C. G. Society in Los Angeles, where I was Director of Training, proposed building a building to house the Society, the Institute, and the Analytical Psychology Club. I was on the committee and recommended Frank Gehry as a designer. Frank met with all the members and the clash between members was astonishing. No agreement could be reached and so the idea of Frank designing a building for the group was abandoned. Frank has become one of the most famous and rewarded architects of the modern period. His work is extraordinary, and I encourage you to explore it. You can see his philosophy at work, for the hidden to be seen, for the straight and linear to come alive with movement. An extraordinary person to be sure. Here are some examples.

Thought for the Day
Wednesday, May 14, 2025

One of the first things to understand about the word olmelleon is that it is not to be judged by it’s absence from any known language or dictionary. It is not there at all. This is because the other is speaking a new language. This illustrates that the psyche (the “other” as I call it) is originating a new language, as it also originates new myths, new stories. I take this to be a word that applies in some way to the conflagration my dream referred to. When I experience a new word like this, the first thing I do is to close my eyes and repeat the word out loud until “something” happens. As I noted last week, “seeing with the eyes closed” is the literal meaning of the word “mystery.” Doing this (closing the eyes) is one way into the mystery the word presents. Repeating the word becomes a chant, a kind of mantra. Speaking this way with the eyes closed has all the qualities of a ritual and begins to excite the deeper psyche. One of my experiences in doing this brought an image of smoke on a distant horizon, billowing clouds of dark smoke, a major blaze to be sure. This image presented itself autonomously and without any conscious effort on my part. Another experience produced an image of smoke as well as flames—closer this time. A third time, the image was looking out over a fire ravaged area completely engulfed in flame and smoke over a vast area. When I was saying the word out loud, I would say it in “threes.” This reflects my habitual use of the “Rue of Three” Whenever I can when faced with the unknown, uncertainty, or doubt. It is one way into holding Keats’ negative capability. So, doing the experience with the eyes closed and saying the word olmelleon led to three images. My sense is that images were providing the “meaning” of the new and created word. It might be synonymous with the word “conflagration” that the dream referred to. But the important thing I feel is that this word means more than just the destruction of a conflagration. It’s pointing to something far more destructive, and I believe it is pointing to what is transpiring now on our way to the future. I take it now as the name of what is happening culturally, politically, economically and socially: utter destruction. Olmelleon is what it is. It is, I believe, one aspect of the sixth extinction manifesting on many levels. What is happening has never happened before. Hence, a new word, perhaps a new language is brewing.

Saturday Memory
May 3, 2025

My third-grade teacher, Mrs. Brand, was a stickler for using English correctly. She taught us with a fierce passion, as if speaking English without error was of supreme importance. Of course, most of us kids thought it was something to joke about. I don’t remember any of the jokes, but I remember what Mrs. Brand did when we recited something and made an error. She always carried a yard stick, and when the error offended her ears, she would cry out, “Murdering the King’s English,” and she would crash the yard stick hard on a nearby desk. No matter how often it happened (which was a lot), it was always a shock. To this day, I can hear her and the crashing ruler, and I cannot proofread anything without her voice in my head.