New Haven

        New Haven

Clad only in a towel, Jack was making his way to his room. He crossed the hotel lobby, entered the elevator, and watched the door shut swiftly. A couple stood opposite him. 

He wore glasses; she, face chiseled in sorrowful anger, stared at him. Jack sensed in the corner a more obscured person. None seemed aware of his presence. He suddenly was outside the elevator looking upon it before he awoke. 

The thought the three were trapped in his dream elevator disturbed him. He was still obsessed by the existential dilemma when his colleague, Jill, found him at his desk brooding. 

Ordinarily the psychology professor would have passed merely gazing in envy of her colleague’s ease before a class. Noticing the worried expression, Jill stopped and asked what was bothering the English professor. Jack explained the dream and his concern about its premature conclusion. Jill paused before responding.

“What are you talking about?”

“About eternal confinement.”

“In your dream?”

“Yes.”

“As soon as you awoke, that dream was gone!”

“You think so?”

“I know so.”

“And that’s supposed to comfort me?”

“Why not?”

“Because the French couple and the third person, as real to me as you are standing here, are either confined in anger and voyeurism for eternity or, according to you, condemned to non-existence.”

“But it’s all a dream or a nightmare and best dealt with when forgotten.”

“This is the advice of a former psychiatrist?”

“Having practiced several years before I wound up teaching, one thing I learned was the work of the dream for most people is completed when the dream is.”

“But dream images are like those of the conscious state, aren’t they?”

    “Yes, more distorted and incongruous perhaps, but they’re images.”

“Are they not thoughts, then?”

Jill hesitated, suspecting Jack was about to lead the psychologist down a rhetorical garden path. 

“I now confine my notion of thought to the conscious state.”

Jack explored further the twisting path of philosophical and linguistic inquiry.

“If you imagine a red wheel barrow, is what you see in your mind’s eye an image?”

“Yes!”

“But not a thought?”

“No!”

“I think you’re splitting hairs.”

“Maybe.”

“Well, it really doesn’t matter. Even if the ménage a trois in my elevator was only image, I fear they’re condemned to eternal confinement or, as you suggest, existential extinction.”

“Right, existential extinction!”

Jack glanced out the window at the building across the quad and then at Jill.

“Unless I do something about it.”

“What can you do about it?”

“That’s what I was contemplating when you stopped by.”

Jill was even more intrigued by her friend’s behavior than she had been. To have found him brooding before class surprised her; to have heard him allude to doing something about a dream to resolve his obsession with it upset him.

“What were you thinking?”

“If I could re-enter that dream, I might be able to find out who the third person in the elevator is –“

“Was!”

“And stay in the elevator until we all exited.”

“Maybe the couple’s already left the elevator? And who cares who the third person is?”

“But they cannot have exited the elevator.”

“Why not?

“Because I’m no longer dreaming.”

Jill stared at Jack intently.

“And I care about who the third person is.”

“Jack, other than this nightmare which has caused you some anxiety, have you been feeling well lately?”

“I’m just concerned about the well-being of the three people I’ve created.”

“Created?”

“Yes, like the figures in Dante’s Inferno.”

“Dante created his figures on paper; so, write down what you dreamed and then write them out of the elevator.”

“I don’t think so.”

“Why not?”

“Then, they’d only be thoughts of the conscious mind and not as real as my imagined dream figures.”

Jill was sympathetic to the implication figures of the unconscious were more real than those of art, but she worried about her friend’s obsession with them.

“Jack! The dream is gone.”

“I don’t think so.”

“Then, where is it?”

 “In the same place where dead letters are, where emails carelessly deleted from the hard drive are, where other aborted dreams and nightmares are, wherever that is.”

Jill was torn between concern for the health of her colleague and the desire to continue with the emerging theoretical discussion. She opted for both.

 “How do you know the dream was aborted? Maybe the three personae of your dream liked being in the elevator. Maybe the dream was intended to go only as far as it did.” 

“Don’t you think I’ve already considered that? And the answer is no; I don’t think so.”

Jill paused to gather her thoughts.

“Have you tried interpreting the dream?”

The question caught Jack off guard. He was disappointed for having failed to even try to interpret the dream. Leaning on the sill of the window, he sought a rationalization for his failure.

“If I’ve learned anything from you it’s one need know all parts of the dream to begin to unravel it. I guess I felt it needed to be completed before I could even begin to interpret it.”

“But, isn’t it possible the dream was completed?”

Jack may have allowed his feelings about the dream figures to overwhelm his objectivity as reader and interpreter of narratives. He reluctantly allowed Jill her point and returned to his chair behind the desk.

“It’s possible.”

“You know being almost naked before people who aren’t startled by your nudity is a classic dream symbol. You probably were upset someone might discern the naked truth about you; but your unconscious not only reflected that fear, but also the reassurance your self-consciousness was unfounded.”

Jack had to acknowledge what Jill was suggesting could be true. He often felt he was being excessively praised by his students, thought their admiration was based on his his ability to read dramatically more than to provoke thought.

“Yes, that’s possible,” he begrudgingly acknowledged. “But how do you explain the French couple and the mysterious third man in the corner.”

 “Earlier you referred to the latter as the third person.”

“I’m pretty sure it was a man.”

“Jack, it’s not too big a leap from your third man to Orson Welles’s Third Man and the theme of the resurrection of a man many thought dead?”

“And how would the connection of those two third men relate to my near nakedness?”

“Perhaps to fear some part of you was dead. What the allusion to Reed’s film and the fact no one seems aware of your nakedness suggests is something you thought dead is not.”

“Maybe you left your previous profession prematurely, Jill.”

“Thank you. You like my interpretation?”

“Yes, but it doesn’t go far enough. It doesn’t take into account the couple was French.”

“The dream is not a work of art; not every part needs to contribute and add to an integrated whole.”

“That’s where the English and psychology professor differ. Dreams are works of art; silent films, written, photographed, and directed by the dreamer. The connections of the disparate parts seem distorted because they evoke not what life looks like but what it feels like.”

“And so you need to connect the French couple to the third man to your near nakedness?”

“Yes! Can you?”

The psychologist’s frown prefigured her reply.

“No.”

“You’d need more information.”

“Yes, but not more text, more context, the events of your waking life which probably triggered the dream.”

“I sometimes wonder if people truly understand me.”

Jill wondered if she were one of those Jack suspected misjudged him. Quickly concluding she was not, Jill continued trying to infer the unconscious intention of her colleague’s dream.

“So whereas I need more context to read further the dream, you still feel you need more text, more dream?”

“Yes.”

“You wish to return to the dream to identify the third man and help him and the French couple escape the elevator? How do you propose to descend into your unconscious and re-enter the dream, assuming it’s still there?”

“With your help.”

“My help?”

“I want you to hypnotize me.”

“Why?”

“To return to the elevator.”

“What makes you think my putting you under would accomplish that?”

“It’s the only way I can think of to see if that unfinished dream still exists in here.”

The two gazed sympathetically at each other for a few seconds. 

“Try it, Jill, for friendship’s sake. Put me out, into that dream, and, once conscious, I’ll never bother you or myself with the third man or the damned couple.”

“I’ve never used hypnosis for such a purpose; I’m not even sure it can be done.”

“But you must be sure it can be tried.”

“Yes, it could be tried.”

“Let’s try it, but not now. I’ve got a class. Later this afternoon?”

Jill walked to the window and looked out on the deserted campus. She turned back to Jack with more self-assurance.

“No, not today! I want to do a little research to see if anything like this has been tried and has worked since I’ve been out of practice.  I’ll stop in here tomorrow and let you know, okay?”

 “Okay!”

“Meanwhile, there’s something you can try tonight which might accomplish the same end, a kind of self-hypnosis.”

“What do you have in mind?”

“Have you retired, ready to sleep, and had the uncanny experience of being not only in a physical state like the one you awoke in that day, somewhere between consciousness and unconsciousness, and envisioned the images from a dream from which you had awakened that morning?”

Jack was surprised by the recognition he was not the only one to have had such an experience. 

“Yes.”

“Why don’t you try that tonight? When you’re comfortably reclined, your head snug on the pillow, see if any of the images of the elevator dream return. If not, recall as much of the dream as possible. Let’s see if revisiting the dream consciously helps you return to it unconsciously. Let’s try that before we try any hypnosis.”

“Okay.”

“Good.”

Jill left the office, and Jack picked up his Dante and left for class.

The following afternoon Jill stood once again in the doorway looking down at Jack behind the desk in his customary state of relaxation.

“Well, did it work? Did you get back into the elevator and deliver the couple and the third man?”

“I did get back.”

“All the way? Into the elevator?”

“Yes.”

Jill felt a little relief for she was loathed to try hypnosis and pleased her suggestion had apparently worked.

“And?”

“The French couple was gone. I had the impression the dream had gone on without me and they had gotten off the elevator.”

 “What about the third man? Was he still in the elevator?”

Jack bowed his head to delve further into his unconscious for more detail.

“I’m not sure. I felt his presence but my attention was concentrated on the space in the cabin where the couple had stood.”

The dreamer paused again to collect more detail.

“But yes, I believe the third man was still there. Not that I could get a good look at him, but I felt his vague, dark presence.” 

He paused. 

“But this time he no longer seemed crouched and cowered as he had been before.”

“You never mentioned that. You only said he was short.”

“I really never saw him so but only felt him so.”

Although Jill was not certain what had happened to Jack in this latest dream, she was more interested in the second descent than she had been in the first because she had helped induce the dream and now had more text.

“Did anything else happen?”

“Yes, the elevator began to ascend. As it did, the indicator registered the climb. The numbers stopped at ninety-nine. At first I thought the indicator was only capable of two digits. But I’m not sure; I was no longer monitoring numbers but feeling, euphorically, the elevator still rising.”

 “What happened next?

“The elevator stopped. The door opened, and I stepped into a lobby surrounded by windows.”

“Did the third man step out with you?”

“I definitely sensed him behind me.”

“Didn’t you look back?”

“Not immediately. I was too entranced by what I could see outside the windows. Clouds! Dozens and dozens of white, cumulous clouds against a light blue sky.”

Jack’s eyes lit up. 

“That was the first sign of color in the dream.  I don’t usually dream in color.  As the clouds moved across the blue sky, a bright sun temporarily blinded me. I turned away and only then, after recovering my vision, did I look for the third man.”

“And?” asked Jill.

“He wasn’t there. I was sure he followed me out of the elevator, but the only thing behind me was my shadow on the lobby floor.”

A smile of delight bordering on self-satisfaction came over Jill.

“What the hell you grinning about?”

“You were right; I may have given up psychiatry prematurely.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well it’s all perfectly clear whence the dream, what it means, and what it’s accomplished.”

“You going to share that with me?”

    “If it were a short story, you’d probably interpret it yourself.”

“It’s like a short story. No, more like a black and white Ingmar Bergman film. But you don’t believe dreams are works of art. So, why don’t you tell me what you think it means.”

“Why do you suppose the French couple was no longer in the elevator?”

“Because I didn’t want them in the elevator?”

“Precisely. And why do you suppose you didn’t want them there?”

 “Because I had put them there?”   

    “Right”

“But what about the third man? Who’s he?”

    “What did you find when you turned away from the blinding sun; ah, I love that “blinding sun,” isn’t that what you English profs call an oxymoron, a bit of paradox? Did you find the cowering and crouching third man? But first ask yourself why was he cowering originally?”

“Because he was guilty?”

“Like whom?”

“Like me?”

“And what did you find behind you when you looked for him?”

“My shadow.”

    “So, who is the third man?”

Jack did not have to think long.

“I’m the third man.”

“You couldn’t ask for a better symbol of a guilty self than what Jung called the shadow.”

    “But who are French man and woman? Whose imprisonment have I fashioned?”

    “Do you actually know any French people?”

    “No, not really.”

They seemed at a standstill: Jill looking for the next question to pose, Jack, still trying on his own to discover anyone in his life he had recently helped put in bondage. But as Jack retreated into the recent past, he suddenly realized a failure in communication in his description of his dream to Jill.

“I have a confession to make.”

“That might help us identify the French couple.”

“I’m not sure they were French.”

“Not French?”

“No! Identifying them as French may have been shorthand for their strangeness. The French have always seemed strange to me.”

“Hell, Jack, that’s important. Every detail in a dream is critical; just as every detail in a poem is germane to the overall meaning.”

“See, you’re beginning to think dreams are works of art.”

“Never mind; if they weren’t French, what were they?”

    “They seemed time-weary. In retrospection, I’d say they were more generally European than specifically French, perhaps more eastern than western European.”

Jill’s eyes brightened. She stood up and motioned Jack to follow him.

“Come!”

“Where?”

“Oh do not ask what is it? Just let us go and make our visit.”

Recovering from the slight shock and huge delight his colleague had remembered and could cite an allusion he had once made to the poetry of Eliot, Jack stood and followed Jill out of the office.

They entered the Gothic-styled library, made their way through the labyrinth of niches to the spiral staircase, and were about to ascend when Jill redirected Jack toward the elevator. Jill’s destination was only one flight up, but he hoped the ride might contribute to the final step in the therapy. Jack, who easily understood Jill’s intention smiled. 

Jill led him into the room with the latest newspapers. The psychology professor, feeling more like the old psychiatric detective, strode to the shelf containing the past month’s editions of the New Haven Record.  She lifted from the pile three issues, and pulled out the fourth. She briefly glanced at it, and walked to a table, where she laid out the paper, front page up and gestured Jack to come look. 

On the front page was a photograph of a tall, lean, Turkish paramilitary policeman, wearing a red beret, a khaki uniform, and a red, white, and blue polyester vest. He was emerging from the sea up the slight rise of a shoreline. He bent forward, his head bowed, looking down and slightly away from what he held in his arms, the limp, lifeless body of a drowned toddler dressed in his red shirt, short pants, and brown shoes.

Jack had glimpsed the photograph three days ago at breakfast. Now he studied the image for only a few seconds before everything became clear.