flying

I'm surprised it never struck me before to consider fantasies/dreams of flying in relation to social ontology. Of course, with these things, it comes down to listening to patients closely to discern that there is an important relation.

One patient mentioned a flying dream. Of course it was replete with dual sense of being "high" because he is an addict, but when he mentioned "not being limited by gravity" and "defying gravity," my ears pricked up.

I asked him to anthropomorphize gravity (in plainer English, I asked him to pretend that gravity was controlled by a person, and what that person might think about him). He said that he might feel

"bedazzled, curious, angry, embarrassed"  

 

I ask him to explain the reactions and he said, the man would probably think: "how is he doing this?" "I've never got to do this (get away with this as a kid)", "He can't get away with this." We discuss potential envy feelings as well as the awe in bedazzled adjective. The embarrassment adjective was interesting but we didn't get a chance to go there.

He related these feelings to cops and  judges, but the relation went further and back to his mother who didn't like client riding motorcycles and dirt bikes when he was young...

 

Even when we get to abstractions like Time, Space, the "Law of Nature," sleep, etc. we are still dealing with relations that ultimately defused from higher interpersonal (i.e. oedipal) relations. Of course, a natural disaster, having one's city/home bombed, and other interactions with these entities can be traumatic itself and cause a defusion (as can chemically induced feelings). However, most have an interpersonal origin.