My Cousin's
Dream My cousin dreamt that he observed from directly over the stadium a Yankees-Red Sox game. The Sox were batting in the bottom of the 9th inning, and with two out a man by the name of Daniel Ishben batted with a full count and the bases full, vying to break a 2-2 tie. Ishben surprised the Yankees by hitting a nubber up the center of the infield, trickling beneath the pitcher's 2 legs and between the 2 confused infielders on either side of the 2nd base bag. Two runs scored, including the runner who had occupied 2nd base, bringing the game to an abrupt end. I'd like to impress upon you the dream's unique mathematical properties. It was apparent from a review of my cousin's detailed dream diary that around the time my cousin documented this baseball dream, I noted some other peculiarity about his dreams in recent weeks. Something that escaped him. The use of a variety of former residences as dream settings. He dreamed of his childhood home, his current home, and the residence he occupied just prior to this one. Some hunch compelled him to examine whether the numbers associated with these addresses could be mapped on the highly "numerical" baseball diamond, with its 1st, 2nd, and 3rd base and, yes, it's "home" plate, point of both ORIGIN and DESTINATION in the pastoral sport of baseball. It occurred to me that his childhood home - featured prominently in these dreams - may correspond in some way to home plate in the baseball dream. I remember the address of his childhood home -- 121. How could "121" fit the baseball diamond? Well, if you are a batter standing at home plate, 3B is one one unit of distance away, second base is two units of distance away, and 1B is one unit of distance away. "121" is an expression of the view of the infield from home plate. I was inspired at this time to consider his current residence at the time of the dream, which was 210. If he were viewing the infield from 3B, 2B is immediately to his left, followed by 1B, and then home plate, to which we can assign a 0 because it is not a base and cannot be occupied, and yet comes before 1B (i.e. before 1). 2 - 1 - 0. Little did he know at the time that he would soon be moving to a city where he'd actually put down roots nearly as deep as those he put down in occupying his childhood home for 16 years. By symbolizing his current residence as 3B, this drream is communicating that he will soon begin the next meaningful chapter in his life, at which point he will have come full circle from a HOME OF ORIGIN to the HOME OF HIS MAKING. Now if plot the numbers on the bases, "121" from Home Plate plots 1 on 3B, 2 on 2B, and 1 on 1B. "210" from 3B also plots the 2 on 2B, also plots the 1 on 1B, and plots a 0 on home plate (which makes sense since home plate is not really a base but a point of origin that precedes 1B). These two addresses then give us numerical assignments for all four bases. Home plate = 0 And then I remembered the address just before his current address, which is 2025. Just how does the four-digit address "2025" express the view of the infield from 2nd base? If we read the bases from the vantage point of 2B (and this is the same whether we read clockwise or counterclockwise), we read 1-0-1-2. If we double this number, we end up with 2-0-2-4, just one digit shy of the "2025" address! We do not have to just double 1-0-1-2 willy nilly without an explanation. There may be meaning in the fact 2024 (an approximation of the "2025" address) is derived from a doubling of 1-0-1-2. Unlike the other bases, 2B stares directly into that special place on the diamond that cannot be occupied and that serves as both point of origin and destination. (I am also reminded of the statement from Jung that one cannot directly see or know the Unconscious source of oneself, but only infer it indirectly, much like one only sees oneself in a mirror or much like astronomers have to infer black holes from its pull on nearby stars). So what does one see when one looks home from 2B? The four digits suggests that the view of 2B is included among the diamond viewed. This suggests self-awareness. At this point, I am inspired to think of the diamond as a representation of the human psyche, the structure and dynamics of which preoccupied my friend intellectually before he fell asleep. Then it occurred to me. The dream, which many theorists equate to a form of sleep thinking, may have extended his waking thinking about the human psyche. The dream may have picked up where he left off in his pre-sleep reflections. In this dream may be the answer to some important questions, or at least a useful perspective. Human development, at both the micro (day-to-day dynamics) and macro (individuation across life span) levels, can be conceptualized as movement along the basepaths. At the point of origin, all thoughts originate from outside our awareness. The batter Daniel Ishben in the dream supports this interpretation, as "Ich bin" is German for "I am." If I trace back the evolution of all my thinking, I end up with a dimly perceived or spontaneous hunch, vision, or feeling. As we take control of the thought, subjecting it to our consciousness, it is refined to the point where we begin to think of it as our own product (1B, 2B). At some point, we may even identify with it, or if we're talking about our identity, we may become so foreclosed on our identity as to deny ourselves the freedom and flexibility necessary for further growth or adjustment. We are said at this point to be stuck on 2B, stranded on our own island to tend to our self-awareness. We may pride ourselves on our distance from our sources, developing a prejudice that causes us to frown on all things intuitive, spontaneous, undeveloped, or outside our control. (Actually, I have indicted the whole field of Psychology as being so stuck). We need to keep open the conduit to our Unconscious (and the irrational, empirical world outside us). This is what it means to round the bases, to eventually move forward by returning to home plate from 2B. Development here has the feel of a hermeneutical circle. The batter returns home as a runner, but he is not quite in the same place, for he has increased his team's standing by one run. Now around the time he experienced this baseball dream - and indeed over my entire lifespan - he dreamt of tornadoes. A tornado is this basic development structure - this coil - expressed in the substance of wind. The winds inside a tornado move in the same direction in which the runners round the bases - that is, counterclockwise - and debris that ascends in the funnel can be said to repeatedly visit all points but at a higher elevation. Even more coincidentally, scientists believe that inside the funnel - at its center - at its eye (or I) -- is a stillness - a space in which air travels calmly in a direct vertical path up into the atmosphere. This fact has its counterpart in the baseball dream, when Ishben (I am) hits a nubber (a slow roller) directly up the center of the diamond inside a whirlwind of confused and crowded infielders. The connection between these two motifs, the baseball diamond and the tornado - may have been alluded to in another one of this person's dreams (990110) -- when he dreamed a tornado raked over rocks in a dark room, transforming coal instantaneously into perfectly cut and polished diamonds. The tornado also halved a penny - a powerful image akin to splitting the atom. The penny is the indivisible unit of value in our economic system and its halving may refer to Ishben's grounder, which halved the baseball diamond into two triangles. The triangle on the right containing the vertices HOME-1B-2B would form the symbolic equivalent of what Jung called a "progressive" phase of development, while the triangle on the left containing 2B-3B-HOME would form the symbolic equivalent of an equally significant "regressive" phase. Both progression and regression form an indivisible unit of value in the sense that one without the other compromises development. I will revisit this issue later when I take up the pitfalls of psychological development. Having discussed what 2B meant at length, perhaps I should elaborate on what it means to be on third, because it is apparent from the math here that each of the bases is a little different. The address of home plate is made up of the DISTANCES from THIS place of each of the other places on the diamond. 3B is different. 3B is made up of the COORDINATES of the other bases themselves independently of their distance from (i.e., relationship to) 3B. 2B is TWO because it is "second" base, not because it is two base-paths from 3B -- because it isn't. And 1B is ONE because it is "first" base, not because it is one base-path from 3B -- because it isn't. 3B would appear to refer to a very objective accounting of where one has been before one stepped on 3B. This is actually descriptive of this point in the cycle, of the role of self-reflection within the cycle. As I mentioned earlier, we also personalize - or determine the personal meaning of - aspects of the external world we encountered on the way to 2B. In other words, we think of aspects of our involvement in the world from a perspective that helps us to understand ourselves better, differentiate our identities, and consolidate our position. We also at this time take stock of the process. Having valued what we created -- and remaining somewhat attached to the previous state out of which we unfold -- we are retrospective. We look backward as well as forward - and this gives us a sense of how we are in the middle of a process. |