Upon retiring on the evening of August 29, 2012 I had the following dream:
I am in a television studio in mid-town Manhattan. I have been chosen as a contestant in a TV quiz show. My opposing contestant is Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. The topic is opera. I think: “Wow. Opera is the topic. I actually have a chance at beating Ruth Bader Ginsburg.” Jose Cabranes is present and is chatting with Justice Ginsburg. Jose Cabranes is a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit which sits in Manhattan. Justice Ginsburg says to Judge Cabranes: “The last contestant answered every question correctly. But then, he was a Columbia graduate.” She laughs. Justice Ginsburg tied for first place in her graduating class at Columbia Law School. I leave the TV studio and walk outside onto the street. I am unfamiliar with this section of Manhattan and I get lost walking the streets. I am unable to make it back to the studio. And so I missed my chance to compete against Justice Ginsburg.
______________________
Judge Cabranes had authored a court opinion that recognized a form of subtle job harassment known as “mobbing.”
Quiz Show was the name of a movie about the TV quiz show scandal concerning the show “Twenty One” from the 1950s. Presumably, the theme of corruption was an issue in the latent content of the dream. In the movie the contestants Herb Stempel and Charles Van Doren face each other in Twenty One, where the match comes down to a predetermined question regarding Marty, the 1955 winner of the Academy Award for Best Picture. Despite knowing the correct film, Stempel gives the wrong answer, allowing Van Doren to get a question he previously answered while in producer Enright’s offices; he provides the winning response. Stempel figuratively “took a dive” by throwing the competition to Van Doren.
The name of Justice Ginsburg’s late husband was Martin Ginsburg, or Marty.
The 2012 Olympics had just finished on August 12, 2012. One of the divers on the U.S. Olympic team was named Nick McCrory. McCrory literally took a dive at the Olympics. One of my law professors at American University was named Patrick F.J. Macrory who I had humiliated in a class presentation in the fall 1984 (another Olympics year).
Contestant Charles Van Doren was the son of Mark Van Doren, an English professor at Columbia University.
The name of the TV quiz show, “Twenty One” may have personal significance. It is now 21 years since my job termination by the law firm of Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld, in October 1991.
The manifest dream image of the quiz show denotes the theme of competition. The dream figure of Justice Ginsburg also denotes the theme of competition in that she graduated first place in her law school class.
After law school Justice Ginsburg had clerked for a judge who sat on the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, Edmund Palmieri. Judge Palmieri had earned his undergraduate and law degrees from Columbia University. There may be a relationship between Judge Palmieri and Stanley R. Palombo, M.D., my former treating psychiatrist who was also a Columbia graduate.
Justice Ginsburg is an avid opera fan as am I.
The day of the dream I had listened to a recording of Arnold Schoenberg’s Gurrelieder, a cantata. Whenever I listen to Gurrelieder I have the thought: “To think this thing was written by a poor Jewish kid from Leopoldstadt in Vienna.” (Leopoldstadt used to be the Jewish neighborhood in Vienna). This perhaps suggests the theme of an unlikely person achieving world-wide fame, as I hoped to do in the manifest dream.
My Daily Struggles 
U.S. Attorney General Eric H. Holder, Jr. is a Columbia graduate.
Martin Ginsburg, the late husband of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, was an accomplished chef. The following is drawn from a paper on anorexia nervosa, an eating disorder, written by Emory University psychology professor, Drew Westen.
TABLE 1. SWAP-200a Items That Best Described Eating Disorder
Patients in the High-Functioning/Perfectionistic Personality
(note that competitiveness is a personality quality listed below):
Is articulate; can express self well in words. 3.09
Tends to be conscientious and responsible. 3.05
Tends to be self-critical; sets unrealistically high standards
for self and is intolerant of own human defects. 2.61
Expects self to be “perfect” (e.g., in appearance,
achievements, performance, etc.). 2.53
Tends to elicit liking in others. 2.35
Tends to be preoccupied with food, diet, or eating. 2.32
Is empathic; is sensitive and responsive to other peoples’
needs and feelings. 2.29
Is able to use his/her talents, abilities, and energy
effectively and productively. 2.28
Has moral and ethical standards and strives to live up to
them. 2.13
Appreciates and responds to humor. 2.10
Enjoys challenges; takes pleasure in accomplishing things. 1.98
Tends to feel guilty. 1.98
Is psychologically insightful; is able to understand self and
others in subtle and sophisticated ways. 1.96
Has the capacity to recognize alternative viewpoints, even
in matters that stir up strong feelings. 1.87
Is capable of hearing information that is emotionally
threatening (i.e., that challenges cherished beliefs,
perceptions, and self-perceptions) and can use and
benefit from it. 1.86
Is creative; is able to see things or approach problems in
novel ways. 1.76
Tends to be energetic and outgoing. 1.69
Finds meaning in belonging and contributing to a larger
community (e.g., organization, church, neighborhood). 1.56
Tends to express affect appropriate in quality and intensity
to the situation at hand. 1.55
Tends to be competitive with others (whether consciously
or unconsciously). 1.54
Is able to assert him/herself effectively and appropriately
when necessary. 1.52
Tends to be anxious. 1.48
is able to find meaning and fulfillment in guiding,
mentoring, or nurturing others. 1.46
Is capable of sustaining a meaningful love relationship
characterized by genuine intimacy and caring. 1.44]
The theme of the Olympics and humiliation in another one of my dreams:
http://dailstrug.blogspot.com/2011/06/paradise-lost-and-dream-of-four-miltons.html
I had the present dream during the week of the Republican presidential nominating convention, which is suggestive of the theme of competition.
My associations to an earlier dream centered on the Democratic National Convention of 1976 (which coincidentally took place in Manhattan):
http://dailstrug.blogspot.com/2009/10/dream-of-four-miltons.html
Arnold Schoenberg’s son is retired California state judge Ronald Schoenberg:
http://dailstrug.blogspot.com/2009/09/anagrams-and-genealogy-arnold.html
The dream thought “She laughs” may be an allusion to the biblical Sarah, mother of the patriarch Isaac.
At the time of the dream Hurricaine Isaac was a major national news story.
In the biblical tale the aged Sarah, decades beyond child bearing years, is told that she will give birth to a son, Isaac. At this news, “She laughs.”
God later commands Isaac’s father, Abraham to prepare to sacrifice his son. The issue of child sacrifice is a theme in one of my earlier dreams:
http://dailstrug.blogspot.com/2009/10/dream-of-blue-oxford.html
An earlier blog post I wrote about the sacrifice of Isaac:
http://dailstrug.blogspot.com/2011/04/passover-so-many-questions.html
Perhaps the theme of the Quiz Show is an allusion to the mah nishtanah of the Passover Seder, the four questions asked of the youngest son.
According to psychoanalysts the special role of the youngest son at the Passover Seder may have been a substitute for a more ancient pagan spring/fertility rite in which the youngest son was sacrificed.
http://dailstrug.blogspot.com/2009/10/dream-of-blue-oxford.html
Viewed in light of these observations, the dream may present an irony. In the manifest dream I am disappointed to have missed my opportunity to have been quized or questioned (cross-examined?). Perhaps the manifest dream conceals my unconscious relief that I have escaped being sacrificed.
Reference to Sarah’s laughter in my book Significant Moments:
Whoever hears will laugh at me . . .
Robert Alter, Genesis: Translation and Commentary.
. . . but I like to remind people . . .
Terry Rager, Live From . . . the Stratosphere.
Parsifal . . .
Siegfried Wagner, Erinnerungen.
… is not an old work of my youth but a youthful work of my old age . . .
Conrad Susa, Music of Unseen Worlds quoting Wagner.
… a legacy I am proud to leave.
Isaac Stern and Chaim Potok, My First 79 Years.
During the Nazi regime the German government automatically assigned the middle name “Sara” to all Jewish women in official government documents such as passports. In Nazi Germany Ruth Bader Ginsburg would have been Ruth Sara Ginsburg. Ruth itself is a biblical name. The figure of Ruth is celebrated as a convert to Judaism who understood Jewish principles and took them to heart. The Book of Ruth is also held in esteem by Jews who fall under the category of Jews-by-choice. The theme of being chosen arises in the manifest dream. I am chosen as a contestant in a TV game show.
The theme of being chosen arises in my assocations to an earlier dream: The Dream of Milton’s Successor.
There I wrote:
The theme of choosing or being chosen is overdetermined here. Portia in The Merchant of Venice offers her suitors a choice among three caskets, an appeals court chooses a victor between two parties, in politics the electorate chooses among candidates (Governor Thornburgh had been such a victor), a customer in a bookstore is presented with a decision to choose among books, etc.
A curious feature of the dream’s manifest content is that the theme of choice, so pervasive in the latent content, is missing–which suggests that the theme of choice or rivalry (Oedipal or sibling; or the negative consequences in the form of jealousy of being favored, or “chosen,” by a parent [cf. anti-Semitism]) is ego dystonic and defended against (repressed). It may be that the odd term “inventory” (Dr. Mack invites me to join his “inventory”) defends against the idea of choice. In an inventory one simply enumerates the objects that form a collection; one does not choose any single object. In this sense, the term “to inventory” opposes, or negates, the term “to elect,” or to choose. The dream image of the busts on the shelf fading into a vague sameness (that is, the appearance of a generic quality) obviates choice based on specific qualities.
Re: Hurricane Isaac–
If someone sees images of sea storms or hurricanes in his dreams, it suggests that his mind is experiencing overwhelming and turbulent emotions due to his circumstances. It is an indication of restless state of mind due to inability of mind to find immediate solution to the real life circumstances.
At my psychiatric consult on Friday August 31, 2012 I symbolically expressed again and again concerns about feeling trapped and a need to escape. In the manifest dream did I unconsciously feel trapped in the television studio and need to escape to the streets of Manhattan?
In the psychiatric consult I opened by saying that I was thinking about seeing my psychiatrist only once a month instead of weekly (expressing my feelings of being trapped in my relationship with my therapist).
I talked about moving to Atlantic City (thereby escaping Washington).
I talked about visiting the zoo (where animals are trapped in cages).
I talked about doing volunteer work (expressing a desire to escape the boredom of my life).
I talked about placing a ring of bed bug powder all around the perimeter of my apartment so that the bed bugs in the walls would be trapped — they would have to cross the insecticide to get to my bed.
Associations to Franklin Roosevelt:
President Franklin Roosevelt attended Columbia Law School. He did not earn a degree. He left Columbia after completing his course work but before sitting for final exams in his last semester. At that time the New York State Bar did not require that an applicant have a law degree in order to sit for the bar exam. Speaking metaphorically, FDR “left the studio” before the the Columbia Quiz Show began.
Roosevelt’s mother’s name was Sara.
In an earlier blog post I wrote the following about Roosevelt’s relationship with his mother — observations that center on the young Roosevelt’s feelings of entrapment:
“And by the way, for all its material comforts, FDR’s childhood was lacking in personal freedom; the boy’s time and activities were closely regulated — not by alphabet agencies, but by a strict and demanding mother. The boy never rebelled against his parents, openly at least. My own suspicion is that he nurtured a secret, inner fury that fueled the powerful but socially-adaptive drive in adulthood to reform the existing economic and political order. People other than his parents, institutions other than his family would pay for his pain. By means of displacement, Franklin Roosevelt protected the idealized image of his early family life, which in reality was in some ways less than ideal. In the little memoir “My Boy Franklin,” his mother insisted that she had never tried to influence young Franklin against his own states and inclinations, and yet she also disclosed that it was only ‘eventually’ that she had allowed his golden curls to be shorn, and that when, at the age of five, he had become melancholy he had ‘clasped his hands in front of him and said ‘Oh, for freedom’ when she asked him why. She had been genuinely shocked. ‘That night I talked it over with his father who, I confess, often told me I nagged the boy. We agreed that unconsciously we had probably regulated the child’s life too closely, even though we knew he had ample time for exercise and play.'” Overregulation stifles growth, — at least that’s what Greenspan says.”
Interpretations of previous dreams:
http://dailstrug.blogspot.com/2010/06/birth-of-joseph-dreamer.html
Interestingly, my one inheritance from my father was a ticket to the 1936 Democratic National Convention held in Philadelphia that nominated Franklin Roosevelt to a second term.
http://dailstrug.blogspot.com/2010/06/significant-moments-fathers-legacy.html
I had previously posted the complete movie “Quiz Show” on this blog. Note that the movie is subtitled in Spanish, “El Arreglo.”
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