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(All parts in English)

The Dream of Ella SHARPE(2)

Last time, we left off in the midst of analyzing what Ella SHARPE refers to as the singular, unique dream, to which she dedicates a chapter where the ascending part of her book converges, followed by the supplements she later adds.

Her book, original in being an important work on dreams, was written after about thirty years of general analytical experience, considering that these seminars of Ella SHARPE represent experiences referencing the prior thirty years.

This dream, which was the subject of one of her patient’s sessions, is extremely interesting, and the developments she provides, the connections she establishes… not only between what properly constitutes the associations of the dream or even interpretations, but the entire message of the session as a whole… …deserve recognition for demonstrating her great sensitivity to direction and the meaning of analysis.

It is all the more striking to observe how this dream, whose terms I will recall… she interprets, as we will see, line by line as it should be done… …she interprets it in the sense of a desire tied to the wish for omnipotence in her patient. We will explore this in detail.

Whether this is justified or not, you must already consider that if this dream might interest us, it is through this lens by which I sought to show you the ambiguity and misleading nature of this unilateral notion, the implications of this wish for omnipotence, the possibilities, the perspectives of power—what one could call the neurotic wish.

Is it always the subject’s omnipotence at stake? I have introduced this notion here. It is quite clear that the omnipotence in question—whether it is the omnipotence of discourse—by no means implies that the subject feels themselves to be its bearer or its repository: if they are dealing with the omnipotence of discourse, it is through the intermediary of the Other that it is articulated. This is overlooked, particularly in the orientation Ella SHARPE gives to her interpretation of the dream.

And to begin with the conclusion, you will see how we will probably not manage to wrap this up in this lesson, because such a developed work opens up an entire world… All the more so a world, as one ultimately realizes that almost nothing has been said—though every day, it is the very ground on which we operate.

Thus, I begin by pointing out what will appear at the end. We will see in detail how she argues with her patient on the topic of his wish for omnipotence, and of his “wish for aggressive omnipotence,” as Ella SHARPE emphasizes.

This patient, whose full details she does not entirely provide, appears to face major difficulties in his profession—he is a lawyer—difficulties whose neurotic nature is so evident that she defines them in a nuanced manner, specifying that it is not so much about failure as it is about a fear of succeeding too well.

She had highlighted in the very modulation of the definition of the symptom something deserving of our attention through the splitting, the evident subtlety of the nuance introduced here in the analysis. The patient, therefore, has other difficulties besides those arising in his work. He has—she notes it herself—difficulties in all his relations with other individuals. Relationships that extend beyond his professional activities, which can particularly manifest in games, and specifically in tennis, as we will see from the indications she provides following some other sessions.

She points out the trouble he has in doing what would be necessary for him at the moment of winning a set or a game—to corner, to trap his opponent, to force them into a corner of the court to return the ball, as is classic, to another corner where they cannot retrieve it. This is the type of example of the difficulties that this patient undoubtedly faces.

And it will not be a minor contribution that symptoms like these can be highlighted by the analyst to confirm that the patient struggles to manifest their power, or more precisely, their authority.

Thus, she will intervene in a certain way, finding herself, in essence, quite delighted with a number of reactions that will follow, which will truly be the culminating moment where she pinpoints the location of desire, in the exact sense as we define it.

One could almost say that what she targets is precisely what we locate within a certain reference relative to demand. You will see; it is exactly this. However, this desire, she interprets in a certain way as an aggressive conflict, placing it essentially and profoundly on the plane of dual reference, the imaginary conflict. I will also show why it is justified for her to approach things through this lens. However, I raise this question: Can we consider as validation of the relevance of this type of interpretation two things that she herself declares to be:

The first… following the initial outline of her interpretation, of the dual type, interpreting the subject’s aggressiveness based on a return, on a transfer of the wish for omnipotence… …she notes this startling, striking fact about an adult subject: that the subject brings her this result—that for the first time since the immemorial days of their childhood, they wet the bed! We will return to this in detail to pinpoint where the problem lies.

And in the days following this session—chosen because the subject recounts a very vivid dream, which also represents a crucial moment in the analysis—at tennis… where he precisely experiences those well-known embarrassments familiar to all tennis players who occasionally have the chance to observe themselves in the way they execute their abilities, and how, sometimes, the ultimate reward of a superiority they are aware of but cannot manifest slips away… …his usual partners… with this sensitivity towards difficulties, unconscious impasses that ultimately form the fabric of this game of characters, the ways in which the clashing of dialogue, teasing, mockery, and the assertion of superiority impose themselves between subjects… …mock him, as usual, about the lost match. He becomes sufficiently angry to grab his opponent by the collar and corner him on the court, commanding him never again to make such jokes.

I do not say that there is nothing to support the direction, the order in which Ella SHARPE was guiding her interpretation. You will see that, based on the most meticulous dissection of the material, the elements she used are situated and proven for her.

We will also attempt to see which preconceived notions, which preconceived ideas—often founded… after all, no error arises except from a certain lack of truth… …founded on something else that she does not know how to articulate, even though she gives us… and this is the preciousness of this observation… …the elements of the other register. But she does not consider handling this other register.

The center, the point on which she bases her interpretation, has a degree of lesser complexity. You will see what I mean by this, although I think I have said enough for you to understand: by situating it on the plane of imaginary rivalry, of the conflict of power, she overlooks something that is now the matter at hand, properly sorting through her text itself…

It is her text that will show us—and I believe strikingly—what she leaves aside, which manifests… with such coherence! …to be the very matter at stake in this analyzed session and the dream that centers it, so that we can evidently try to see whether the categories I have long proposed, and whose markers I have sought to establish… this topological schema, this graph we use… …allow us, nonetheless, to center things more effectively.

I remind you that it concerns a dream in which the patient takes a trip around the world with his wife. He will arrive in Czechoslovakia, where all sorts of things will happen to him. He emphasizes that there is a whole world of events before this little moment, which he recounts quite briefly, as this dream occupies only one session. It is only the associations he provides… This dream is very short to narrate.

And among these things that happen, he meets a woman on a road that reminds him of the very same one he has already described twice to his analyst, where something happened, a:

“Sexual play with a woman in front of another woman.”
[Sexual play with a woman in front of another woman. (p.132)]

This happens again, he tells us, in passing in this dream, and he continues:

“This time my wife was there while the sexual event occurred. The woman I met in the dream had a truly passionate look, very passionate, and this reminds me of a woman I met in a restaurant the other day, very precisely the day before. She was dark and had very full lips, very red and passionate looking, and it was obvious that had I given her the slightest encouragement, she would have responded to my advances. That must have stimulated the dream, I suppose. And in the dream, the woman wanted intercourse with me; she took the initiative, and as you know, this is always something that helps me greatly.”

[This time my wife was there while the sexual event occurred. The woman I met was very passionate looking and I am reminded of a woman I saw in a restaurant yesterday. She was dark and had very full lips, very red and passionate looking, and it was obvious that had I given her any encouragement she would have responded. She must have stimulated the dream, I expect. In the dream the woman wanted intercourse with me and she took the initiative which, as you know, is a course which helps me a great deal. (p.132-133)]

He repeats in commentary:

“If the woman does this, I am greatly helped. In the dream, the woman actually lay on top of me; that has only just come to my mind. She was evidently intending to put my penis in her body. I could tell that by the maneuvers she was making. I disagreed with this, but she was so disappointed I thought that I would masturbate her.”

[If the woman will do this, I am greatly helped. In the dream, the woman actually lay on top of me; that has only just come to my mind. She was evidently intending to put my penis in her body. I could tell that by the manœuvres she was making. I disagreed with this, but she was so disappointed I thought that I would masturbate her. (p.133)]

Immediately afterward, he makes a remark that truly only works in English:

“It sounds quite wrong, entirely wrong, this way of using the verb masturbate transitively. One can simply say, I masturbate—which means, ‘I masturbate myself’—and this is correct…”

[It sounds quite wrong to use that verb transitively. One can say, ‘I masturbated,’ and that is correct… (p.133)]

Later in the text, we find another example that clearly shows that when one uses to masturbate, it means “to masturbate oneself.” This primitively reflexive nature of the verb is marked enough for him to make this philological remark, and it is obviously not for nothing that he does so at this moment. As I said, in a certain way, we can complete… if we want to proceed as we did with the previous dream… complete this phrase as follows: by completing the elided signifiers, we will see that the subsequent text confirms it:

“She was very disappointed” not to have my penis (or a penis). I thought: She should masturbate (and not I should): Let her masturbate! You will see later what allows us to complete things in this way.
[…but she was so disappointed I thought that I would masturbate her. (p.133)]

Following this, we have a series of associations. There are not many, but they are more than sufficient for our meditations. There are almost three pages of them, and to avoid tiring you, I will only return to them after presenting the dialogue with the patient that follows this dream.

Ella SHARPE wrote this chapter for pedagogical purposes. She catalogs what the patient essentially brought her. She demonstrates to those she teaches the material on which she will base her choices:

• Firstly, her interpretation as she considers it for herself,
• Secondly, what from that interpretation she will communicate to the patient…
  …emphasizing and insisting herself on the fact that these two things are far from coinciding, since what there is to tell the patient is probably not everything that can be said about the subject.

From what the patient provided her, there are things worth saying and others not to be said. As she finds herself in a didactic position, she begins by taking stock of what is visible, of what is readable in this session.

• The cough.
  Last time, I told you what this was about: it concerns that “little cough” the patient had on that very day before entering the session.

This “little cough” that Ella SHARPE…
given the way this patient behaves—so restrained, composed, so evidently defensive, with defenses and difficulties she senses acutely herself, though she is far from admitting that it is primarily a defense of the type “defense against his own feelings”…
…sees something that might indicate a more immediate presence than this attitude where everything is reflective, where nothing reflects.

And it is precisely this that this little cough refers to. It is something others might not have stopped at.
However minimal it may be, it is something that she hears as an announcement—literally like an olive branch—of I don’t know what kind of respite. And she tells herself, “Respect that!”

Yet, exactly the opposite happens. This is what the patient himself says: he embarks on a long discourse on the subject of this “little cough.” I mentioned this last time, and we will return to how Ella SHARPE both understands it and how, in our view, it should be understood. Here is how she analyzes this herself, namely, what she learns from the patient following this “little cough.”

Because the subject does not immediately bring up the dream; instead, it is through a series of associations that came to him after he himself remarked upon this cough:

• that it escaped him,
• and that surely it must mean something,
• that he even told himself that this time he wouldn’t do it again,
  because it wasn’t the first time—it had already happened to him before.

After climbing this staircase—which she does not hear him climb, so discreet it is—he produced this “little cough”…
he himself uses the term…and he questions it.

Now we will revisit what he said in light of how Ella SHARPE recorded it herself. She catalogs what she calls “Ideas concerning the purpose of a cough.” Here is how she documents it:

Firstly:
“This little cough brings thoughts of lovers being together.”
[Brings thoughts of lovers being together. (p.136)]

What did the patient say? After speaking about his cough and posing the question:
“What possible purpose can this serve?”
[…but what possible purpose can be served by a little cough…? (p.131)]
he says:

“Yes! It’s the kind of thing one might do if entering a room where two lovers are together. If one approaches, one might cough discreetly to let them know they’re about to be disturbed. I’ve done this myself, for example…//…when my brother was with his girlfriend in the living room, I used to cough a little before entering so that if they were kissing, they could stop…//…because in that case, they wouldn’t feel as embarrassed as if I had caught them in the act.”

[Well, it is the kind of thing that one would do if one were going into a room where two lovers were together. If one were approaching such a place one might cough a little discreetly and so let them know they were going to be disturbed. I have done that myself when, for example…//…my brother was with his girl in the drawing-room. I would cough before I went in so that if they were embracing, they could stop…//…They would not then feel as embarrassed as if I had caught them doing it. (p.131)]

It is worth highlighting here that, firstly, the cough was indeed exhibited by the patient—and we suspect as much because everything that follows develops this notion—the cough is a message. But let us immediately note this…
which already, in the way Ella SHARPE analyzes it, becomes apparent…
…that she does not grasp or emphasize—and while this may seem a little pedantic or overly detailed as a remark, you will see that this order of observation I am introducing is where everything else follows. Namely, this is what I have called the lowering of the interpretative level that will characterize Ella SHARPE’s interpretation:
…if the cough is a message, it is evident from Ella SHARPE’s own text that what is important to highlight is not simply that the subject coughed, but precisely…
…as she herself emphasizes, to her great surprise…
…it is that the subject says, “It’s a message.”
[One would think some purpose is served by it… (p.131)]

This, she omits. For in the catalog of her findings—which we are not yet at the point where she selects and which will depend on what she has recognized—it is clear that she omits this element she herself explained. That is, firstly: there is indeed the cough, but the subject…
this is the critical point about this cough-message, if it is indeed a message…
talks about it, saying, “What is its purpose? What does it announce?”

The subject explicitly begins by saying about this cough, literally: “It’s a message.”
He identifies it as a message. And furthermore, within this dimension where he announces that it is a message, he asks a question:
“What is the purpose of this message?”
[…what possible purpose can be served by a little cough… (p.131)]

This articulation, this definition that we are trying to give to what happens in analysis…
without forgetting the structural framework…
…which rests on the fact that what happens in analysis is, above all, a discourse—here without any particular refinement or disassembly, properly speaking. And we will see the significance of this. I would even say that, to a certain extent, we can already begin to orient ourselves on our graph.

When he asks the question, “What is this cough?”, it is a second-level question about the event. It is a question he poses from the perspective of the Other, as it is precisely by being in analysis that he begins to pose it. He is, I would say, in this instance…
as can be seen from Ella SHARPE’s surprise…
…far ahead of where she herself imagines, somewhat in the way that parents are always behind in understanding what children grasp and do not grasp.

Here, the analyst is lagging behind the fact that the patient has long since figured out the trick—that is, that it is a matter of questioning the symptoms of what is happening [in?] the analysis, of the slightest snag that arises posing a question.

In short, this question about “It’s a message?” is indeed present, with its interrogative form, in the upper part of the graph…
I provide the lower part to help you orient yourselves to where we are…
…it is precisely in this part that I have defined elsewhere as being at the level of the discourse of the Other, here to the extent that it is indeed the analytic discourse in which the subject participates. And it is a question—literally!—concerning the Other within him, concerning his unconscious.

It is at this level of articulation, which is always pending in every subject insofar as the subject asks, “But what does it want?” but which here is unmistakable in its distinction from the innocent verbal foreground of the statement, to the extent that this is not an innocent statement made within analysis.

And here, the locus where this interrogation points is precisely the one where we place what must ultimately be “the shibboleth” of analysis—that is, the signifier of the Other—but which is precisely what, for the neurotic, is veiled. And veiled precisely insofar as he does not know this incidence of the signifier of the Other, and that, in this instance, not only does he recognize it, but what he interrogates about it, far from being the answer, is the questioning itself. It is effectively:

“What is this signifier of the Other within me?”

To be clear, let us say at the outset of our exposition that he is far—and for good reason!—from having acknowledged the capacity to recognize this fact: that the Other, no more than himself, is castrated.
For the moment, he is simply questioning…
with this innocent or learned ignorance constituted by the fact of being in analysis…
…about this: what is this signifier, insofar as it is a signifier of something in my unconscious, that is the signifier of the Other?

This is elided in Ella SHARPE’s progression. What she enumerates are “ideas concerning the cough”; this is how she approaches things. Of course, they are “ideas concerning the cough,” but they are ideas that already say much more than a simple linear chain of ideas, which, as we know, are mapped out here explicitly on our graph. That is to say, something is already taking shape.

She tells us: “What does this little cough bring? First, it brings the idea of lovers being together.”
I read to you what the patient said. What did he say? He said something that, in my view, cannot in any way be summarized as simply bringing “the idea of lovers being together.”

It seems to me that, listening to him, the idea he conveys is that of someone arriving as a third party among these lovers who are together. He arrives as a third party, but not just in any manner, since he arranges not to arrive as a third party in too disruptive a way. In other words, it is quite significant, from the outset, to note that if there are three characters, their being together involves temporal and coherent variations, specifically that they are together as long as the third party is outside. When the third party enters, they are no longer together—this is evident.

Keep in mind that if we had to…
as it will take us two seminars to cover the material brought by this dream and its interpretation…
spend a week meditating to exhaust what the patient provides, analysis might seem insurmountable, especially because things will inevitably expand, and we will soon be overwhelmed.
But in reality, this is not a valid objection, for the simple reason that, to a certain degree, in the schema that is already taking shape—namely:

• when the third party is outside, the two are together,
• and when the third party is inside, the two are no longer together…
  …I am not saying that everything we will examine here is already present, as that would be overly simplistic.

But we will see this develop, deepen, and, to put it simply, fold back upon itself like a leitmotif endlessly reproduced and enriched at every point of the framework, constituting the entire texture as a whole. And you will see what that is.

What does Ella SHARPE next highlight as being related to the cough?
a) He touched on “ideas concerning lovers being together.”
b) “Rejection of a sexual fantasy concerning the analyst.”
Does this reflect what the patient provided?

The analyst asked him: “And why cough before coming in here?”
[And why cough before coming in here? (p.131)]
Immediately after he explained what purpose it would serve if there were lovers inside, he said:

“That is absurd, because naturally, I should not be asked to come up if someone were here, and I do not think of you in that way at all. There is no need for a cough at all that I can see. It has, however, reminded me of a fantasy I had of being in a room where I ought not to be…”
[That is absurd, because naturally I should not be asked to come up if someone were here, and I do not think of you in that way at all. There is no need for a cough at all that I can see. It has, however, reminded me of a phantasy I had of being in a room where I ought not to be… (p.131-132)]

This is where Ella SHARPE’s focus ends. Can we say there is “rejection of a sexual fantasy concerning the analyst” here?
It seems there is not outright “rejection” but rather an admission—albeit an indirect admission—through the associations that follow. It cannot be said that, in response to the analyst’s suggestion on this subject, the patient rejects it purely and simply or takes a position of outright denial. On the contrary, this seems very typically an example of an opportune interpretation, as it will lead to everything that follows, which we will examine.

Indeed, the issue of the “sexual fantasy” in question, arising from this entry into the analyst’s office where the analyst is presumed to be alone, is undoubtedly the matter at hand. And I believe it will soon become evident to you that it does not take an expert to illuminate this.

c) The third element that the associations bring, Ella SHARPE tells us, is:

“The fantasy of being where he ought not to be and barking like a dog to put people off the scent.”
[Phantasy of being where he ought not to be, and barking like a dog to put people off the scent. (p.136)]

This is a metaphorical expression in the English text, “to put… off the scent” [to throw someone off the trail].
It is never meaningless when one metaphor is used over another. But here, there is no trace of “scent” in what the patient says—whether repressed or not, we have no reason to decide.

I say this because “the scent” is “the Sunday joy” of certain forms of analysis. Let us limit ourselves here to what the patient says. In response to the analyst’s inquiry, he says:

“This reminds me of that fantasy I had of being in a room where, indeed…
this conforms to what the analyst ‘surmised’…
…I had no reason to be—more precisely: ‘where I ought not to be’…//…in such a way that someone might think…”

The structure is dual, referencing the subjectivity of the other, and absolutely constant.
This is what I will emphasize because this is continually the issue, and it is here, and only here, that we can center the location of desire. This is what is consistently elided in Ella SHARPE’s account and in the way she addresses the various tendential incidences.

He says, then, “I think that someone might think…”
[…and thinking someone might think…]
“…I had this fantasy[…] thinking that someone might think I was there, and then I thought that, to prevent anyone from entering and finding me, I could bark like a dog. That would disguise my presence. The ‘someone’ would then say, ‘Oh, it’s only a dog in there.’”

[…a fantasy I had[…] and thinking someone might think I was there, and then I thought to prevent anyone from coming in and finding me there I would bark like a dog. That would disguise my presence. The ‘someone’ would then say, ‘Oh, it’s only a dog in there.’ (p.132)]

The paradoxical nature of this subject’s fantasy undoubtedly calls for attention…
he himself notes that the memories are from late childhood or adolescence…
…even though the incoherence or absurdity of certain fantasies is perceived nonetheless with its full value—that is, as meaningful and worth noting by the analyst.

So, she tells us, in the sequence of associative ideas that arise:

“It’s a fantasy of being where he ought not to be and, to throw others off the trail, barking like a dog.”
[Phantasy of being where he ought not to be, and barking like a dog to put people off the scent. (p.136)]

The observation is accurate, except for this: if he imagines himself being where he ought not to be, the aim of the fantasy, the meaning of the fantasy, the obvious content of the fantasy is to show that he is not where he is. This is the other phase!
This phase is very important because, as we will see, it characterizes and constitutes the very structure of every subjective assertion made by this patient. And cutting to the heart of the matter under such conditions…
telling him that he is at the point where he intended to kill his counterpart, which represents its return and revenge…
…is undoubtedly taking a position under conditions where the likelihood of both error and success—namely, of getting the patient to subjectively adopt what you assert—is particularly apparent. This is what makes this text so interesting.

If, on the other hand, we can see that emphasizing what is revealed here in its structure—namely, what is already apparent in the fantasy, that he is not where he is—might lead us to interpret it differently, we will consider that possibility.

In any case, he does not adopt just any “self” to make himself not be where he is. It is quite clear, of course, that from the perspective of reality, this fantasy is untenable, and that barking like a dog in a room where one ought not to be is not the best way to avoid attention.

Let us set aside, of course, this statement that serves only to remind us that we are not in the realm of the comprehensible but within the imaginary structure. After all, such things are heard during sessions, and one is left afterward to believe that one understands simply because the patient seems to understand.

As I said, what characterizes all affect, all this margin, this accompaniment, these edges of inner discourse…
especially as we can reconstruct it when we sense that this discourse is not as continuous as it is often assumed to be…
…is that continuity is an effect, primarily achieved through affect.
Namely, the less motivated the affects are, the more—this is a rule—they appear comprehensible to the subject.

This is not—for us—a reason to follow suit, and this is why the remark I made here, however obvious it may seem, still carries weight.

What must be analyzed is the fantasy, without understanding it—meaning by rediscovering the structure it reveals.
So, what does this fantasy mean?

Just as earlier, it was crucial to see that the subject was saying about his cough, “It’s a message?”, it is important to recognize that this fantasy truly has no sense of the utterly unreal nature of its potential effectiveness. What the subject says in barking is simply: “It’s a dog.”

Here too, he makes himself Other, but that is not the question; he does not ask himself what this signifier of the Other is within him.
Here, he creates a fantasy, and this is nevertheless quite valuable when it comes to us because it allows us to perceive what is being presented. He makes himself Other using what? A signifier, precisely. The barking here is the signifier of what he is not: he is not a dog, but thanks to this signifier, the result is perfectly achieved within the fantasy—he becomes Other than what he is.

I will ask you here…
since we have not exhausted what has emerged through simple associations concerning the cough, there is a fourth element that we will address shortly, namely the function of the signifier within the fantasy. Because here it is clear that the subject considers himself sufficiently concealed by this fantasized barking…
to take a detour.

This is no longer about the dream I am discussing with you, but rather a small, elementary clinical observation. At the end of a recent scientific communication, I alluded to this point, indicating that I would bring it up here. It must be said that in such an abundant field, what could be taught is so disproportionate to what is actually taught—that is, to what is endlessly repeated—that there are days when I myself feel ridiculously overwhelmed by the task I have undertaken.

Let us take this phrase: “It’s a dog.” I want to draw your attention to something concerning child psychology, what is referred to as genetic psychology. Efforts are made—with this child one wants to understand—to approach them using this so-called genetic psychology, which consists of asking how the dear little one, so apparently naive, begins to acquire their ideas. And so, one asks how the child proceeds. Their world is assumed to be initially auto-erotic, with objects emerging only later. I hope—thank goodness!—that all of you have either direct experience with children or at least enough patients who can recount their children’s stories to see that there is nothing more interested in objects or their reflections than a very small child. Let us set that aside.

For the moment, we are concerned with understanding how the operation of the signifier comes into play for them. I argue that we can observe in children, at the source…
at the origin of their grasp on the world that presents itself to them, which is above all a world of language,
a world where people speak to them—a confrontation that is obviously quite staggering…
…how they enter this world.

I have already alluded to this phenomenon, which can be noticed by anyone with an attentive ear and a willingness to move beyond preconceived ideas about children. A friend recently remarked to me that, having decided to spend significant time raising his child, he had always referred to the dog as “the dog.” He was somewhat surprised, however, when the child, who had perfectly identified what the adult designated with this primitive naming, began to call it “woof-woof.”

Others…
people who, I would not say, are directly enlightened by the research frameworks I propose, but at least informed by my teaching…
…have pointed out something else: not only does the child limit the designation of the dog to “woof-woof,” choosing this element of the dog among all its features.

How can one be surprised? For the child obviously will not begin by qualifying their dog with attributes. Long before they can handle any kind of descriptive term, they start incorporating what they can say about it—namely, the way the animal presents itself by producing a sign, which is not yet a signifier.
But note that here, it is through this access point—through the advantage presented by the presence of an animal, something distinct enough to provide material, something already involving vocal emission—that the child adopts this element as what?

As something that—since it replaces the dog—they have already perfectly understood and heard to the extent that they can just as easily direct their gaze toward the dog when it is named as they can toward an image of the dog when one says “dog.” They replace it with “woof-woof,” which constitutes the first metaphor. In this, we see the beginnings—most in line with the true genesis of language—of the predicative operation.

It has been noted that in primitive forms of language, what functions as adjectives are metaphors. This is confirmed here in the subject, except that we are not encountering some mysterious primitive operation of the mind but rather a structural necessity of language: for something to emerge in the order of the signified, there must be a substitution of one signifier for another.

You might say, “How do you know this?”
I mean, “Why do you claim that what is essential here is the substitution of ‘woof-woof’ for ‘dog’?”

First, I would say that it is commonly observed—and this was reported to me not long ago—that from the moment a child learns to call a dog “woof-woof,” they will call many things “woof-woof,” even things that have absolutely nothing to do with a dog. This immediately shows that what is at play here is indeed the transformation of a sign into a signifier, subjected to all sorts of substitutions in relation to other signifiers or units of reality, which, at this stage, carry no greater significance.

Because what is at stake here is testing the power of the signifier.
The culmination of this is marked by that decisive moment when the child…
and this is the observation I made at the end of the scientific communication I mentioned earlier…
declares with the greatest authority and insistence: “The dog says meow” or “The cat says woof-woof.”

This is an absolutely decisive moment because it is here that the primitive metaphor, constituted purely and simply by signifier substitution—through the act of substituting one signifier for another—generates the category of qualification.
Understand me clearly: we can, if you wish, formalize this on occasion and say that the step, the progress achieved here, consists of the following:

• First, a unilinear chain is established that says: “The dog = woof-woof.”
• What is at issue, and what is demonstrated most evidently by the fact that the child superimposes and combines one chain with another, is that the child has made them intersect. For example, in the chain: “The dog says woof-woof,” the child intersects it with the chain: “The cat says meow.”
• By substituting “meow” for “woof-woof,” the child introduces the possibility of one chain crossing another, resulting in a redifferentiation of each chain into two parts: what will remain fixed (temporarily) and what will remain mobile (also temporarily)—that is, something around which other elements of the chain can revolve and be exchanged.

In other words, it is only from the moment when the S’ of the cat, as signified by this sign, is associated with the S, the “woof-woof,” signifier of the dog, that this assumes…
and initially, there is no underlying structure…
…the child links the two lines, such that the signified “woof-woof,” the dog, becomes S’ for the “meow,” the signifier of the cat.

It is only from the moment when this exercise is completed—and the importance the child places on this exercise is entirely evident, demonstrated by the fact that if the parents clumsily intervene, correcting or scolding the child for saying such nonsense, the child reacts very emotionally…
to put it plainly, they cry…
…because the child knows perfectly well what they are doing, unlike the adults, who think the child is babbling.

For it is only from this moment, and according to the formulation I have given of the metaphor—which essentially consists in the fact that something at the level of the upper line has shifted or been elided in relation to something on the lower line of the signified, which has also shifted—that this is understood.

In other words, from the point of view of the graph, once this interplay is introduced…
the “woof-woof” can be elided and relegated beneath the statement concerning the dog…
…this statement becomes properly a signifying statement, not just a simple imitative connection to reality.

Whether the dog is pointed to or named, it amounts to the same thing. But the fact is, when a quality or attribute of the dog is assigned, it is not on the same line. Instead, it is on the line of qualities as such: there are those who go “woof-woof,” those who go “meow,” and all others who make different sounds, which are implicated in this vertical hierarchy, in this elevation, to allow the metaphor to generate the dimension of the adjective.

You know, these observations are not new! DARWIN had already examined them.
However, lacking the linguistic apparatus, these matters remained highly problematic for him.

But this phenomenon is so general, so essential, so functionally dominant in the development of the child that even DARWIN…
despite his naturalist inclinations…
…could not fail to be struck by the following: he found it quite curious that a child, already exhibiting remarkable cleverness, was able to isolate the “quack” of a duck…
this is how DARWIN phoneticizes the duck’s cry in his text, as reproduced by the child…
…and that this “quack” was then applied by the child to a whole series of objects, whose generic homogeneity was sufficiently evident from the fact that, if I remember correctly, among these objects were wine and a coin. I am not entirely sure what this term “sou” referred to—whether it meant a penny or something else. I have not verified what it meant in DARWIN’s time, but it was a coin because DARWIN, in his puzzlement, could not help but note that this coin was stamped with an eagle.

It might seem that the explanation unifying the association of the “quack” with the avian species in general—under the pretext that an image as ambiguous as an eagle with outspread wings on a coin could be something we should consider as being homogenized by a child with their perception of the duck—is somewhat tenuous.
Evidently, the association with wine or liquid remains problematic. Perhaps we could simply think there is some relation between wine and something liquid, which, let’s say, might evoke the duck splashing around in it.

In any case, what is once again at play here is something that is far more explicitly marked by the mediation of the signifier as such. Here, let us admit, it may be related to the contiguity of perception if we accept that the association pertains to the liquid quality when the child applies the duck’s “quack” to it.

You can see clearly that, in any case, it is within the realm of the signifying chain that we can apprehend what is fundamentally established in the child’s grasp of the world as a world structured by speech.
It is not that the child is seeking the meaning or the essence of birds, fluids, or coins…
Rather, the child literally finds them through the exercise of nonsense.

For, ultimately, if we have the time, we could explore questions about what nonsense is, technically speaking—I mean, the concept of “nonsense” in the English language. It is precisely a genre. The English language has two eminent examples of nonsense, specifically:

• Edward Lear, the author of Nonsenses, which he explicitly defined as such,
• and Lewis Carroll, whose Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, I assume, you are at least somewhat familiar with.

I must say that if I were to recommend an introductory book for anyone aspiring to be a child psychiatrist or psychoanalyst, rather than any of Mr. PIAGET’s books, I would advise starting with Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.

Because one would grasp something that, based on what is known about Lewis Carroll, I have every reason to believe…
…rests on a profound understanding of children’s wordplay and indeed demonstrates the value, impact, and dimension of nonsense as such.

Here, I can only briefly touch upon this idea.
I have introduced it parenthetically in connection with the subject’s “It’s a dog.”

What I mean is the formulated, signifying way in which one should interpret what emerges here as fantasy. At the very least, I believe you can easily identify the title of the fantasy from its terms: I mean, the fantasy, “It’s a dog, it’s just a dog.”

You will recognize the formula of the fantasy I provided: $⋄a.
Namely, what the subject seems to elide is not themselves, but rather that there is another, an imaginary other: a.
This is the first indication of the relevance of this schema for identifying the validity of the fantasy as such.

d) I now turn to the fourth associative element that Ella SHARPE provides in this context:
“A dog again brought to memory, in the form of a dog that masturbates.”
[Dog again brought memory of masturbating a dog. (p.136)]

The usage, naturally, is intransitive: it concerns a dog that masturbates, as the patient recounts. The subsequent exchange unfolds as follows:

• (Analyst): “A dog?”
• (Patient): “That reminds me of a dog rubbing himself against my leg, really masturbating himself. I’m ashamed to tell you because I didn’t stop him. I let him go on, and someone might have come in.”

[That reminds me of a dog rubbing himself against my leg, really masturbating himself. I’m ashamed to tell you because I did not stop him. I let him go on, and someone might have come in. (p.132)]

Does the connotation of this element as something for the analyst to add to the chain—namely, “memory of a dog that masturbates”—entirely satisfy us in this context? I believe not.
Because this element allows us to delve further into what is conveyed in this message, which brings the dream. To show you the first loop traversed by the patient’s associations and where it resides, I would say that nothing is more evident here than the associative line.

It is precisely the one I sketch here as a dotted line, insofar as it exists in the subject’s enunciation. These fragmented signifying elements will pass—just as in ordinary and normal speech [from the lower level]—through these two reference points of the “message” [S(Ⱥ)] and the “code” [$◊D], with the “message” and the “code” being of an entirely different nature here than that of the interlocutor speaking the same language, who pertains to the term of the Other, A.

And what we observe here, along this associative line, is precisely, first of all, the fact that we arrive at the formulation: “This concerns the signifier of the Other that resides in me.” This is the question.

And what the subject begins to unfold regarding this is nothing less than passing through this point [S(Ⱥ)], which we will return to later, then here to d, at the level where the question of their desire arises. [S(Ⱥ) → $◊D → d]

What is the subject doing by making this “little cough,” that is, upon entering a place where there is something unknown: “Sexual fantasy concerning the analyst.” Which fantasy?
What emerges afterward is their own fantasy, namely, imagining themselves there, in the analyst’s place, first contemplating not being there—or, more precisely, being mistaken for someone else. And now, what do we arrive at?

Precisely this: the scene suddenly unfolds, revealed by the patient.
What happens? What happens is that this dog, as it exists in reality, is not there. This dog, no longer merely a fantasized figure, is now real.

It is another, this time no longer a signifier but an image, a companion in this room.
And a companion all the more obviously proximate and assimilated to the subject because it is against the patient’s own leg that the dog masturbates.

What is the schema of what transpires at this moment? It is essentially founded on the fact that the other…
here the animal as real, and about whom we know there is a connection to the subject because the subject has previously informed us—they could imaginatively be this animal, provided they appropriate the signifier “barking”…
…this other present is masturbating: they are showing something, specifically, themselves masturbating.

Is the situation resolved here?
No, as the patient themselves tells us: there is the possibility that someone else might enter, and what shame that would bring!
The situation would become untenable. The subject would literally disappear in shame before this Other, a witness to what is happening.
In other words, what is articulated here is: “Show me what I should do, provided that the other, as the grand Other, the third party, is not present.”

I look at the other, which I am—this dog—provided the Other does not enter. Otherwise, I vanish in shame.
But, conversely, this other that I am, namely this dog, I view as an Ideal Ego, doing what I do not do, as an “ideal of power,” as Ella SHARPE would later call it. But certainly not in the sense she interprets it, because this has nothing to do with words.

It is precisely because the dog is not a speaking animal that it can serve here as the model and the image, and the subject can see in it what they desire to see: being shown what they must do, what they can do, and this, as long as they remain out of the view of the Other—the one who might enter, the one who speaks.

In other words, it is precisely because I have not yet entered my analyst’s office that I can imagine her—Ella SHARPE, the poor dear woman—showing me how to masturbate, and I cough to alert her to resume a normal position.

This oscillation between the two “others”:

• the one who does not speak, who is imagined [the other],
• and the one who will be spoken to [the Other], who is cautioned not to let the confrontation happen too quickly, lest the subject vanish…
  …is the pivot point where suddenly, like the dream itself, something emerges in memory.

Well, the dream—we will resume it next time so we can realize that the interest of the dream, and the fantasy it will show us, lies precisely in being the complete opposite of this waking fantasy, whose outlines we have delineated today.