Читать книгу The Handbook of Solitude - Группа авторов - Страница 68

The sublime aloneness experience, which is deeply rooted in what takes place in infancy, is perhaps the oceanic feeling and, in general, the oneness experience. The concept of the oceanic feeling (or feeling of the eternal) was introduced by Romain Rolland and discussed by Freud (1930/1961) in relation to primary narcissism during infancy. He defined it as “a sensation of ‘eternity’, a feeling as of something limitless, unbounded” (p. 64) and as “a feeling of indissoluble bond, of being one with the external world as a whole” (p. 65). By definition, this feeling occurs in solitude as in the contact with God, nature, or art but it may also take place in the most intimate connection with another human being, such as in love, where the sense of loneliness is expected to be eliminated. It may even take the form of an ecstatic or mystic experience. In attempting to formulate a genetic explanation of this experience, as he called it, Freud (1930/1961) regarded the oceanic feeling as the result of the regression to the state of primary narcissism, where there is no differentiation of the inner from the outer, or a restoration of limitless narcissism, a view later adopted by Mahler (Mahler et al., 1975) in her description of merger experiences (as noted previously).

More recently, Storr (1988) argued that the individual’s ability to feel united with another presupposes a high degree of ego organization and integration. It is a vital and highly subjective experience, with permanent positive effects on the individual. Sometimes, such an experience may completely alter one’s life. The Freudian view that the oceanic feeling is regressive (i.e., the illusion of return to an infantile condition, to the bliss of a lost paradise) is dismissed. Storr (1988) considered creative activity, scientific discovery, childbirth, some forms of exercise, silence, and solitude itself as additional triggers for this experience.

Support for this view provides the encounter of psychoanalysis and infant research: merging is possible only if an intact, bounded sense of self is first established (Lachmann & Beebe, 1989); merger‐ or fusion‐like experiences reflect a capacity achieved only after the formation of a sense of self and other. The origins of both oneness experiences and the stable sense of self can be traced in early mother–infant matching, attunement, and repair of disruptions in attunement. Similarly, in more recent psychoanalytic thought (Chirban, 2000), it has been argued that only a well‐integrated and cohesive self can loosen its boundaries and feel high levels of intimacy with another. These progressive, rather than regressive, oneness experiences start with an energetic readiness, which is followed by immersion in the unity, and lead to a self‐transformation. They are characterized by timelessness and lack of self‐consciousness, and a move forward, instead of a longing for past merger experiences. The distinction between experiencing oneness and searching for or fantasizing oneness is a crucial one, in that only in the former is the individual really engaged in the moment and able to experience all the beneficial outcomes.

In conclusion, all the above views seem to agree that, throughout life, oneness experiences, in which loneliness is diminished and aloneness is felt as heightening the sense of existence, stem from the well‐attuned, euphoric moments of meeting between the infant and the mother in the first few months of life (the prototype perhaps being the union of intrauterine life). During childhood, this limitless and timeless elation is usually experienced by the child when he/she is left alone and unbothered, so that he/she becomes immersed in play.