A Dream True Enough

And in which I shed hot tears having had a visceral lesson on the phenomenon of empathy.

When it comes to shedding tears, it's a very rare yet easily achieved emotional event for me. I cry readily but only in instances of the loftiest, deepest, and purest examples of virtues like courage, self-sacrifice, moral integrity, principled defiance, devotion, adult innocence, etc. This effectively means that more often than not, my infrequent teary moments come from literature and movies.

My dream, however, is not remarkable for its hot repentant tears but for its lesson about an element of empathy which I don't think is enunciated enough: that the expression of empathy is first and foremost a cognitive attribute, a vital act of deeply humanized thinking, than it's usually understood. More broadly, I regard empathy as one of the vital elements of the construct of emotional intelligence (EQ). Even though I'm a clinical psychologist by profession, I'm not much familiar with the EQ scientific literature. My intellectual depth on this subject is no more than that possessed by a layman who's read about it in bits and pieces. However, I'm going to be sharing a very simple perspective on EQ which is entirely inspired by the dream I had (on the night of 30th, July '24). Though I'm sure this perspective is not in any way original except for the metaphysical medium by which it was derived. Hence, be warned that this is an entirely subjective view but one which I hope isn't too divorced from what experts in the field have said and written.

First, a few words about me and dreams. I believe I dream all the time (that is, my brain's neuronal wirings keep firing each time I close my eyes in sleep), but most of these random sleep-state imageries and fleeting impressions don't often make it into my post-sleep consciousness. The few (about 10% of all my dreams) that do make it sooner or later (usually within 48 hours) fade away from my memory altogether. There's, however, another 5% of the 10% that survive for longer (maybe a week or a month depending on its narrative bizarreness, shock value, and emotional intensity). And the ones that do fall into this fastidious 5% bracket more often than not occur during periods of restless/shallow sleep (characterized by intermittent sub-wakings) which occur mostly during daytime or on particularly difficult nights.

I don't believe in the meaningfulness of my own dreams, but I believe in the occasional random Freudian meaningfulness of some other people's dreams. Most of my dreams are nonsensical or utterly mundane at best. I don't think I have ever had nightmares (one that triggers sudden involuntary awakening) since my post-adolescent years, but I have had, on very few occasions, bizarrely jarring dreams with otherworldly concoction of characters, settings, plots, and evocations. But even these I forget, at the most, after a month. There was a time I used to have extremely narratively creative dreams so that I once decided to keep a special diary for this sort of dreams. But it was at a time I used to fancy myself a budding writer of fiction (felt like ages ago!). Unfortunately, neither the diary nor the practice has survived. Like my dreams, they may have permanently floated away.

One last remark about dreams in general: dreams with emotional content at their core are more likely to survive sleep and retain a fairly long half-life afterwards. The more intense the emotion evoked in the dream, the more the dream is soldered into our waking memory. Hence, dreams characterized by the induction of fear, anxiety, ecstasy, sadness, disgust, pleasure, resentment, pain, excitement, etc are strong potential candidates for long remembrances. It shares this consequential quality with real life events, except that only the latter are infused with the power to cause psychoemotional injury known as Trauma. At least I'm yet to come across a case of dream-induced trauma - post-dream stress disorder. PDSD, anyone?

However, the dream of which I now write about is characterized by none of the intensely potent emotions listed above. In fact, compared to those emotions, the one that defined this dream of mine was rather mild in its ordinary form but imbued with a lucidity, subtlety, and forcefulness of drama and impact that served to multiply as well as intensify its effect to the point of tears the likes of which I've only ever rarely shed. The core emotion I'm speaking of is, of course, empathy.

I've always been a deeply empathic adult (was an insensitive jerk as a young chap) but not consistently so as primitive feelings still sometimes hijack and dull the perceptive edges of this higher state of mind. But before I go into the details of my dream and the reflection it immediately induced about the subject of EQ, it's important I provide some necessary backgrounds. Hence, I'll share three different but connected short backstories. The first backstory is about my best friend on whom the dream was centered. This back story is needed to fully and properly appreciate the content (both manifest and latent - yes, I got this from Freud!) of the dream. The other two back stories are necessary for the readers to appreciate the theoretical speculations that the dream led me to.

So, without further ado, the first backstory Ladies and Men

I have a best friend and he's one I'm very proud of but not for any of the conventional reasons. This best friend also inspires me but again he's the most unconventional source of inspiration. We often choose our most significant and eternal friendships on the basis of who is most similar to us in inner character or who we most wish to be like in character. For my best friend, both are true to some extent. Aristotle was said to have written that “A friend is another self.” I couldn't agree more. Maybe a friend (the best of them all) is an alternative self - someone we could've easily been or that could have been us.

Ted Goia once did an open thread where he asked readers to share the story of the person who inspired them the most. A commenter named Jason Patera, shared a story that was itself so inspiring that even Ted decided to dedicate another post to this comment so as to render it more visible to a wider audience (at the time of writing this sentence, the comment has been liked 140 times - that's an astronomical number of likes for a Substack comment!). Well, I admit that my own story is no match for JP’s in terms of sheer narrative zest and evocation. Besides, my comment was tucked away at the very bottom of the comment section. However, I'd like to take an excerpt from it (for the full comment, check here) because it's mostly about my best friend; the same guy who was, for a transient moment, the central character in my short dream. Here's it (with some minor editing):

“My second inspiring figure is also a friend I met while in the university. He is a strange choice for an inspiration and I bet hardly is there anyone alive in my world who regards this guy the same way I regard him. In my profession (clinical psychology), I'm confident that 90% of practitioners would diagnose him with some kind of mental illness based, of course, purely on the functional criteria.

His name is AK (not his real name). To sum up his character: AK is child-like in conduct, sage-like in thought, war-like in spirit, and dove-like at heart. The first attribute means that he is chronically dependent for material survival on others due to a congenital lack of the sense and capacity for pragmatic enterprise and a chronic deficiency in navigating the transactional world of material survival. But he isn't in the least ignorant or denying of this deficiency. The second attribute means he is deeply profound and preternaturally perceptive in his observations and commentary on the psychology of micro human relations. The third attribute means he has the courage of a warrior, the will of a ruler, and the pride of a conqueror. This dimension of his personality is the least immediately obvious to those who are rather quick to discern his childlike aspect with the result that he is constantly being underestimated. The fourth attribute means that he always exudes a calm, ease, and class that utterly belies his impoverished material and dire existential conditions.

Shortly after I got to know AK, I told him that I have always thought that a character like him are only to be met with in literature, particularly the works of Dostoyevsky and that he reminds me a lot of Alyosha in Brothers Karamazov even though the latter is the more purified character. AK is more like a blend of Alyosha and Raskolnikov in Crime and Punishment: Reflecting the material condition of the latter and the spiritual essence of the former.

I'm not blind to the frailties of AK as a human, they're many but they are also what makes him great in my eyes for he bears his burden without complaint or blame. And this, for me, is his greatest attribute: to suffer under the cosmic injustice of being born with a combination of psychological deficiencies and to do so without complaint or becoming spiteful. The kind of inspiration AK offers is not the kind that inspires me to some aspirational goal but the kind that inspires in me the same kind of feeling we feel when we read about exceptional fictional characters that deeply resonates with our own deeply flawed individuality: affinity, awe, and humility.”

I'll like to add a few facts about AK's material condition as an addendum to that overly psychological profile of him. He is jobless. No, that's not correct. He is not interested in a material job. But the more accurate statement is that he's incapable of working in a purely material sense. With AK, it's as if there's something crude and vulgar about working purely for material goals - in which the primary motive is exchange of services or labour for money or some other pecuniary reward. Now, he is the most apolitical being you'll ever encounter. He cares nothing and knows nothing about politics. So, his intrinsic aversion to the world of transactional activities has nothing to do with an ideological attitude towards capitalism or socialism or any other political economic ...isms. As a matter of fact, I doubt he understands what capitalism is. His attitude to the world and the arcane processes of material transaction is one of the manifest properties (or consequences) of his personality.

If I can use one word to sum up the psychophysical configuration of AK's personality, it'll be SLOW. Not sluggish. Just slow and ponderous. He is slow but not lethargic nor anhedonic, hence almost immune to depression. The same way some people are FAST without being brash or insensitive, hence relatively safe from mania. He is extremely slow in speech (not for stuttering but as a result of a constant striving for precision of expression), slow in movement (he loses his composure and self-assurance when being forced to hurry), as well as slow in thought (hence, I guess, the slowness of speech). He inhabits an internal world in which the space-time continuum is order of magnitude slower than the world around him. He is like a snail who, already cursed with slow motion (relative to other mobile creatures), still has to contemplate each step he manages to take. He simply cannot keep up with the frenetic pace of the world around him. So, he did the most logical thing any man of courage, truth, and self-allegiance would: to withdraw from it. By the way, I have to say I'm the only person known to him and myself who sees this decision as an act of great courage. Every other person known to us are unanimous in their verdict: he is sick, foolish, or both. But I very well understand the worldview and perspectives that dictate people's conclusions. However, theirs is a reflex conclusion, not a reasoned one.

His withdrawal started back in the university - he was a year ahead of me in the same department of psychology, even though I'm about 5 years older than him (I had my own setback in school but this isn't a story worth telling for now). One fateful day, after series of easily avoidable failures in a string of courses in year 3, AK finally decided to drop out as he was heading into his final year. One of the first interpretive mistakes people made was concluding that his decision was motivated by these carry-overs. They couldn't be more wrong. AK’s love for pure psychology is unmatched by any of his peers, including myself, and it persists till today. Let's just say the internal battle (of a psychospiritual nature) that has been fermenting in him reached its logical climax under the catalyst of those string of failures which themselves were consequences of his increasingly detaching mind from the material world. It was no doubt a spiritual crisis, but also a biopsychological one. Its root was firmly in his genetics and personality.

Somehow, before he even tried to explain and, thereby, justify his decision to me, I completely understood and accepted it. It suddenly seemed to me like everything is beginning to make more sense in my effort to decode the mystery that is AK's personality which had violently fascinated me from the point of first encounter. His dropping out reinforced my idea of him as a kind of saintly misfit. Even though we both knew he would suffer dearly for the path he has chosen. He tried to make sense of his decision in spiritual terms (for in addition to a keen psychological intellect, he possesses a deep spirituality that expresses itself via the Christian faith). I, though only partially back then, stubbornly, and correctly too, persisted in understanding it in purely psychoexistential terms. And even though I never possessed back then the insight about the misaligned life-pace between his internal and external world, he became a sort of hero in my eyes - for pursuing a constitutional tragedy to its logical end, albeit unknowingly to him. Of course, he didn't see it as such. And though I may have attempted to communicate my own overly romanticised perspective to him at the time, I don't think he bought it. He was invested in his own equally rhapsodized spiritual formulations (for we're both romantics: I, of the materialist mold and, he, of a metaphysical cast). But he appreciated the fact that of all who would come to learn of this decision of his, including his siblings and relatives (both parents are late), I was the only one who not only refused to disapprove of his actions but even looked upon him as a sort of fictional hero brought to life. I practically raised an altar to him in my mind, contemplating him multiple times each day for many years.

This was about 8 years ago. While my intense heroification of AK has been tempered over the years, I still regard him immensely as a character of very rare breed, one which I'm extremely privileged to have met. The story of AK is one I'd like to tell one day if I ever feel up to it. But this here will be enough for the purposes of the current essay.

Now to the second background story

This is the story of a baby lizard. Some very long years ago, perhaps 15 or more, I came across a tiny few-days-old lizard as I was walking along a dusty neighborhood road. My first instinct was to lift my right leg to stump life out of it (I feel ashamed now to admit I would have done this without much remorse. In my country, Nigeria, we don't care much for human rights, let alone animal rights). But the baby lizard did something that left my raised foot hanging midair. Intentionally, the mechanical action of raising my leg was slowed down enough to allow the tiny lizard the option of escape (I didn't really wish to kill it but if it hadn't done what it did, I'd have without hesitation). But rather than scurry away in frightened delight, the poor innocent thing ran under my lifted sole as though seeking refuge there. I gently lowered my suspended leg and fondly shooed the baby lizard away. (I hope it eventually grew to become an Agama or a mother lizard!) The naked display of the lizard's utter helplessness, innocence, and absolute lack of awareness of danger, made it utterly impossible for me to kill it without an acute psychological consequence, no matter how transient.

Finally, the third backstory

I'm fully in my mid-thirties and I've never been in a relationship until recently (about 4 months ago now). At the beginning, not being in a relationship was an involuntary choice - I wanted badly to be with a girl but utterly lacked the courage, the tolerance, and the character to pull it off. I have come to later realize that this longing for a female companion only stays at the physical-conversational level. My nature resents the more messy and demanding emotional part. And I feared the latter than I wanted the former. For a long time, I had a classic approach-avoidance relationship with females except the ones I judged as posing little or no threat of awakening much erotic longings. Ironically, I've never had trouble attracting girls (though I had plenty troubles relating with them outside the safety zone of platonicity). So the problem was never with my looks (though I underrated myself for years due to chronic low self-esteem which stemmed partly from my terrible communication skills). Usually, I become friends with a female for reasons of convergence of some interest (usually related to books, writing, or shared intellectual disposition) or for some highly abstract and ethereal virtue such as zestful innocence which gives me profoundly satisfying and intoxicating pleasure to observe (I knew this feeling long before I would eventually come to understand it).

Thus, whenever there's a girl I happen to like platonically, it's often because I admire, to the point of idealization, something about her. So, my friendship with such a girl is usually singular (I rarely meet more than one of such admirable girls per time given my highly localized and constricted social pool), intense, and devoted. This unwittingly sows an idea of, followed by a craving for, romance in the said girl, leading her to expect something more than I had in mind. I'd belatedly realize this, panic and then gradually pull away, letting the friendship fade with time and space. Sometimes, it is the girls who'd realize my interest is unyieldingly platonic and they'd gladly move on or acclimatize to it.

So, skipping to the part relevant to this essay, I encountered another lady, let's call her X (not related to Twitter X, lol), this year and there was an alignment of many highly improbable factors (physically, psychologically, geographically, and economically) that were missing all these years and instead of a stubborn platonic friendship, it became a platonic romance (an oxymoron, I know). I still haven't overcome my deep aversion to the intense emotional mess that comes with pure romantic affairs but I'm not handling it too badly. So I told X from the very outset that I'm not interested in a relationship and that I'm convinced of it. (I had to add this last affirmation because I've, a few times, had ladies doubt me when I tell them this as it often conflicts with the gentle devotion I subsequently exude). Fortunately, X doesn't mind, or rather claimed she didn't mind. She thinks I'm too rare a specimen the likes of which she would never have thought existed and doubts she'll ever meet again (she's a victim of her own impoverished social world).

Of course, I understood perfectly what she meant. Right now, the only thing that could betray the fact that we're not indeed in a definite relationship is when we explicitly tell people so. She appears to have contented herself, though dubiously, to calling me "bestie" and I to calling her X. And I am to her, and do for her, everything an actual boyfriend is and does for a girl without actually being a substantive boyfriend and same goes for her (except that deep down, her heart continues to wage a war of attrition against this anti-romantic dispensation). In any case, this is the most perfect arrangement for me as it helps me fully and safely express my immense capacity for loving a woman without her ever being gradually consumed with the feeling of entitled affection. I have long decided that marriage, in spite of its many attractions, isn't ideal for me and has, therefore, made it clear to X she's free to walk away anytime she wants to.

But the relevance of this backstory to this essay is in the one and only instance X and I had a serious conflict. I had thought she slept with another guy mutually known to us. Actually, it was not what she did but whom I assumed she did it with that upset me. I later found out it was with another person and my forgiveness and apology was swift. If I have refused to seal the relationship with a promise of possible matrimony, then I have no right to demand sexual fidelity. But this isn't actually why I forgave and apologized to X though she was the one who "cheated". It happened just a few weeks after we got close and she was upset and frustrated by my persistent repudiation of any desire to commit (that is, to confer on her the title of a girlfriend). Upon discerning her sexual misadventure with a mutually known acquaintance (someone who wasn't without some sexual interest in X), I stopped communicating with her. The rapidity and the totality of the cessation of communication were powered by two assumptions: first, the assumption that I was unmistakably right in my deductions. Second, the assumption that I was dealing with a psychological equal and certainly someone far more worldly-wise.

I would later learn, following our reconciliation after about 6 days of highly distressing estrangement, that X suffered an emotional meltdown that almost drove her to the edge of quiet madness. Instantly, my view of her underwent a radical change. I no longer saw her as this strong, proud, self-possessed, worldly-experienced woman. At least it became clear she ceases to be any of those things where I was concerned. What she is relative to me is a fragile, vulnerable, and helpless child (I don’t think it’s possible for men who are fully in touch with their masculinity not to, to some degree, infantilize women who’re fully in touch with their femininity). Suddenly, I saw my action not as that of a principled person but of a heartless, callous, villain.

On the day we reconciled and as I listened to her recount what she went through during our brief separation, I watched with painful amazement how she couldn't stop grinning like a girl with a new doll. And the effect of this picture of her grinning was made the more poignant by the anguish of the past few days still plastered upon her swollen face. She said: "promise me you will never hurt me again." "I promise", I said simply but resolutely. And I repeated this promise many more times that same hour. The truth is she need not have asked me to promise. It was an inevitable decision for me. For me, I am as incapable of hurting a fragile being as I am extremely capable of hurting a combative one. I've so far fulfilled my promise to X and it's the easiest of promises to fulfill.

Now to the content of my dream

As I already mentioned, AK was the chief character. I'll try to capture the emotive essence of the dream as I've already forgotten the plot having failed to record it immediately after I awoke. But the emotion I experienced in the dream stayed with me afterwards. In the dream, it seemed like I was in what looked like a scattered company of some economically privileged peers in a wealthy neighborhood. And as I was wont to do in real life, I felt and couldn't resist the impulse to invite AK in order to show him off to my other friends. AK, just as he is wont to in real life, was confidently and carelessly dressed in a manner that made his poverty stark and obvious. Now, I need to clarify that this manner of dressing, at its core, owes more to AK's non-materialistic outlook on life than on lack of aesthetic awareness or the paucity of good sartorial options. Though the latter has diminished in recent years.

In any case, even though AK presented in an outfit that wreaked of indigence, he carried himself in a calm and self-assured manner that communicated undoubted superiority. My dream self perceived this contradiction more than any other person present, and my first thought was to berate him (in my mind) for being so presumptuous as to think he was better than or even of equal standing with the rest of us materially more well-to-do folks. This strange thought was baked with feelings of spite and resentment. However, immediately this thought made itself conscious in my dream mind, it was followed by a sharp jolt of counter-thought that mercilessly whipped my conscience for even daring to entertain such a thought against such an utterly harmless soul. This soul completely dependent on the goodwill of others, and without which he is left bereft of the barest material comfort. This soul who, hard-done by the genetic forces of birth, makes no victim of himself, and acts gallantly as though all is well even though he possesses an acute awareness of the full tragedy of his condition. This soul who tries to act as if nothing is broken or missing and dares to project an esteem equal or even superior to those whose conditions are far better.

These counter-thoughts happened in a matter of fleeting seconds and were initially only fully and deeply cognized in their emotional form rather than in such stark linguistic terms. But the comprehension of these counter-thoughts was so lucid and sharp that I broke down into hot stream of uncontrollable tears of earnest and shameful remorse. As I cried in the dream, the following thoughts were also very lucidly impressed on my mind: “what right have you to begrudge a man condemned to suffering his one moment of happiness, even if it is pretentious? It is such a moment that he lives for, can ever hope for, and they're as rare as a rainbow and often absolutely dependent on you for such moments. Yet, you dare to feel anger towards such an utterly materially battered being who tries to keep his spirits up as best as he could for the briefest of moments. You know that, soon, he returns to his hell hole.”

I woke up and I was still shaken by the emotional impact of this most unlikely of dreams. It's not my aim to psychoanalyze this dream (feel free to do so if you feel inclined). Rather, I want to focus on the very factor that turned a spiteful stream of consciousness into a profoundly empathizing one. Every other character in the dream had also perceived AK as socially and psychologically overreaching himself, but none of them, to my knowledge, underwent the inner change of perspective that I did. Of course, I had the benefit of a more intimate knowledge of AK.

On The Logical Relationship Between EQ and Empathy

I believe what I experienced in the dream was an instance of emotional intelligence at its most profound.

What we call emotional intelligence has to be a form of thought, a way of thinking about people and their relations with themselves, with us, and with others, at least, at its most fundamental core. We call it ‘emotion’ perhaps because (1) it is a type of thought that emerges from a deep attunement to the unvoiced inner feelings and the unseen inner world of others and (2) it is a style of thinking capable of evoking deep feelings in us. Thus, EQ may be construed as emotional thoughtfulness, whereas, emotion without the thoughtful base is mere emotional sensitivity (ES).

I see empathy as the most natural emergent behavioral manifestation of emotional intelligence, one of its many observable phenotypes. Others being intra- and interpersonal fluidity, metacognition, social dexterity, cognitive flexibility, emotional regulation, and calibrated communication. Jonathan Shedler, in a tweet on X (not my own human X, hahaha), used “genuine emotional attunement” as a conceptual proxy for empathy.

But my own argument is that empathy is less defined by its emotional component than by its cognitive element. Pure emotional identification is not empathy, it is just mere emotionality. It's the reason why children and emotionally sensitive adults cannot really be empathic in the deepest sense of the phenomenon. In the former case, cognitive underdevelopment stands as an impediment to actualizing the ideal of mature empathy, while in the latter case, emotional dysregulation is the impediment. On the other hand, empathy isn't a purely cognitive phenomenon either, otherwise functional high-achieving psychopaths would be the most empathic class of people. In other words, genuine empathy is realized when there's a balanced interplay of transpersonal thinking ability and interpersonal emotionality such that the vital subjective boundary of the empathizing brain isn't dissolved in the process of feeling across the intersubjective divide. And the thing that makes it possible to maintain the integrity of the intersubjective space is thought-activated objectivity.

Finally, it's possible for someone to experience empathy purely as an emotional force if they're unable to trace the often convoluted and complex concatenation of thought processes that beget it. It is thus why it is possible for another person to be capable of explaining “the why” behind someone else's empathic expression. Those persons who're capable of cognizing and articulating the often arcane and deeply concealed thought processes behind an instance of empathic feeling (or any other emotion for that matter) are the true and ultimate Avatars of emotional intelligence.

I believe it is this capacity, among others, that made Sigmund Freud such an outstanding and pioneering force in the field of psychology in general, but specifically in psychoanalysis.