Active Imagination meets the Invisible Counselor Technique What do you do when you’re a fan of Carl Jung and Napoleon Hill? The same thing if you have chocolate and peanut butter. You mix the two and see what you get. I was already working on active imagination, but I stepped up by using Napoleon Hill’s book, Think and Grow Rich, chapter 13, the Invisible Counselor Technique. I invited Carl Jung to be one of my invisible counselors by letter. Not too long after, I had the following Dream.
the set up
Standing over a body on a gurney, partly exposed from a deliberate draping of cloth is in and of itself particularly disturbing, but when that body is partly open due to battle wounds and further opened by the intentional use of a scalpel is downright horrifying, made worse by the fact that I was holding the said scalpel. There was a pounding in my ears and a squeezing of eyes to refocus, thinking to myself ‘this isn’t real.’
It was not just a visual. There was a heat coming off the body. An assortment of smells, including the stench of feces from a tear in the intestine, coupled by a variety of cleaning agents, was such a powerful assault I was on the verge of retching into my mask. You would think the mask would help block smells. I also worried that if I cried, tears might fall into the body. Can you imagine, killed by tears? Then the sounds began to register. The bustle of people moving and equipment shifting places, and an irreverent banter that was simultaneously sexist and playful, and likely something you couldn’t get away with on television presently. It was as if someone had turned the volume up on a movie.
“John?”
Even through the mask, I could discern Loxy’s smile. She beamed confidence at me. Her eyes solidified me in the present moment. After all this time, I realize she was always the first nurse to meet the copters.
“What am I doing here?” I asked her. It was supposed to be a whisper, meant only for her, but it carried. I was surprised by the sound of my own voice. I felt embarrassed for asking a dumb question.
“Get out of your existential dilemma and back to work,” said the chief surgeon.
I looked up at the all too familiar face that came with the voice. I have heard it a million times in both initial airing and multiple reruns. “Pierce?”
“Another Doctor cracking up,” Burns said, giving a fake, hysterical laugh. “Just what we need.”
“He’s not cracking up,” Loxy said.
“Loxy, don’t talk back to the Doctors,” Margaret said.
“Or to the front or the sides,” Hunnicutt said.
“But kisses will do fine,” Pierce said, directing his eyes and comments to Loxy. He finished his assignment, pulled off his gloves, and came over to view my work while the staff switched out his patient. “This is easy, Jon. Clean the area, sew up the wound.”
“There’s a two centimeter mass…”
Peirce nodded. “I see it.”
“We might not have found it had it not been for his wound,” I said.
“Saved by a bullet,” Loxy said.
“Only the tumor isn’t killing him,” Pierce said. “Let’s focus on his present needs.”
“Why open him up twice? I’m here now,” I argued. “Can we at least get a biopsy to rule out cancer?”
“You heard Pierce! We don’t have time for regular sickness,” Burns snapped.
“Or even irregular sickness,” Pierce said.
“Cancer could be his ticket out,” Hunnicutt said.
“Of everything,” I said.
“Note it in his chart for later. For now, clean him and stitch him,” Pierce said, putting on fresh gloves to move on to his next patient. “And, John. Good eye.”
I continued with the surgery, doing just the bare minimum to keep him alive. I didn’t question the fact that in real life I wasn’t a doctor. One doesn’t question their dreams. We just perform. And, of course, I wasn’t even assuming this was a dream. It certainly wasn’t a lucid dream. I moved through the surgery like everyone else, silently performing while the montage of banter of perhaps a hundred episodes played around me, only in the present. It wasn’t a montage of episodes gone by but new dialogue. I was unable to localize myself in episode time. Though these people resembled the actors and actresses, they played their parts as if this was their real life. Burns even chuckled at my misery, pointing out how sullen I was at having been schooled by Pierce.
“Oh, knock it off, Burns,” Pierce said. “It’s refreshing to have a Doctor who doesn’t want to do just the bare minimum.”
“I do more than the bare minimum around here!” Burns snapped.
“You are the bare minimum around here,” Hunnicutt said.
“How is he supposed to grow as an agent if you always disparage him?” I asked.
There was silence, as if no one knew how to process the fact that I was standing up for Burns. In the movie, he was rather despicable but in the TV series he was more pathetic. That was explainable by an awful childhood that was slowly revealed over episode time. He really had the potential for development and I wondered if it was because the cast hated him or the writers.
Surely, as an actor, people could recognize his brilliance and how necessary his part was. Do actors that quarrel over long periods of time build up real life animosity? If he actually changed, or grew, he might have become even more powerful than Pierce ever was. And quite frankly, as much as I love Peirce, he was a bit of an ass. But maybe that too was the point. You can be an ass and loveable and perhaps sometimes too demanding, but still do some good in life.
“Wow,” Hunnicutt said. “See there, Burns? You do have a fan.”
Houlihan gave me a secret, appreciative smile. Burns seemed confused, passed it off with a bit of a chuckle, but presently was so caught up in his surgery that the moment was gone before he could internalize it.
After surgery, I lingered at the sink, scrubbing my hands. Loxy asked if I was alright but before I could answer, Houlihan called her away, probably to rebuff her for talking back to the Doctor in the OR, which in our present time would be completely acceptable, but in this, the fifties, what she had done was tantamount to social treason. Hunnicutt and Pierce watched me washing from the bench. Pierce made a gesture to Hunnicutt referencing me and he nodded.
“John, maybe you should come have a drink with us,” Pierce said.
“I don’t drink,” I reminded them. I am sure I told them that before. Watching MASH tempted me to be ambivalent about alcohol, whereas my family made me hate it. The Hawkeye Pierce philosophy on life was tantalizing, as if it was all a war all the time and we needed to struggle for right, at the same time give into debauchery and wine.
“I know. So, don’t drink it. Just come hold the glass for me until I finish drinking mine and then we’ll switch glasses,” Pierce said.
“John, they’re clean,” Hunnicutt said.
I frowned, but agreed. There was almost an awakening, like the realization of “OMG I am actually here” and “Oh, I have OCD” and I wanted to hug them and roam through the camp which I probably knew better than I knew any real place, but I stayed in character. We arrived at the SWAMP where, as promised, I was handed a drink. I was tempted to drink it just to see for myself, but again, I stayed in character. If there was an audience, and they were receptive and attentive, they probably noticed that there was a moment where I might drink, but held back. I brooded over the glass. Doctor Freedman entered, and I secretly grimaced, “not another shrink episode.” He was so cliché as to be Rogers himself.
“Howdy,” Freedman said.
“Is this a setup?” I asked.
Dramatically, Pierce said. “Tsh! I told you he would see through it.”
“I told you to get him a woman shrink,” Hunnicutt said.
“I still haven’t found a woman who could shrink me,” Pierce said.
“Why does it have to be a setup?” Freedman asked, taking a seat on the cot. “Can’t your colleagues express concern for you?”
“Oh, the unsung season of full episodes never aired,” I said. “I’ve been written off and written out, but never so fully despaired.”
“I heard you were a bit of a poet,” Freedman said. “Walk with me?”
I resigned myself to the fate of the script, stood to depart, and was relieved of my glass by Pierce.
“Oh, can’t let it go to waste.”
“Though it might go to your waist,” I said.
“I do believe he made a stab at humor,” Hunnicutt said in a funny voice.
“Well, he is a surgeon,” Pierce said.
The door to the swamp closed and I walked with Freedman on a chilly day, made more pleasant by the sun. I pushed my hands into an army coat and hugged myself as best I could.
“I always liked it here. Kind of reminds me of California,” Freedman said.
“Is that where you’re from?” I asked.
“California? No. Why do you ask?” Freedman said.
“You mentioned it reminds you of California which suggests you hold a memory of such. Oh.
Are you trying to draw me into a game of free association?” I asked.
“I do like games,” Freedman said. “And usually I ask the questions.”
“Usually you just reflect back and ask ‘how does that make you feel,’” I said.
“How does that make you feel?” Freedman asked.
“You want me to have an emotional response to your ability to pathologize through questions or California Dreaming?” I asked.
“Nice. It’s a good thing I brought that up,” Freedman said. “I want you to meet someone.”
Freedman led me to the guest tent and invited me to enter. I hesitated. Freedman gestured for me to enter again. I motioned ‘after you.’ He said he wasn’t going in. I was tempted to ask, ‘what’s in there?’ but suspected he would go all Yoda on me and say, ‘Only with you what you take.’ To keep the episode from going into a ‘to be continued’ I entered. A man, unseasonably old, stood up to greet me. I didn’t say it, but I thought again he shouldn’t be this old. His uniform was anachronistic, perhaps going back to World War 1. He was writing in his diary, which he closed in favor of attending to the new presence in the tent. The cover of the book was red, and was in stark contrast to everything around us that was earth tones and mostly green.
“John,” he said, pleasantly warm. “I received your invitation and accept.”
“Excuse me?” I asked.
“I’m Doctor Carl Jung,” he said. “At your service.”
I found the nearest chair and sat down, mostly to keep from falling. “You’re Dr. Jung?”
“Carl, please. Not what you imagined?”
“I’m not sure what I imagined,” I said.
“I can’t imagine you not imagining,” Jung said.
I sat back, wondering if I should be guarded with my thoughts and words, but then, when you’re being psychoanalyzed by one of the most well-known therapists of all time, maybe it’s better to just go with it. “Why here?”
“Do you realize how many episodes you have written yourself into?” Jung asked.
“All of them?” I asked.
“Why do you suppose that was?” Carl asked.
“I was lonely,” I said.
Jung nodded. “Maybe. You’re grasping at an externalized explanation to avoid rationalizing away your need for connection, as opposed to simply accepting the fact that the role you have created to interact with the established personality sets, on this set, is healthy and meaningful in a plethora of pathways. Do you want to know why I have accepted your invitation?”
I was silent, contemplative. Was it rhetorical?
“Napoleon Hill didn’t invent this invisible counselor technique,” Jung said. “Many others have used it. Plato. Einstein. I used it. Hell, my ‘active imagination’ protocol was so effective that I induced my own hallucinations and was forced to tackle the unconscious mind directly! You, sir, sat down and deliberately called forth the powers of the mind and created Loxy Bliss.”
“I did, but somehow, this seems bigger than me,” I said.
“Good observation. You’re right. You tapped into something bigger than you. The universe is bigger than you. Your unconscious mind is bigger than you. The Universe collaborated with you and the two of you called into existence Loxy. Loxy is also collaborating with you, so she is no longer just the product of your imagination, which was more scaffolding than substance in the beginning; now she is an active participant in her own growth, as well as yours. This is more than a script and more than a dialogue. Part of you simply wanted a friend, to quench your profound loneliness, a loneliness so pervasive that even in the presence of others, even those within your own family who you cherish, you still touch it.”
“Maybe,” I agreed. Can you lie to a dream character? Can you lie to Jung? “But again. Why here? We could have met anywhere. My home. A starship? The holodeck seems fairly fitting.”
“I dare say your brain is more powerful than any holodeck ever imagined or will ever be created.
In fact, even if you actually had one, it still requires you, the participant, in order to have relative
meaning,” Jung said. “But why here? Why not here? The backdrop of a war. And you, a self-designated healer, as opposed to a warrior. War isn’t just happenstance. It’s a reflection of the war waging in every individual’s psyche. Integrate all of your psychic selves into one, and you will heal the world.”
“You’re reaching a bit,” I said.
“You invited me, Sir,” Jung pointed out.
“And, like I was telling Loxy, I would like an answer set that expedites me to my destination,” I said.
“Destinations are fairly illusive and subjective. People tend to aim at one place, yet arrive at places completely unexpected,” Jung said. “I think what you really want is a measure to know you made it.”
I considered his response and thought that might indeed be useful. “How will I know I’ve made it?”
“Great question,” Jung said, as if he hadn’t just handed it to me. “When you treat every person in your life as the celebrity they really are, you will have arrived.”
I found his statement surprisingly profound, so much so that I woke, back in my mundane life, in bed, alone. It was five thirty AM. There was no going back to sleep after such an event. I got up, started the coffee, dressed for work, and proceeded to write down the experience. Even with all the activity of getting ready and telling Windows I liked the screen saver of the day, I managed to remember every detail of the dream, though I must say, the actual dream seemed much longer than the memory.
