THE INNER VOICE

In the early 1940s, I — with my husband, the late Hugh Kingsmill and four children — was living in a flat in Holland Park, London. Trying to bring up children under wartime conditions proved extremely stressful, and it was not long before I was having to spend much of my time lying in a darkened room, suffering the miseries of acute migraine headaches, unable to keep down what little food I ate.

I saw a number of doctors, none of whose treatment proved successful, until at last one of them suggested I should try psychoanalysis. The analyst, middle-aged and a staunch Freudian, was confident of being able to help me; and, true to his word, within six months the vomiting stopped and the migraines lessened; by the end of the year, indeed, they had actually ended.

By now I had become absorbed in my analysis. My dreams were copious, and the analyst appeared to find them as interesting as I did myself; I was, however, beginning to differ from him at times as to how a particular dream should be interpreted. The summer was approaching, and the analyst decided he needed a holiday; before leaving, he instructed me to continue to write down my dreams, which I was happy to do. For about a week, however, I did not dream at all, and I found this disturbing. Had I, I asked myself, been dreaming so much because the dreams were trying to tell me something, or because the analyst demanded them in order to understand me?

When I did begin to dream again, the dreams took a strange form. Being tired, I had retired to bed early and fell asleep at once. In the course of the night, however, I woke — or dreamed I woke up — to find a presence, enveloped in a golden-pink glow of light, sitting by my bed. It had wavy hair down to the shoulders and was wearing a white robe, so that at first I thought it was a woman, before quickly realising that it was a man. The eyes held mine with a deep, penetrating gaze, which made me feel I already knew him, but without remembering how, or when, or where.

His glowing face wore a serene expression, and I felt myself enveloped in an intense love. Neither of us spoke, and I have no idea how long the experience lasted, but when I woke up next morning I felt I had seen a Divine Being, and been given spiritual guidance and instruction. Rushing to my husband's room, I poured out to him what had happened. While agreeing that I had had an extraordinary experience, the look of concern in his eyes, and the way he patted my head while assuring me that "all is going to be well", warned me to control my intense elation.

After lunch I felt free to go to my room and write down my experience and the new insights it had given me; later, over a cup of tea with my husband, I started to read out what I had written. Partway through, however, he interrupted me, looking very serious, and said: "I can see the spiritual side of your nature has been stimulated, but I feel strongly that you'd be unwise to give such material to your analyst. I know little about psychoanalysis, but I do know that it's based on a materialist outlook. You've responded very well to the treatment so far, and are much better in health. I should indeed be distressed if you were upset again . . . Think about this seriously — you've a couple of weeks before the analyst gets back."

I did as he asked. I thought long and seriously, and in doing so began to understand why I had often disagreed with my analyst's interpretation of my dreams. Putting on my coat when my last session ended, I had asked somewhat petulantly: "Why do you always interpret flowers as orgasms? I love flowers. If I were a rich woman I'd surround myself with flowers — I'm not interested in orgasms."

"Exactly! That's what's wrong with you," the analyst answered sharply. "Your feet aren't on the ground. You float in the clouds with the "Gita" under one arm and the "Upanishads" under the other, and a "Bible" hanging round your neck on a chain!"

I had laughed, but my query had been dismissed with a wave of the hand and a reminder to record my dreams for his return in three weeks' time. Thinking all this over, I began to feel alarmed. Was it true that I was "up in the clouds" and "my feet not on the ground"? Angrily I thought: "How does he suppose I run a large flat, and do all the shopping and cooking for six people?"

Soon, however, the anger turned against myself. . . You are not understanding, giving enough thought and consideration, to what you are being told. While I pondered, the tender, loving face of the Divine Being floated before me; I started to tremble, and at last burst into tears, saying, to myself "You are in a mess. . ."

Continued tomorrow...