GestaltWorks

The Impossible Toilet

By Claire Salisbury

(in conversation with Debbie Friedman)

The impossible toilet unfolds as a creative train of thought. It is the conversation between myself and D, whom I have known since we were teenagers at school together. We are similar and different, both Jewish, her father a psychoanalyst, mine a medical scientist. We both grew up in London, she in Hampstead, I in the West End; we both are psychotherapists. However, I am Gestalt trained and she is not. In our lives we have followed each other to and from Cornwall, and when I was 20, I lived in a flat with her and her boyfriend, where we meditated at 6.30 every morning. I have loved her since I first met her. We have always talked well together and meet to enjoy our friendship, finding ourselves able to support each other professionally as well as emotionally.

On this day, we were sitting in the Autumn sun at Hampstead Heath enjoying a roving conversation about therapy, Masterson's theories of self, ourselves and the symbolic language of dreams. I had recently been excited by something I discovered in my own dreaming and relayed it to D.

I was in a room. The room was like a meeting room in a prison. A sort of uncared-for institutional room, with greasy grey walls, a table with a cracked grey formica surface and dirty wooden chairs. We were sitting round the table (Myself and another woman). There was a man like a prison guard in a uniform with a peaked cap. He was being mean. When I asked him if I could go to the toilet, which was through a door behind him, he refused to let me. I was angry with him and felt punished. I woke up to find that I really did need the toilet. The man who had seemed punitive had been looking after me, not allowing me to do what I wanted in order to protect me from wetting the bed.

Quite often something similar happens to me, and I dream about toilets. The dreams are frequent and varied in location. In my dream I go to the toilet and when I get there I am unable to use the toilet for a variety or reasons. I've been to every imaginable toilet scenario from Philippe Starke modernism (ie where's the toilet door?) to the plushest most gothic rococo environments with huge swathes of red velvet curtain in my search for a functioning toilet. The toilet is impossible to use as it may be too dirty or smelly, already full, leaking dangerously, too tall, or too deep. Last time I went in my dream, the toilet was full and overflowing. I tried to go because I needed it and I just couldn't manage it, it was too disgusting.

After these dreams I also wake up finding that I need to go to the toilet and have been holding on so as not to wet the bed. I have stopped myself by creating something impossible.

We felt amazed at the language of our unconscious minds. Stopping ourselves from going to the toilet when asleep is a learnt, physical task. Each had symbolised this part of ourselves differently by, in my case, a bullying guard and, in D's case, an impossible-to-use toilet. How clever our minds are (we said), creating images to represent such a function. Taking it a step further, it was interesting to wonder what it was about D that led her unconscious to symbolise bladder control as an impossibility, and what it was about me that I created control through an authority figure. We surmised that beyond toilet functions, we controlled our impulses in regard to other aspects of our lives in equivalent ways.

D said that she could see how authority figures were important in my life. She remembered me as a teenager and said that my father was definitely one. It seemed clear why self regulation became a prison guard for me.

She asked

"How does my dreaming of these toilets translate into my life?"

I said that Gestalt theory takes each aspect of the dream as being a part of the self.

"You could talk about yourself as a toilet."

"Oh, I don't know about that, some of those toilets are revolting, some of them are too disgusting to use."

"You can start with that: 'I am too disgusting to use."

"I am too disgusting to use -you can't pee here. I am impossible…..and I do try to use them. Last time I tried but the toilet really was too high. Another time, it was so messy, with shit slopping everywhere, I just gave up."

"Try starting with "I am an impossible toilet." (We both laughed).

"I am an impossible toilet. I am impossible, so that you don't do something that isn't safe. I stop you from getting into situations you wouldn't want (like wetting your bed). I exist to protect you."

"You know, I think that does apply. I am like that, surrounded by impossible situations that stop me. It's alright for some things where I need to stop myself; however, there are times when I can't take risks because of that. Things just look impossible to me, so I don't try."

I said,

"I can see that I have surrounded myself with authority figures that stop me and keep me in order. I project my control outside of me and then I resent the controlling figure, just like in the dream. This is also about responsibility and how we manage that."

The conversation then went further. We both started to talk about the development of the authentic self. We both and maybe most of us, face a void, which is the empty space of life, full of potential. This can only be filled through our own self-support, our creative and aggressive selves. Sometimes, rather than being active and responsible I find myself depressed, unmotivated and blaming; wanting someone else (once my mother) to come and get me moving. I behave in such a way as well so that another person will control me, give me a boundary or spur and inspire me to action. It was someone else in my dream who would not let me pee, and I resented them for it, felt that I was being punished, yet what they did was necessary. It was useful to me.

D. said that she created impossible situations which save her from being impulsive and thereby making painful mistakes. Her way of sidestepping the issue of self responsibility is to be stopped by impossibility and apparently impossible situations beyond her control outside of herself. I thought that neither of us decided by ourselves in our dreams, that it was not a good idea to go to the toilet then and there. D. created the impossible situation and I created punitive authority. We both put the responsibility for self control outside of ourselves in different forms.

I said,

"Just think, you are so creative and imaginative, if you took this ability back and harnessed it in a different unimaginable way, how wonderful that could be; it could open things up for you."

D said,

"And if you were to become your own authority, provide your own self-discipline and restraint, according to the needs of your own self, you would own that authority. It would transform your life."

The thought of re-identifying these qualities was stimulating.

"So then,"

we said to each other,

"what is the significance of bladder control and toilet training? At this time in our lives we learn how to be responsible for our own excretions, we learn where and when our mothers want us to do it, and our dreams show how we have interpreted that. Eventually we have self-regulation so that we can piss and shit when and where we want to."

We wondered how each of us had been taught or learnt to do this. I, for example, had internalised a tyrant. Was I smacked or shouted at (probably)? Was D told that she could not, so that she faced the dilemma of wanting to pee and displeasing someone important, something she dared not risk as a child? Is this a crucial developmental stage in terms of responsibility or one of many factors? There is so much in the dreams we told each other. For example, who is the other woman in my dream? What do the different environments in D's dream illustrate? Where and what is the door? It would be interesting to know about others' toilet dreams. We said that we could write about this. The idea seems exciting. The layers of personality that can be deduced and uncovered from the simple act of toilet control were endless.

We then lay back and looked at the blue, Autumn sky. It was peaceful on Hampstead Heath. People were murmuring in the background. Little dogs were playing. Children were splashing in the mud. Kenwood house looked like icing sugar, and two beautiful swans swam on the lake. All was fine in the world and we were in Utopia.

Later, over a cup of tea, D said,

"I could never fly at the moment, now that America is planning invasive action on Afghanistan. Its not safe, the sky is full of missiles and objects flying all over the place; they may bump into each other."

I said "That"s not true, the sky is a huge place. Planes aren't going to bump into each other, things aren't just hurtling around like that, it's a big bit of space up there. That's an unreal image you've got."

"Yes, and that's how I imagine it. I won't fly now."

I said "I think you've just created an impossible-toilet situation."

We laughed and drank our tea.

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