Tomatis Dream Diary

Sunday, May 20th, 2001, Listening Centre, Toronto

Last night I dreamt that I sang in an opera. I was on a balcony of some sort when I saw a woman—smack in the middle of the show—hold up a sign telling me that I should sing a line of farewell to the older gentleman sitting on my left.

I did just that in the dream. Mind you, when I went to the Listening Centre in Toronto for this second visit in May of 2001, I'd already had some curious dreams during my first visit in November of the previous year. One of those first dreams was also about my all things left: in this case gum coming out of my left nostril.

It doesn't take an Einstein to figure out what I was working through in my dreams if you know something of the perspective of Tomatis; which is that my right ear was turning on. For a mixed-dominant man, one who is left-handed and left eyed (the eye that focuses), this makes perfect sense. 

The older gentleman on the left? He's the editor and critic who holds a dissertation on the meaning of "no.” He never stops talking; and like a bad director can only tell you what not to do. He has his place, which is something akin to a curator, but he can never take the place of the right ear, which lives in the present rather than the past, connects the dots in your brain, and sings like nobody's business with full-open-throated, ringing tone.

This is how Alfred Tomatis saw the ears: the right ear—which processes higher frequencies faster than the left—is in the present. If there is some reason you can’t be present, you will use your left ear to protect yourself.