Seriously
how dream analysis helped me understand my need to lie
Sometimes I forget that the ‘me’ I am today is the result of a lot of years of hard work, a lot of lessons learned, and a lot of time spent unpacking and examining my own reactions and experiences.
When I forget that, and get too hard on myself, I sometimes like to revisit my old LiveJournal entries and remind myself of where I’ve come from.
Here’s one from ten years ago, in April 2013.
“I’m reading an Irvin Yalom book called “Love’s Executioner”, recommended by my therapist — Johnathan — and completely fascinating to me because I love to read real life stories that explore complicated psyches.
It’s a collection of stories about some of his most educational patients, all of which have taught him something important about the nature of therapy.
Reading it has obviously flipped my brain into analysis mode again, because this morning I woke up from a dream which — after a few minutes — I realised revealed something I’d been puzzling over for a while.
In the dream I was part of the crew of a starship, not a particularly important member but high up enough to be able to voice my opinion to the captain.
The ship was having some kind of major problem, which meant that the engine couldn’t restart and kept exploding flames into the ship, every time more fiercely than the last, and this was destined to continue until the ship had used up all the oxygen available. Only then, we were told, would the engines allow themselves to be reset and restarted.
The crew were running around while the alert siren sounded, trying everything they could to get the engine to shut down, when it suddenly occurred to me that I knew what they should do. I desperately tried to get the captain’s ear — he was surrounded by his trusted deputies and experts all shouting suggestions — and finally I was able to yell: “Can’t we just vent all the oxygen into space?!”
He was half listening as I tried to explain, but I could see he thought it was a stupid idea. I explained again why I thought it would work, but even as I did so, I started to doubt myself, to wonder if I sounded like an idiot.
Maybe I didn’t have a clue what I was talking about? Maybe I didn’t understand the problem at all? I so badly wanted to help, to be taken seriously by him and be valued, but now he was looking at me like I was a fool, like my idea had no value whatsoever and I was just wasting his time.
No-one was really listening to me and I felt such a keenly familiar childish sense of humiliation. It was at that moment — my brain still desperately grasping around for the words I needed to say to be taken seriously by him — that I woke up with a powerful realisation.
For the longest time Johnathan and I have been trying to figure out where the root of my need for deception originates, when I started to think that lying about who I was was the only way I could be taken seriously.
I have lots of memories of being punished for lying as a child, but almost none about successfully ‘getting away with it’, and receiving the positive reinforcement that would have been needed for me to continue.
The spaceship dream suddenly brought back to me very clearly exactly how I used to feel as a child when my dad would not take me seriously, how desperate I felt when — trying to get him to listen to me about something I felt was important — he would laugh or ridicule me for simply being a child. It was a such an awful feeling. I still vividly remember how my cheeks would burn and how futile my efforts felt…
…until I discovered that I could lie convincingly.
Because when I lied with authority, with imagination and using just enough facts to reinforce the fantasy, people suddenly took me seriously. More to the point, my dad took me seriously. Conversely though, every time he believed me I lost a little more respect for him, because what kind of an expert was he if he couldn’t even tell when a little kid was lying?
And that’s what’s at the core of it, and so much more I realise now. My Dad’s sentiment that I learned as soon as I was able to understand it: if you’re not an expert, your opinion has no value to me.
I am 41 next month and it’s taken me almost my whole adult life to start to find my way out of that belief. I knew, I know, on a purely human level through my own experience, that everyone’s story has value. That sometimes the most incredible truths come from a place of innocence and inexperience, and that they should never be discounted but instead listened to with gravity and sobriety. My daughter has helped to teach me that, and every time I hear myself use sarcasm with her now I recoil inside, because I remember exactly how that felt and now I also understand the consequences: the death of trust, the ending of respect, the erosion of self-worth.
Big thoughts today guys. Important thoughts.
Much love to you all.
Cherish yourselves.”
………………
Law Turley is a BACP Registered Integrative Therapist, Supervisor and Certified Radical Honesty Trainer living and working in the south west of the UK.
