Dimensions are important when space is discussed; there are plenty of fibers that aren’t visible to the naked eye but nonetheless present. “Object permanence” accounts for these dimensions in early development by stating that objects continue to exist even when they cannot be seen, heard, or touched. [1]
All these underlying structures that conform this universe make the relationship between objects exist. However, one could disagree over whether space is a presence, a relationship between absences or part of a whole system.
Space has been discussed in the philosophic field for ages; many of these questions are still being formulated in order to understand where we come from.
If we believe Newton’s perception of space, in the sense that it existed permanently and independently of whether there was any matter in it, we would have to accept that us humans come in second, and are just living through this matter.
Now, many other philosophers believed that space is an accumulation of connections between objects. Kant thought that neither space nor time could be analytically perceived, these are elements of a systematic framework that humans use to structure all experiences.
Kant’s arguments demonstrate that, on the contrary, space is an “a priori” intuition. In order to learn things outside of me, I need to know that they are outside of me. But that shows that I could not learn about space in this way: how can I locate something outside of me without already knowing what “outside of me” means? Some knowledge of space has to be assumed before I can ever study space empirically. [2]
Theorists have essentially batted between many ideas of what space really is. But whether it’s an entity that’s independent or a collection of special relations, it is unavoidable to accept that space exists.
If space has its own language this must mean that it is breathes, therefore it’s not an absence but a presence, generating a gap between two magnetic beings waiting to be reunited; a longing to merge.
Us human beings are living in two different spaces, physical and mental. As Winnicott (1971) said “the place…where we most of the time are when we are experiencing life” (p.122). But he argues that there are three human states rather than two. This third, intermediate zone he terms “potential space”, a space that is “neither inside the individual nor outside in the world of shared reality” (p.129)
This “potential space” can be seen as the field between fantasy and reality, a transitory vehicle that interchanges the “fusion with the mother” with “a separated identity”. [3] Defining this space in terms of what is tangible can be a quest but that is the point exactly in searching for this “space”, more than anything else, it defines where we are when we are experiencing life, for it is only here that we find “..the experiences of the individual person…in the environment that obtains” (1971, p. 125.)
If this so called “potential space” is basically the transition that holds the key to a separation, whenever the person is longing to blend with the object it forcefully needs to return on the same path.
Telepathy, being this “path”, conveys an intense feeling, a state in which the person experiences both gain and loss, trying to soothe the constant psychic tension in which the struggle between the life and death instincts persists throughout life.
If we understand telepathy as “the action of one mind on another at a distance and without communication by means of the senses.” (Walker, 1910) then thoughts and images are being transferred from one person’s mind to another without the vehicle of the distinguished organs of sense, that knowledge may enter the human mind without being communicated in any known way.
It is known that certain molecular movements in the brain accompany the action of thought, and here we have physical vibrations capable from their extreme minuteness of acting direct upon individual molecules, while their rapidity approaches that of the internal movements of the atoms themselves.
There can be no doubt that our psychical force creates a movement of the ether, which transmits itself afar like all movements of ether, and becomes perceptible to brains in harmony with our own. The transformation of a psychic action into an ethereal movement, and the reverse, may be analogous to what takes place on a telephone, where the receptive plate, which is identical with the plate at the other end, reconstructs the sonorous movement transmitted, not by means of sound but by electricity. (Walker, 1910)
If every human being is a dynamic center that is in constant movement, this motion becomes reconstructed according to the medium it chooses to travel in. Motion tends to multiply itself. Therefore when we see any work; mechanical, electrical or psychic disappear without any effect, then, of two things, one happens, either a transmission or a transformation. [4] Where does the first end, and where does the second one begin?
Telepathy is that unsaid gap between two people, or even between the conscious and unconscious. It is a function of the deeper mind, both as to the sending and the receiving of messages. Thoughts sent by the unconscious come to the conscious of the sender only incidentally by a pathway where minds communicate without any of the ordinary senses.
This intermediate and intermediating zone; “occurring between two extremes or in the middle of a range” may be amplified by emotional needs, these new insights creates a good deal of narcissistic satisfaction because of the feeling of being empowered with such forces. [5]
The problem with telepathy is subjectivity; as psychoanalysts trying to comprehend this phenomenon we are trying to separating science and the paranormal in order to get a concrete answer.
As a problem of science, this antithesis has become evident in the following words of Külpe: “Without the subjective method we would not know anything about the qualitative nature of the psychical processes, and without the objective method we would have no knowledge of the effects and laws of these processes.” (Buckingham, W., Burnham D. 2011)
According to Freud telepathy consists
According to Freud telepathy consists
… In a mental act in one person instigating the same mental act in another person. What lies between two mental acts may easily be a physical process into which the mental one is transformed at one end and which is transformed back once more into the same mental one at the other end. If there is such a theory of telepathy as a real process, we may suspect that, in spite of its being so hard to demonstrate, it is quite a common phenomenon (Freud, 1933, p. 55)
After Freud’s explanation, telepathy is even more connected to space, claiming that this process requires a “physical process” to achieve the channel, this empty space belongs to both ends of the communication, has substantial material that for some reason cannot be communicated any other way but by this telepathic phenomenon.
Distance is required in order to achieve this exchange, distance in the analytic situation seems particularly common between analyst and analysand and in often times the need to re-connect is imperative for transferential purposes and the way to do it is “that kind of psychical counterpart to wireless telegraphy” (Freud, 1933, p. 36).
There are two different kinds of paranormal communication in analysis; empathic and telepathic, each of them serves a similar purpose but in empathic communication occurs mostly when the analysand is at a distance from his own unconscious, while telepathic communication occurs mostly in psychotic states where the analysand seems to have more direct access to the analyst’s unconscious. [6]
To understand telepathic communication it is required to have a communication, a relationship with another and a wish to connect. A person with “telepathic powers” uses them when necessary; this isn’t a one-dimensional revelation but a reaction to absence.
It has been proven that some patients that experience telepathic communication experienced in early childhood an emotional absent mother, generating a void filled with needs. This primary deficit was inscribed in the person creating a
… Fixation on a nonverbal, archaic mode of communication. The patient’s telepathic dreams are formed as a search engine when the analyst is suddenly emotionally absent, in order to find the analyst and thus halt the process of abandonment and prevent collapse into despair of the early traumatization. Hence, the telepathic dream embodies an enigmatic “impossible” extreme of patient/analyst deep/level interconnectedness and unconscious communication in the analytic process” (Eshel, O., 2006).
What is absence? The complete loss of the concept of presence happens through the realization of the ultimate void. One void is closed and another one reappears. There is a continuous force between presence and absence in which for the first time a complete discontinuance of the sense of self is attained.
In the state of absence one can understand presence, where there is no consciousness, no presence and no functioning. Then, consciousness is experienced as a warm presence automatically coming into light in the voidness of the absence. And precisely this is the essence of a person.
Until this moment the person cannot realize itself, when there is a realization of absence is when the feeling of “I” as an entity starts to evolve.
Instead of being an object, in absence one experiences to be a real subject. One is fully aware and not an observer or a co-pilot but recognizes itself as an absence, the unknown and unknowable.
… The moment you allow the negative relationship to go, the mental relationship to go, the ego starts freaking out, starts disintegrating, disappearing, and the aloneness will be felt as some sort of emptiness, some kind of absence of self. So when the mental relationship goes, the part that is relating to it goes, too, and you start feeling the absence of self, an emptiness which will be felt as an aloneness. When the aloneness is accepted and tolerated, it is then possible for real contact to happen, and not before that.” (A.H. Almaas. , 2000).
How can telepathy be constructive in the analytic space?
Psychoanalysts have recently used telepathy as a way to unconsciously connect with their analysands, becoming part of this “analytic third” in which
…The individuals engaged in this form of relatedness unconsciously subjugate themselves to a mutually generated intersubjective third for the purpose of freeing themselves from the limits of whom they had been to that point. (Ogden, T.H., 2004)
It’s been proved that telepathic material has been helpful in the analytic environment by creating a road between both languages. This space is eventually perceived and desire, ready to be communicated will eventually be brought out into surface (telepathically or verbally) and it’s in hands of the analyst to convey this conversation into the conscious field. [7]
Our experiences of things in space are a feature of our sensibility. A thing –in itself-
Embrace our Madness.
References.
Major, R., Miller, P. (1981). Empathy, Antipathy and Telepathy in the Analytic Process. Psychoanal. Inq., 1:449-470.
Eshel, O. (2006). Where are You, My Beloved?: On Absence, Loss, and the Enigma of Telepa... Int. J. Psycho-Anal., 87:1603-1627.
Lazar, S.G. (2001). Knowing, Influencing and Healing: Paranormal Phenomena and Implications f… Psychoanal. Inq., 21:113-131.
Freud, S. (1922). Dreams and Telepathy. Int. J. Psycho-Anal., 3:283-305.
Ogden, T.H. (2004). The Analytic Third: Implications for Psychoanalytic Theory and Technique. Psychoanal Q., 73:167-195.
Mayer, E. (2001), On “telepathic dreams?”: an unpublished paper by Robert Stoller. Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, 49:629-657.
Civin, M., Lombardi, K.L. (1990). The Preconscious and Potential Space. Psychoanal. Rev., 77:573-585.
Piaget, J. (1973). The Affective Unconscious and the Cognitive Unconscious. J. Amer. Psychoanal. Assn., 21:249-261
Walker, W. (1910). Telepathy: its theory, facts and proof. Cosimo Classics.
A.H. Almaas. (2000). Diamond Heart, Book one: elements of the Real Man. Shambhala Publications.
Buckingham, W., Burnham D. (2011) The Philosophy Book. DK Publishing.
Buckingham, W., Burnham D. (2011) The Psychology Book. DK Publishing.
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