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The Dreamer and the Dream – Rainette Fantz Chapter 1-Metaphor and Fantasy

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The Dreamer and the Dream – Rainette Fantz Chapter 1-Metaphor and Fantasy The Dreamer and The Dream – Rainette Fantz Chapter 1-Metaphor and Fantasy The concept of awareness is a basic one in the study and application of Gestalt therapy, and over the years we at the Gestalt Institute of Cleveland have evolved many different approaches to the teaching of it. We have worked with “figure-ground,” with the process of widening and narrowing of focus, with differentiation and integration, and above all with the direction of attention. All of these and many others are modes that have proved very useful in the heightening of awareness. I believe it important to stress that as we move into the realm of metaphor and fantasy we come in touch with an entirely different type of awareness, with a novel approach to authenticity. In effect we dispense in part with the cognitive function and focus instead on the intuitive part of the self. Let me recapitulate. Awareness may be directed outward toward the external world or inward toward the self. When directed outward there are essentially two places that it may go - toward persons in the environment or objects in that same environment. When directed inward the possibilities both in direction and function are considerably broadened. It may be focused affectively on emotions or sensations or cognitively/intuitively on thoughts, memories, wishes, fantasies and metaphor. Using the last of these as a point of departure, it’s extremely exciting to me to realize that language, particularly metaphor, is not simply a means of communication but rather an “organ of perception,” (Jaynes, 1976, p.51) - a way, in other words, of perceiving the world. I remember with both fondness and astonishment a ride into the country in early spring. The countryside was burgeoning, and my companion and I were surrounded on all sides by lush bushes of yellow, sunlit blooms. My friend suddenly stopped the car and pointing to the yellow dazzlement asked, “What is the name for those?” “Forsythia,” I replied simply. “Oh,” said he, “Forsythia! Now I can think of it.” In this particular example, yellowness, lushness, luminosity, all the qualities that forsythia encompasses, were not in themselves adequate to allow for discrimination; a name was necessary to tie them together to form a unique “gestalt” which in the future could convey a memory of yellowness, lushness, luminosity. But a label is not a metaphor. It is a means of connoting a meaning that is already specific, derived over time. Metaphor on the other hand is a special way of bestowing meaning on something novel that at one particular moment is as yet strange, unnamed, unrealized and tantalizing. Labels allow us to “think” about something we already know; metaphors permit us to “experience” something formerly unknown in the light of our previous history. In a word - to make contact. Julian Jaynes in The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind ​ points out that many parts of the human body have been used as metaphors. For example, if one thinks of a “head,” one may use it in a way to signify the very top of Gestalt Institute of Cleveland Page 1 of 6 ​ The Dreamer and The Dream – Rainette Fantz Chapter 1-Metaphor and Fantasy something as in the head of an army, the head of a table, the head of a bed or the head of a household. One’s visage provides a cogent way of looking at or speaking picturesquely of things such as the face of a clock, of a cliff, of a card, of a crystal. Eyes too are often used to characterize objects in a way which gives or endows them with additional meaning, e.g. the eye of a needle, the eye of a storm, the eye of a flower. The same kind of effect can be produced by utilizing “teeth.” We speak of the teeth of a comb, the teeth of an argument, the teeth of a gale - all these implying bit and power without the necessity for amplification. The skin too is an important metaphor. How often have you heard people say, “Stay in touch” with individuals who are “thick skinned,” or “thin-skinned,” or “touchy?” How often have you, yourself, said “Handle him carefully, lest you ‘rub’ him the wrong way?” We speak of “feeling” for another person we speak of “touching” experience. All of these expression derive from our own sense of touch and that of those who have gone before us to the first syllable of recorded time. In very early times language and its referents climbed up from the concrete to the abstract on the steps of metaphor. Our commonly used very form “to be” derives from the Sanskrit word “asmi” which signified “to breathe.” Interestingly, eons ago there was no word for “existence.” One breathed or one grew or one essentially was not. Every ​ ​ conscious thought can be traced, if we try diligently enough, through metaphor, back to concrete actions in a concrete world (Jaynes, 1976). For example, “my runaway thoughts” is an expression which emanates from the explicit action, “to run.” To be very specific, understanding a thing, any thing - any person - is to arrive at a metaphor for that thing or person by substituting something more familiar. The feeling of familiarity is the feeling of understanding. I’m reminded of my nephew gingerly holding his sister’s new-born son for the first time - clearly uncomfortable, unable to relax. And as the little one squirmed about and screwed up his face, my nephew said, “Oh, what a little monkey you are!” and suddenly smiled and was at ease. Out of strangeness - familiarity. It was not the naming that was crucial here but the qualities that the name evoked-those qualities of playfulness, wrinkledness, slipperiness, smallness - that brought to the unknown a kind of recognition, without which there could have been no acceptance, no immediate joy. When we consider metaphor and fantasy, it is crucial to be aware that we possess a complete apperceptive mass from which these metaphors, these fantasies originate. I am reminded of Rilke’s notion of living fully before sitting down to write. Our apperceptive mass is what we refer to in Gestalt terms as “background,” our assimilated experience out of which new and surprising “figures” may continually emerge. It is Gestalt Institute of Cleveland Page 2 of 6 ​ The Dreamer and The Dream – Rainette Fantz Chapter 1-Metaphor and Fantasy composed of all that we have read in our lifetimes. It can range from history to myths. When I think of history, I think of the Fall of Troy (the beautiful Helen, the enamored Paris and, of course, the unforgettable Trojan Horse), I think of Genghis Khan and the Asiatic hordes over-running Europe, of the Spanish Inquisition and the Spanish Conquest, of the discovery of America and its settlement, of the French Revolution replete with Marie Antoinette’s, “Let them eat cake!” and the guillotine, of the first and second world wars and the fall of the atom bomb on Hiroshima. When I reflect on some of the literature I have enjoyed I recollect Crime and ​ Punishment, The Brothers Karamazov, The Scarlet Letter, Moby Dick, Wuthering Heights, and more lately the spy novels of John Le Carre. These oeuvres color the way ​ I think, the way I see, just as what you may have enjoyed colors your perspective. If I turn to fairy tales I become very conscious of how often they involve Jungian archetypes - the wicked step mother or witch, the innocent child, the ideal hero, the polarities of good and evil. And myths - the stories of a hero or heroine beset by temptation, tests of the self, universal struggle. Jason and the Golden Fleece immediately leap to mind. How unforgettable are the fire-breathing bulls, the sowing of the dragon’s teeth which immediately sprouted from an armed guard, and the aid received from the sorceress, Medea. How memorable the Iliad, the Homeric counterpart to the Fall of Troy. ​ ​ Interestingly, Jaynes cited the Iliad as an example of great writing which existed before ​ the development of the conscious mind. Nowhere in the poem (in the original Greek) do its characters think, ponder, decide: rather Odysseus, Agamemnon and Achilles respond in action to the “voices of the Gods.” ​ ​ Our apperceptive mass may also include the music we’ve heard. This music may range from the great classics of Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms, through folk songs, blues and jazz, the modern rock and such cult creations as the Rocky Horror Picture Show which my daughter, Lori, saw 26 times, memorizing in the process ever ones of the songs, replete with the accent and style of the varied singers. One of my former group members had the uncanny ability to hum or sing out in the middle of a session some show tune or symphonic theme which metaphorically represented precisely where another member was emotionally or otherwise. It cut through a lot of crap. Our metaphors may emerge from the art we have perceived, from the softness of line and color of a Renoir, from the angularity and strangeness of color of a Picasso, the depth and richness of color of a Rembrandt - who has ever seen the Man in the Golden Helmet and could not make it a part of himself? - the freshness of color and piquancy of shape of a Miro. The list is endless. Gestalt Institute of Cleveland Page 3 of 6 ​ The Dreamer and The Dream – Rainette Fantz Chapter 1-Metaphor and Fantasy They may also derive from the architecture we have viewed, from the clean strong lines of modern buildings, the gingerbread forms of the Victorian era, from the Acropolis to a Howard Johnson Motel.
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