The New York Times has been publishing a blog, “All-Nighters,” which it describes as “an exploration of insomnia, sleep and the nocturnal life.” It’s of personal interest to me since I’ve suffered insomnia ever since my mother’s death four years ago.
I found the March 19 entry, “Why We Need to Dream” by Jonah Lehrer, especially interesting because it dispatches with the argument of recent years that dreams are erratic firings of the brain’s components — sound and fury representing nothing.
Lehrer cites plenty of recent research demonstrating that not to be so at all. Researchers now say dreams are likely efforts to discover associations between all events and images. In other words, they assist problem solving and leave no ostensibly unrelated material unexamined (and thus their weirdness). Indeed, dreams are important to the creative process generally:
In recent years, scientists have discovered that R.E.M. sleep isn’t just essential for the formation of long-term memories: it might also be an essential component of creativity.
In a 2004 paper published in Nature, Jan Born, a neuroscientist at the University of Lübeck, described the following experiment: a group of students was given a tedious task that involved transforming a long list of number strings into a new set of number strings. This required the subjects to apply a painstaking set of algorithms. However, Born had designed the task so that there was an elegant shortcut, which could only be uncovered if the subjects saw the subtle links between the different number sets. When left to their own devices, less than 25 percent of people found the shortcut, even when given several hours to mull over the task. However, when Born allowed people to sleep between experimental trials, they suddenly became much more clever: 59 percent of all participants were able to find the shortcut. Born argues that deep sleep and dreaming “set the stage for the emergence of insight” by allowing us to mentally represent old ideas in new ways.
This is certainly no surprise to me. I’ve told clients for years that when they find themselves blocked in a creative project, to “sleep on it.” It’s old advice, but I long ago learned that if I write the first two paragraphs of a column before going to bed, the column virtually writes itself the next morning.
It’s a great feeling to see this confirmed by neuroscience. It also validates Freud’s position that dreams are intimately connected to real-life events, no matter how other-worldly their narrative is, and have important information to impart. In my experience, dreams not only reveal the positive unseen associations the personal psyche makes. They also reveal the unhelpful associations that may, for example, underlie a repetition compulsion.
Dismissed in recent years as some sort of quackery, much of Freud’s and Jung’s depth psychology is increasingly reiterated by brain science. Depth psychology was the subject of my PhD studies and it’s quite gratifying to see its fascinations, like dream imagery, regain the attention they deserve.
(Of course, in another Times blog post, a contributor reports that sleep deprivation eases depression, leaving the question of what a depressed artist should do!)
Tuesday, June 16, is my birthday. It’s also Bloomsday, Dublin’s annual celebration of writer James Joyce and his world-changing novel, Ulysses, published in 1922. Bloomsday is named after Leopold Bloom, the protagonist of Ulysses, which describes a single day in his life, June 16, 1904.
I’ve always enjoyed the coincidence of being born on the day that the 20th Century’s most notorious novel took place. The book was banned in the United States until 1933 and was still considered risque when I was a kid. (No, I wasn’t born in 1930.) I remember buying the novel at Miller’s Bookstore in Buckhead when I was in high school and getting some very disapproving attitude from the woman who sold it to me. This quality of unconventionality and defying authority — particularly moralistic and puritanical authority — was well established in me early on.
In some ways, buying the book was prescient, too, because, being full of references to the original Ulysses, it demonstrated the broad significance of the mythology that had already come to fascinate me in my Latin classes and is so much a part of the depth psychology I studied for my PhD. I later learned that Joyce’s daughter had undergone an analysis with Carl Jung, whose specific work in depth psychology led me to study the field.
It’s strange how much of life makes sense in retrospect. Events that seemed completely random and unrelated weave themselves into a sensible narrative and picture of character. (I described something of this in an earlier post about my continual encounter with the work of Emanuel Swedenborg.) James Hillman, the post-Jungian whose work has obsessed me for almost 20 years now, describes such experiences as flashes of the soul’s destiny. Neuroscience is providing mounting evidence that much more of us is given with birth than we’ve previously believed. Whether you regard character and destiny as qualities of the indefinable “soul” or some literal organic process, the effect is the same: Our lives have meaningful telos.
I hasten to say that this is not an either-or proposition. The Greeks analogously understood that, from the empirical perspective, we live in a heliocentric universe, but they also believed the image of Apollo crossing the sky in a fiery chariot was important as an “as if” metaphor. Likewise, we know that we are not blank slates at birth, but, not knowing exactly how we become ourselves, the poetic image of soul expresses the felt sense of this mystery by which our lives seem directed. Poetry is as important as science in our lived experience. It really is.
The last year has been painful in several respects. Our cat of more than 12 years, Marlene, died. This remains so painful to me that I haven’t written about it. Marlene put me to bed every night, climbing on my chest and rubbing my “heart charkra” until I fell asleep.
Another painful loss was Creative Loafing’s discontinuance of my “Headcase” column. As I’ve written earlier, I was in great need of a break after about 20 years of writing it. But it’s become increasingly apparent to me how important it was in my own personal process. I’ve had a couple of offers to resume it with other publications but I’ve avoided making a decision. Part of my grief around this pertains to watching Creative Loafing suffer the declining fortune of the press all over America.
I continue to feel great pain about my father’s disinheritance of me, which I’ve written about earlier (and I did decide to decline participation in a TV documentary on disinheritance). Such an act is calculated to make the disinherited child feel rejected for the rest of his life — not only by the parent but by siblings who, by their honoring of the disinheritance, reinforce the parent’s rejection.
At the same time, however, my dreams during the last few months have turned from raw expressions of anger at my father to more and more recollections of pleasant times with him. We’re destined to love our parents, it seems, even if they reject us — and I guess parents are destined to love their children even when they feel rejected by them. His own mother long ago told me my father would never really grow up. After horrible, often weekly phone calls in which my father used to call me every name imaginable, my mother used to get on the phone afterward and tell me, her voice tremulous, to ignore him.
I remain enormously grateful to my partner Wayne, who has shown me more love than anyone in my life ever did. His mother, like his father before he died, has likewise treated me with open-hearted love that is so alien to me in a parent that I have often found accepting it difficult.
Finally, I’ve noticed that as I get older, I become ever more haunted by the innumerable friends who died during the worst years of the AIDS epidemic, including my first partner Rick. Most of them were barely into their 30s. It is an ongoing source of mystification to me why so many friends, far better people than me, died and I’m still around. The memory of the holocaust of the ’80s and my increasing appreciation for the love I do find in the world make me more impatient than ever with needless suffering.
I’m especially appalled by politicians and their media sycophants. Barack Obama, who seemed like such an avatar of genuine change, is rapidly taking on the appearance of another political conman, literally instiutionalizing the corrupt ad hoc policies of the Bush administration and ignoring the promises he made in nearly every respect. As I often tell Wayne, the only good thing about getting old is knowing I probably won’t be around when the U.S. turns into a bona fide banana republic.
At the top of this post is one of my favorite songs, “Anthem,” by Leonard Cohen. This is my favorite version, by Perla Batalla and Julie Christensen from the 2004 film about Cohen. The imagery in the video reinforces the underlying message of the first noble truth of Buddhism — that life is suffering. (Cohen is a Buddhist.) The song’s point is that suffering is inevitable but must be opposed when it is brought about by governments. Still suffering’s direct experience is essential to finding meaning: “There is a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in.” And it is this shattering — the breaking of the heart, really — and the apprehension of meaning that prepare us for love: “To every heart, love will come, but like a refugee.”
I think this is what I’ve come to understand more deeply in the last year. We hurt in order to make space for love. Once it inhabits our hearts, its safekeeping for ourselves and others is all that matters.
Okay, I need to let everyone know that I’m awaking to full enlightenment by 10 p.m. Sunday. This means that after tonight you cannot reasonably question anything I have to say. Of course, it also means that even if you do question me, I’ll respond with such equanimity that you’ll gladly believe the sky is a lovely shade of puce, just to keep soaking up my vibe.
How do I know this? I attended the talk and blessing by Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche (above) at the Atlanta Shambhala Center Thursday night. At the end of his talk, the Sakyong blessed each person present. Part of this was receiving a red thread with a “vajra knot” that we were instructed to wear for three days.
The event was seriously a wonderful experience. I’ve hung about the periphery of the Shambhala Center for over 20 years. It teaches meditation in two series of workshops, along with regular classes in Buddhism. It’s part of an international organization founded by the Sakyong’s father, Chogyam Trungpa.
I promoted the center’s work in my Creative Loafing column, Headcase, for years. While there are many reasons to meditate, the most important to my neurotic mind is learning to watch my thinking without getting attached to every despondent, judgmental, angry thought. Buddhists have been doing this for thousands of years and, as I’ve also frequently written, psychology is now borrowing the technology. About the only self-help book I ever recommend to clients is Jon Kabat-Zinn’s “The Mindful Way through Depression.”
I’m not a good meditator. I’m the least patient person I know and sitting still to watch my brain’s frantic activity while I try to direct my attention to my breath often feels agonizing to me, no matter how useful. I had a pretty amazing experience in regard to this at the Shambhala Center Thursday night before the Sakyong began his talk.
‘I’m leaving!’
I arrived before 7:30 but, despite having made the requisite donation for a seat, the meditation hall was full. I was told I’d have to sit outside one of the doors. The more I considered this, the more annoyed I got and the more I thought, “Fuck it, I’m leaving.” I was literally about to walk out when I looked up at a framed piece of calligraphy that turned out to be by Pema Chodron (above right), one of my favorite teachers in this tradition. The calligraphy was a single word: “Wait.”
It was one of those synchronicities that is so timely and potent that I laughed out loud, telling myself to calm down. Then, as it turned out, several center volunteers offered me seats in the hall and I declined them, genuinely feeling quite at peace sitting outside the main doors.
Because my knees are shot, I have to sit in a chair instead of on a cushion when meditating. Finally, though, I did accept an offer of a cushion that turned out to be almost directly in front of the Sakyong. It was the first time in three years that I’ve tried to sit on a cushion and I was surprised that my knees did not bother me.
Until…until I stood up to receive my blessing. I felt like I was 100 years old and could barely walk. I thought I was going to fall over. That would not be fun.
A light-hearted leader
The Sakyong himself, in his mid-‘40s, absolutely blew me away. He completely embodied the levity and seriousness that I’ve often encountered in mature spiritual teachers. He talked about the importance of the heart and reminded us that the Shambhala path isn’t about self-improvement but about waking up and bringing basic goodness to society at large.
I could not help comparing my experience of the Sakyong’s vibe with that of another spiritual teacher, Mother Meera, whom I’ve visited several times in Germany. Mother Meera conducts darshan – the meeting with the “guru” — in complete silence. People who attend darshan kneel before her one by one. She looks into your eyes, while holding your head. The experience, in both its collective and personal respects, can be overwhelming.
Interestingly, in one of her books, Mother Meera describes what she’s doing with each person during darshan as untying knots in consciousness. (My partner Wayne described exactly this image after meeting her, even though he’d never read her description.) I couldn’t help but recall this after being given the knotted thread during the blessing ceremony with the Sakyong.
Generally, the Sakyong’s vibe was lighter than Mother Meera’s, but just as palpable. I’ve found this lightness to be true of most people with longterm association with Shambhala. It’s quite a contrast to the gloomy, controlling dogma of most of the world’s religions. In them, you are actually taught to combat your sinful original nature, whereas Shambhala wants us to give expression to the basic goodness that is at the core of all beings.
Another aspect of Shambhala I like is its emphasis on art, considered a meditative path itself. The center is a beautiful space and it was full of striking flower arrangements — ikebana — Thursday night. In this, Shambhala is also different from many Protestant religions which often maintain a puritanical (and guilty) attitude toward the expression of beauty. As James Hillman has taught me, beauty is the soul’s primary longing.
Time Magazine’s website features an excellent essay entitled “The Third Wave of Therapy” by John Cloud. The third wave follows the psychodynamic and cognitive-behavioral waves and is called Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT). Its creator is Steven Hayes.
In actuality, there’s nothing very new about ACT. I was stunned, reading the lengthy article, to find no mention of Buddhism — just one rather dismissive reference to Hayes’ engagement in his youth in some esoteric Eastern practices. But, as far as I can see, there’s very little difference in ACT and the mindfulness training I’ve learned through my participation in the Shambhala meditation path and, before that, zen.
Like classic mindfulness training, ACT teaches clients to accept their “negative” feelings rather than try to dispel them. It also encourages clients to identify and maintain commitment to their values. I have long tried to communicate this to my own clients and it’s often met with resistance.
Cognitive behavioral theory (CBT) like psychodynamic therapy, has thoroughly penetrated the culture, so that clients often arrive thinking they should be able to completely eliminate their troubling thoughts, whether they’re anxiety- or depression-producing. But nothing has been more obvious to me that in many clients — and myself! — this simply isn’t possible.
Mindfulness training teaches, exactly as Hayes does, that if we learn to disidentify with our thoughts, they have far less power over us. Instead of getting hooked into them, we can learn to let them percolate out of mind. The suffering the thoughts cause becomes much less inhibiting, leaving one with a kind of bittersweet feeling about life. I well remember my first apprehension of that following my first Shambhala workshop.
I’m delighted to see Hayes’ work coming more into mainstream awareness and I’m not surprised to see that some cognitive-behavioral therapists are on their usual rampage about it, claiming it doesn’t have adequate empirical proof yet. In fact, several studies have demonstrated that it is significantly more effective than CBT, but it is true that more research needs to be done. (I was also surprised that the article didn’t mention the brain-imaging studies that have been done with meditators. Nor did it mention the annual meeting between psychologists and the Dalai Lama to discuss brain science and mindfulness.)
My suspicion is that, by avoiding comparisons to Buddhist mindfulness, the essay’s writer was trying to avoid contributing to ACT’s rather cultish reputation and keep it “scientific.” In fact, looking at other articles about Hayes’ work, I found this in an interview with him:
NHP: A lot of what you’re describing sounds Buddhist-inspired. How does ACT differ from Buddhism, both in theory and in the practice it requires?
SCH: Buddhism has a lot of wisdom in it, as do all of the major spiritual and religious traditions, but it emerged from pre-scientific times. Some of its specific ideas show that lineage; some of its methods require weeks, months, and years to work. ACT is in the same general psychological space, but it’s driven by a scientific theory, and its methods are designed to be quicker and more focused. I find it very encouraging that the two overlap because ACT did not come from Buddhism or any specific religious or spiritual tradition. It came from modern contextual psychology. If things from very different starting points overlap in their end points, to my mind this increases the chance that they’re both on to something.
I’ve had my own problems in this regard. Much of my work on my master’s degree was in transpersonal psychology, specifically Buddhist psychology, and was inspired by both my participation in 12-step recovery and the meditation practice I learned from Shambhala.
After a lifetime of conventional psychotherapy, I had found these two modalities far more effective and was excited to find that they had become relatively synthesized in transpersonal psychology. Later, I became interested in Jungian psychology, which also has a strong spiritual component, and, then, I became hypnotized by James Hillman’s soul-based archetypal psychology.
But I grew very tired of having to defend my interests during the last 10 years, when CBT and so-called positive psychology took hold. This wasn’t helped by the fact that transpersonal work became Oprah-ized and turned into New Age baby food. Eckhart Tolle, Oprah’s guru du jour, is also a rewriter of Buddhist psychology and way too cultish for my taste. So, being of a primarily intellectual disposition, I don’t like being identified with a movement that is so touchy-feely, even though I’m well aware intellect needs some of that to humanize itself.
So, I’m glad to see mindfulness training gaining more mainstream acceptance. Give the essay a read.
One of the frequent criticisms of psychology and psychiatry is their penchant for dreaming up new disorders or over-diagnosing existing ones. They are assisted in this by Big Pharma which is always trying to find new uses for existing drugs.
Probably the most familiar example of this is the gross over-diagnosing of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder among kids. Boredom and acting out get pathologized as an illness, so parenting and the educational system don’t need to be examined.
Sometimes, of course, shifts in the culture do create ostensibly new disorders. The question is always whether the underlying problem is new or it’s an old problem with a new face, inflected by developments in the culture.
The latest is — sit down — “Truman Show Delusion,” whose sufferers believe they are subjects of their own reality TV show. Two Montreal psychiatrists are writing a paper about their discovery now but have already stirred up a debate.
The name of the disorder is borrowed from the film, The Truman Show, in which a man slowly comes to the awareness that his every moment is being filmed.
Read the entire story in Canada’s National Post here.
The often entertaining bloggingheads.tv recently featured a discussion between two legal scholars, Cass Sunstein and Eugene Volokh, about the comparative value of newspapers and blogs.
The New York Times framed their discussion as an attempt to determine if blogs are “bad for us.” This is of course a separate question from the one of the therapeutic value of personal blogs taken up below. In this case the concern is information dispersal, interpretation and the effects on culture at large.
The New York Times has been publishing a blog, “All-Nighters,” which it describes as “an exploration of insomnia, sleep and the nocturnal life.” It’s of personal interest to me since I’ve suffered insomnia ever since my mother’s death four years ago.
