Monsters

I watched some docs on Freud last night.  I've never been very versed in Freudian psychology.  I knew the usual things people know, that pleasure is sexual and that the mind has three parts, Larry, Mo, and Curly, better known as the id, the ego, and the superego.  I DID know that literature changed after Freud's "Interpretation of Dreams" was published in 1900.  New century, new ideas.  One needn't have read the book.  The ideas spread like pollen in the wind.  They went everywhere.  

But man. . . was he spitballing.  He had ideas, and he was a creative genius, but you can't call what he was doing "science."  

"My observations have led me to the conclusion. . . ."

Sounds like science.  But Freud, it seems, was making it up on the fly.  His daughter Anna did therapy sessions with him for a few years.  What was true for others was not true for her, apparently.  He believed that all people are bisexual and he thought women should be allowed to express their sexual desires.  But not Anna.  No. . . no sex for Anna, hetero or homo.  He even tried to cure her of her reportedly incessant masturbation.  

Smoked 20 cigars a day.  Got cancer of the jaw.  Had part of his palate removed and a prosthetic made.  Kept smoking cigars and using morphine and cocaine.  His jaw got so rotten that it stunk, and, as reported in one documentary, drew flies.  His doctor helped him end his life with a morphine drip.  

I took this photograph of my college roommate's girlfriend for my first photography class at the university.  She and my girlfriend were best friends and they shared a dorm room.  It was fun.  

But. . . do we need a Freudian psychiatrist to interpret this pic?  Ho!  The old cottage dripping vines, the dark doorway opening to the mysterious interior, the naked girl. What dangers lie within?  What fears and desires?  

I don't know anything about it, really.  But I know this.  We had borrowed my girlfriend's car to drive out into the woods down a rotten dirt track to get to the abandoned shack, and on the way out, I managed to get her car stuck up to the axles in loose sugar sand.  Freud famously said there are no accidents.  

I didn't tell my girlfriend about getting stuck.  

Everyone liked the photo.  

Last night, I had the worst nightmares of my life.  Never anything like it before.  Time and again, I woke, heart racing in a panic.  Everything was horrible.  Everything was hideous.  I believed at one point that I had actually cracked, had gone over and wouldn't come back.  I had serious concerns.

I'm not going to watch any more docs on Freud.  I don't like him anymore.  

But maybe it was the summer equinox that did it.  I hadn't carried out any of the naked singing and dancing rituals that must have been required.  

I'm going out tonight, first for dinner at my favorite Italian restaurant with Tennessee.  I want that terrific seafood plate again.  After dinner, we are going to meet some of "the boys."  Not sure where yet, but I know I don't want to drink so very much and I don't want to stay out late.  

Mostly I want a good night's sleep full of pleasant dreams.  If I have another night like the last one. . . .  

Listen.  Thar be monsters!

Sleepless nights in your bed
All these thoughts dance around in my head
Close your eyes count the blessings[?] go to sleep;


Seein shadows on the wall
They come and go like memories from long ago
Don't chase 'em down, let them be - go back to sleep;


There are monsters under your bed
I hear them laughing, feel them shakin' the bed
I grab your hand, you hold me tight until they're gone
You hold me close with all your might all night long;


Morning comes and you are gone
Your pillow's cold and once again im all alone
Why did you leave or was this night just a dream?


Shadows float back in the room
My curtains' drawn the monsters come back far to soon
I close my eyes and wait for you to rescue me
I close them tight and try to drift back to my dream;