THE YOUNG BOY

      In this, the beginning of his transformation from ego to soul, he often dreams of the young boy, of the lost child within himself.

      He dreams of being with his young son, Jonathan, of loving him, of tousling his hair and hugging him.

      He dreams that he has found a young boy who has been sealed up within this wall and forgotten for a long time. He's letting him out now. He's going to help him. He even says, in a formal manner, "I'm going to care for this disadvantaged child."

      Later, he dreams that Al Kreinheder, his old analyst, is at the child guidance clinic where he works. Al is looking through some very old records. Our hero finds his own records then too, from when he had almost died as a young boy. Although he had come back to life then, the records show that he had been seriously damaged. The records state that he had been fairly disturbed, psychotic, and probably brain damaged too. He shows these old records to Al.

      Al is embarrassed that he has seen them. He says that the best way to write clinical reports is to express the progress without saying anything personal or negative about the patient. He shows him examples, written by a man who had been schizophrenic himself. He had been very sensitive and a good healer because of this. He and Al had actually worked together to help heal him when he had been that young boy.


      When his marriage with Pamela failed and his life was shattered, he needed to grow. He needed to understand and to heal what was wrong within himself that had led to this failure. His old ego had to die so that he might be reborn and go on living.

      So now he's diving deeply into the psyche, going way back in his life, seeking to heal the child within himself. Now, with the help of his dreams and acid, he's continuing the work that he began with Al Kreinheder. He's connecting to his own inner schizophrenic healer, and together they'll heal this hurt and rejected young boy within himself. Only then will he finally become whole and sane.

      When he was a young boy, he had been seriously ill, with pneumonia in both lungs, with meningitis, with polio, and with an infected mastoid bone behind his left ear. His parents had gotten him to the hospital just in time, and the doctors had operated on him to remove the infected mastoid bone. They had cut into his head twice, behind his left ear, using ether each time.

      He remembered waking up in the hospital bed after the operations, screaming and gripping the bars of the headboard with all his strength. He was terrified by what he had just experienced while he was supposedly unconscious. He felt the bandages covering his head. He felt that he had been mutilated by mad doctors.

      Then somehow he actually forgot about this part of his life for the next twenty or so years. He just couldn't handle it. Finally though, with Al's love and acceptance, he found the courage to re-experience these old and powerful feelings, this time as a more conscious being, one who could understand and transform these feelings into positive and healing energy.