I am not sure where
Fred had obtained it, but the book he lent me was Freud’s ‘Psychopathology of
Everyday Life’ in a Pelican paperback edition, slightly dog-eared suggesting it
had been well used. He made it clear that I was to give it back ‘on pain of
death’; and I did… eventually.
The book is not
easy to get into. Despite my voracious reading habits and my by now extensive
vocabulary, many of the words were difficult to pronounce in mind, the concepts
difficult to grasp, and the context (Vienna and Europe at the turn of the
century) was foreign (if you will excuse the pun). But the ideas were
fascinating, mind-boggling, and thought provoking. My current personal version
of the book (bought about 5 years later) is now yellowed with age, dog-eared
with several pages turned down, and like many others of my books, it has
travelled around the world.
The first important
idea it left with this then 16 year old, was that the mind had layers; you
could think you were in total charge of your thoughts, but there was this
underground river of old memories that could emerge to interrupt (or swamp) your
thoughts during the day or at night. It made some sort of sense even then; in
two ways. Over the years, I had had some weird dreams that only half made
sense, and had troubled me for days. I supposed that in the past I had eventually
dismissed them, but this book (and Freud’s ‘The Interpretation of Dreams’ which
I was to read about 6 years later) suggested you could discover meaning by
allowing the mind to wander, and noting bits of the journey. I began to keep a
scribbled diary, on waking from a dream, trying to make sense of myself.
One of the pages
still turned down in my own copy of the book relates to how we remember things.
I have always had vivid dreams, and Freud points out that this is how most
dreams are remembered. But in a brief few sentences, he also noted that many
people remember visually (ie in pictures), while some remember as if replaying
conversations (so-called ‘auditifs), and yet others remember through feelings
or the body (so-called ‘moteurs’). We need to set aside a wider discussion of
this for the time being, and that it may well have presaged the ideas I gained
from a much later treasured training in ‘Neurolinguistic Programming’ (NLP).
I have always
remembered in detailed pictures, and whenever I mentioned this, I had always
been looked at a bit strangely. The book helped me to think I was ‘sort of normal’.
From memory, my reading the book was not long after a time I was in a Drama
Club play for which maybe I had not studied my lines with due diligence. On
stage, and in front of an adjudicator, I dried up. In sudden panic, I found
myself visualising my copy of the play, ‘saw’ the right page, mentally scanned
down the lines, found my place and the missing lines, and began to speak. I am
sure it was obvious to the audience, but I felt I had managed to cover my
tracks. It was mentioned in adjudication, but not severely marked down. When I
told a few people later about my embarrassing experience, and the way I had recovered,
I got some very weird looks, a marked lack of response, and a rapid change in
the conversation direction. I was left perplexed - until I found this little gem in Freud’s
book. So, I was OK; I was not as odd as I had come to believe. Nevertheless, I
had the nouse to realise that my little report seemed to make people
uncomfortable, so the episode was dropped.
My own thinking was
that I wished I had been able to understand all this some years earlier. I recalled
an embarrassing episode from when I was aged 11. I had entered a public singing
competition at the Lido Theatre in Cliftonville. I had rehearsed a song (which
one I have forgotten) with my mother playing the piano, and my parents came
along to watch their choir boy with the golden voice, secure in their knowledge
I might very well win the prize (I have also forgotten what that was). On stage,
with a strange pianist, a jolly compere engaged in me in general chitchat to
put me at my ease but, sadly, this had the opposite effect. When the music
began, and I came to sing, I had forgotten half the words of a song I knew very
well and had sung many times before. I was mortified, and even at that age,
wished I could shrivel up and disappear through the stage. I suppose singing is
somewhat more auditory than visual, and depends on practice to remember the
sequence of words and how they fit with the music. I had not rehearsed enough,
was a bit cocksure, and was thrown by the compere. Even to this day, while I
can immerse myself in a wide range of music and songs, I have severe trouble
remembering more than snatches of a song. Luckily, in general knowledge
quizzes, I am usually surrounded by family members who remember every word of
every song. Clearly, I was traumatised at age 11. Equally clearly, in
retrospect, I could have written out the words on paper, and coloured them to
help me remember. If only I had known some of the tricks. Another upshot, of
course, was that I have avoided trying to sing competitively, or indeed in
public, even though my treble voce matured into a rich tenor, and is now a
strong (if elderly) baritone. The other result, was that in my father’s eyes
(or perhaps in my perception of what I thought he could have thought), I had
failed. The final (and longterm) implication has been that I work extremely hard
at all of my public presentations to ensure I am clear, can remember what I am
going to say, and have practised assiduously. I am also somewhat obsessive
about ensuring that any equipment I am likely to use works well, or I am able
fairly quickly to access a substitute bit of technology – all very ‘belt and
braces’.
Now, I revel in
being able to draw on this visual memory. In daily life when someone has lost
an object, or can’t recall the origin of a picture or an object, I find it easy
to get a context and pin it down. It pleases those close to me, but I know it
irritates others. So be it. Professionally, I have been able to incorporate the
visual into lectures, trying to literally ‘paint a picture’ for the audience of
my understanding of an issue. More formally, I have actively used images in my
Powerpoint presentations. A lot of my training program successes have come from
using videotaped example. We will return to this later.
So Fred had begun
this dialogue. We discussed the concepts in depth, and at some length, while
playing bridge or just relaxing in the prefects’ room. The dialogue also went
on in my mind with a heightened awareness of what I might be experiencing. I
was hooked. Yes, I had this nebulous fantasy of becoming a doctor, but now it
had subtly changed. My new direction was to become a neurosurgeon; someone who
could understand the brain and how it functioned, and perhaps have the skills
to help others when necessary.
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