When I was roughly 3-4 years old my mother had a frightening nightmare. She was talking in her sleep and stated she saw a man behind a dressor[sic], dresser in our apartment. This woke me from my sleep and was sort of traumatic since I had never heard this before. My father woke up too. I jumped out of my bed and got into bed with the two of my parents. My mother never moved a muscle nor woke up. I wondered if she were dead. My father never got out of bed to inspect the situation. I have also discovered it was actually my father who intended getting out of bed to investigate my mother’s claims but instead I reacted to his intentions and jumped out of bed myself and into bed with them. I also assert now, my father was hypnotized as well. Both my parents viewed the film, The Woman in Green. My father being a WWII Veteran likely dissociated or projected the film onto my mother who at first identified with the character Lydia. I have a psychic connection with both my parents. In my mother’s mind, she decided she didn’t like Lydia and projected the content in her mind onto me and I then projected the content onto my Barbie Doll I had just gotten for Christmas and then gave it to my sister. This was an acting out of the content of my mother’s mind. This is what I believe Goldman and Milman were referring to in their book The Neurosis of Our Time, Acting Out and Stanislov Grof, in Beyond the Brain, refers to this kind of acting out as an impediment to mental health. In the process of thinking through what she had seen in the film, she then decided she liked the Doctor because she refused to believe she could be hypnotized. The suggestions in the film created this belief, causing her to ignore the sleep induction she was hearing in the film. Upon discovering Watson was hypnotized she must have thought it best to stick with Holmes who was portrayed as being impervious to the whole matter, again misdirecting her focus from the dialogue and onto the characters and their actions. By this time the entire hypnotic suggestion has been forgotten and likely has taken hold of the viewer’s mind and the viewer then becomes subject to any suggestions made during and after the film. “Wake up” and the snapping of the fingers only momentarily wake up the viewer as the suggestion can be triggered again at anytime by exposing the viewer to anyone of the anchors connected to the suggestion wired linguistically in the brain. When it appeared Holmes might lose his life there were few choices left with which to identify, Moriarty who jumped from the balcony then fell to his death, Williams the hypnotized shooter, the man who seemed he might knife Watson, or the man who hypnotized Watson. This is all game theory. It seems my mother was fixated on Holmes for awhile, I proceeded to re-enact by wearing a London Fog type trench coat my parents gave me for Christmas. I was in the 5th grade and wore it to school, refusing to take it off. Mrs. Birdsall my teacher at the time, called my mother and had her come to the school. She talked to my mother about my refusal to take the coat off in class. They finally took the coat away from me. This was also after I had been beaten by my father I now understand was part of his family history caused mostly by Bible scriptures. After having seen the film, my mother resorted to throwing an ashtray at my father then pushing him over a chair causing him to stumble like Holmes did on the balcony wall. It seems viewers at first thought Watson was going to push Holmes off the balcony by getting on the wall with him and then nearly losing his own life. In another scene Lydia and Holmes are having cigarettes and cocktails. My father started rolling his own cigarettes and smoked a pipe on occasion for a brief time.
I have three pair of pajama pants that look like the last ad here and lots of shirts and towels with stripes.
Robe and towel are stripes…
In my mother’s mind, as a last resort, she was left with having to identify with Mr. Williams who was under the influence of a hypnotic suggestion and thus she was hypnotized by the sleep inducement spoken in the film that appeared to hypnotize Watson, which she was also struggling to prevent from affecting her behavior. The man with the knife scene was picked up and turned into 12 Angry Men I believe both my parents viewed. In 1972 I jumped from the middle of my bed and grabbed a knife threatening my father with it after he went after me with his belt. The film Jesus of Nazareth showed up as being one of the sources. It could have been any number of films including Boys Town or some film about a horse as I often heard “you have a mouth like a horse”.
The hypnotic wheel, one imagines to be red and white like peppermint sticks and the lollipops in The Wizard of Oz, anchored the suggestion in the viewer’s brain. Recall this film also included a semi-hypnotic sleep induction when the wicked witch rains poppies over Dorothy and the rest on their way to the Emerald City. The other objects displayed during the induction also supported the hypnotic suggestion are the plaster cast face in the frame who happens to look like William Tecumseh Sherman, I happened to recreate in art class in 1973 with Laura Clark and Joe Caswell, and I discovered in the film Twenty-Two in 2009.
There is a briefcase on the table and my parents purchased one for me for school, nearly identical to it. The spiraled back of Watson’s chair is found in many food products including our favorite soft serve ice cream cones and macaroni and cheese and then there is the curtain behind the hypnotist. These images are used in case the wheel fails to secure the hypnotic induction so they might trigger it and more suggestions could be implanted into the brain by the television and later acted upon. Suggestions such as “stay tuned next week”, “don’t touch that dial, “stay tuned for next week’s previews”, and all of the ads for numerous products such as “Maxwell House, good to the last drop”, “Salem cigarettes, like a breath of fresh air”, and “Things go better with Coke, “It’s Miller time”, inserted between programs, would begin to control the marketing behaviors of viewers. From my own personal experiences I discovered these inner struggles cause all kinds of anxiety, anger and distress because they seem to leave the viewer with no way out of the predicaments created by many films. The viewer has no choice but to tune in “next week” in hopes of getting out of their predicaments and hope fails each time leaving the viewer often depressed and detached from family and friends. They are consumed by television viewing and we labeled, humored and caricatured these people as couch potatoes in the 80’s. I created a short whimsical piece of writing in 1998 I believe was spawned by someone’s thinking on this film and its affects.
The Audacious Avarice
As I glance out my window, searching for an idea to fill the blank pages before me, I notice a scoundrel has discarded an entire pizza in the newly mowed field next to my house. I surmise the cad decided the disc of dough was not fit for human consumption and of course being an environmentalist he tossed it there knowing it would eventually become a mound of dust and find its way back into the earth, unless some four legged creature consumed it first. It just happens that be the case but it wasn’t the four legged kind that pounced upon it.
Having spotted the discarded disc of dough from above, three seagulls lighting around the pie, decide to peruse the object at the scene of the crime. They eye the disc of dough, tomato sauce, cheese and pepperoni, quickly glancing back and forth at each other, maneuvering themselves into position to take possession of the massive morsel of food. They prance about each other like debating old men. I laugh. “This is amusing, I never noticed gulls doing this before,” I thought. In fact, I rarely pay attention to nature at all, I am always too busy.
I continue watching and conclude no decision is made to share the food while they waltz about each other, as one of the fine-feathered contenders, in a rather grandiose fashion, charges toward the pizza and stakes his claim. With unyielding superiority he turns and faces his rivals. His hungry adversaries glare at him in discontent as they attempt to horn in, but he is persistent in protecting the prize. He chases his competitors quite some distance before he returns to the hearty disc of dough and toppings, hoping to put some distance between them and his meal. “Wow, I can’t believe this pinnate creature”, I whisper to myself, “oh how much happier I would be if I were more like this audacious avarice”. His competitors try to muscle in once more, but his tenacity prevails and they take flight.
Now he can enjoy the pizza in peace. My excitement grows as the champ flutters toward the pizza and takes a quick snippet. He stops, looks around, then walks several feet away from his bounty and makes a 360 degree survey of the area, scanning for intruders. As I continue to observe this beau sabreur, I think to myself, “this feathered companion of many a lonely fisherman is so paranoid he can’t enjoy what he is vigorously trying to protect”. The squab sputters back to the pizza. “Finally”, I murmur, “he is going to eat this thing”. Having the food all to himself, the brave warrior, without notice, suddenly flies away forfeiting his meal to the contention of his rivals. I glare in amazement. After all that effort to protect his food, he decides to take flight leaving behind the decaying disc of dough and pepperoni, denying himself the joy of feasting on the fruit of his labor and depriving me the pleasure of watching.
Saddened by his decision and feeling cheated of the moment, I slump back in my chair and await his return, as hope assures me he will not forsake his arduous battle and claim his bounty. He cannot, he must not. An hour passes and still no sign of the minion or his rivals. I turn away from the window one last time. “Hope disappoints me once again”, I whine. I decided to scribble the events onto the blank pages. It soon becomes clear, I am often like that bird. The disappointment I feel is really with myself not hope, yet, I realize too, I am as happy as I can ever be at the moment my pen touches the thin blue line and my thoughts spill out onto the pure white paper, for I have a story to tell.
Kay F. Gibbs
Based in actual events.
All Rights Reserved
June 1998, edited February 14, 2000
In The Woman in Green, they have little or no choice to be free from the actions of any of the characters except Williams, the shooter. This idea was carried over into the Twilight Zone episode, Perchance to Dream. Williams was taken into custody by Scotland Yard and escorted to a hospital where he was cared for. The film Coma, I have seen, picks up this unfinished drama along with several other films, carrying it forward to another generation of film makers. I am certain many viewers or their objects of projection; see Fairbairn, Object Relations, found themselves running to the hospital for unnecessary treatment or they were tuning in to get it from the next television episode of Marcus Welby and being treated via the television. I recall a time when it seemed malingering was the issue in real hospitals and they then initiated an attempt at shortening inpatient hospitalizations. It likely resulted in the arrest and incarceration of many young men and women in America and may be at the root of recidivism. I have been incarcerated 5 times in my life, the number of members in my family, I am now 59 years old, and I have been institutionalized in a psychiatric hospital at least 10 times. This is a cause of the rising cost of our health care in America. I also believe this film coupled with others I found such as Strangler in the Swamp, created a false intention for one to make a life in Hollywood.
Sometime during my birth my mother and I were entangled with her Obstetrician. The O’Briens in Cleveland, Ohio became involved and I think dialogue and other history enmeshed in our lives was sometimes handled there. I continued to act out or rather re-enact things going on. At some point I think Gloria Steinem was also the object of projections of the character Lydia, who I have connected to the Twilight Zone film Mute. I believe this to be the result of the hypnotic induction in The Woman in Green in which some writer likely made the suggestion that she stop talking, which is averted to her parents as the culprits. This suggestion has been translated into other euphemisms such as tick a lock, button up, and shut your mouth. During the cold war one can surely recognize the necessity in conducting espionage, but who is conducting it. Economic control is at risk in a situation such as this.
In 1995 I encountered Ms. Egin at the shelter in Chapel Hill. She was a blond like the character Lydia, tall and slender, a sure trigger for that character. We had drinks at a local bar and then got into an argument. During the argument I pushed her. This could be the same push my mother gave my father at home in the 60’s. The push might have been an actual event which took place on the set during the filming in which someone who read the book, thought Holmes was going to be pushed, but was split-off and put into the scene in which Moriarty fell to his death, all indicating evil acts are punished by one’s own conscience. This is indicative of the psychological process of repressing, projecting and or dissociating, an attempt at keeping The Woman in Green out of my own consciousness so I could function and maintain some semblance of sanity. It is clear now we were re-enacting scenes from The Woman in Green. It was nearly a decade later that the film reared it’s head again and I started buying the attire they wore in the film. I am sure there were likely others who viewed this film with whom I may still be connected. In the case of my family, it is also clear these characters were projected back onto me, why I ended up in jail and in hospitals.
So, Williams the shooter was taken to the hospital. Not only did this cause my mother to identify with a male but it caused her to dissociate her feminine aspects she then projected onto me. Having no understanding of the necessity for clearing these thoughts from her mind, her thought processes dictated my behavior and I re-enacted her thinking by giving my sister the doll and in 2003 by purchasing three different coats each year for three years, all being colors of the coats and dress worn in the film, the green coat worn by Lydia first, the black coat worn by Watson, then the tan coat worn by Holmes. See Neurolinguistic programming, a case of helping or hurting. My mother’s dissociating caused my father to frequently appear to have female qualities, I had once attributed to his being a paternal twin. The content of the film criminalized female nurturing qualities by using gentle seductive speech with hypnotic suggestions and gestures, causing those who viewed it to desire to become less nurturing and more resentful, not realizing why and basically unable to function in a feminine way and without returning them to that capacity as the character Lydia was arrested by the Yard and taken into custody. Until the content was cleared, no woman could return to normal functioning. They either had to seek professional help or tune in to some film that hoped to offer a cure.
Being a young adult, observing the behaviors of others was still an active part of my mother’s psychological development as it also is with young children. Young children do observe others to learn how to behave, adults do it mostly to learn how not to behave. I think this drama between my mother, sister and I, is the phantasy Melanie Klein has described in her work with children and discussed in her book titled, The Psychoanalysis of Children. Of course there is more to it than a child passing things from parents to siblings. I also assert the same is true about my stepping on the nail in the board demonstrated in The Woman in Green as a needle through the hand of the seated subject who’s arm rests on the chair. The suggestion in this film is also dramatized in Ordeal on Locust Street, but does not involve a needle. The film Twenty-Two, is a dramatization of a night club actress subjected to the suggestions in either one or both of these films, in which she is unable to hold a glass of water because of the hypnotic suggestion and is shown knocking it to the floor but likely actually dropped it. This is a state of hypnosis but not as experienced by the actor but by the person unknown to us in the film who is likely asleep at the time this film was written. The scenes are mostly set at night and there are subtle references to the character being hypnotized by the Psychiatrist who in reality, is likely a writer, often referred to as an incubus or succubus in mythology. References to there being room for one more and a plane catching fire, reported in the news to be the demise of Buddy Holly and Patsy Cline, might be the use of metaphor or slang associated with extracting dialogue from what has been viewed and turned into a novel or the next episode. Music or high levels of protein are usually employed in this process. In my mother’s case she was likely pregnant with my sister and eating more calories.
Upon recollecting these details, and my behavior at the time, I am clear my mother was in a hypnotized state at the time of her nightmare and also possessed of my father’s hypnotized state, which seems to be portrayed in the Twilight Zone film Twenty-Two. This would explain the reason she appeared to be neglectful in her parenting in certain instances, such as permitting me to walk to school alone or not monitoring me in the yard playing. Lots of latch key kids come to mind.
The film, The Woman in Green created in our society that which Bernays and Freud put forth about human kind and man’s incapacity to be civil, I believe is without doubt contrary to their beliefs. During the 2000 decade I read books such as Experiments in Mental Suggestion by Vasiliev, Dream Telepathy by Ullmann, Montague and Vaughn, Mind to Mind by Warcollier, Entangled Minds by Dean Radin and Mental Radio by J.W. Dunne. All of the books discuss paranormal activity and telepathy one can see now are merely the normal natural functions of the human brain and mind and our connections to each other. They become abnormal when we corrupt normal human thought. “If we can do that to water, think of what our thoughts can do to us”, What The Bleep Do We Know. My mother is an example of this Country’s extravagance with women’s lives.
More direct evidence comes from demonstrations that patterns of brain activity that are associated with earlier learning are selectively replayed during subsequent sleep in humans89–91 and other species such as non-human primates92, rodents93–99 and songbirds100. In a series of important experiments, McNaughton, Wilson and colleagues showed that coordinated replay occurs in the hippocampus and in both hippocampal–cortical and cortico-cortical networks 101,102…
Indirect evidence for the idea that memory replay during sleep contributes to consolidation comes from human studies documenting the beneficial effects of sleep on memory. For example, brief naps or overnight sleep improve various forms of non-declarative memory including motor skills, visual and texture discrimination learning81–83, and some forms of declarative memory 84. Furthermore, overnight sleep can restore ‘lost’memories85 and even enhance ‘insight’86. However, the relative contributions of different sleep phases (for example, SLOW-WAVE SLEEP (SWS) and RAPID EYE MOVEMENT (REM) sleep) to the consolidation of declarative and non-declarative memory remain uncertain87,88…The Organization of Recent and Remote Memory, Frankland and Bontempi.
