Reflections on Freud’s The Uncanny – Noam Israeli
In memory of Judith Rabin who enlightened me in the most uncanny of times.

 ‘When Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from his troubled dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a monstrous insect. He was lying on his hard shell-like back and by lifting his head a little he could see his curved round belly, divided by stiff arching ribs, on top of which bed quilt was precariously poised and seemed about to slide off completely. His numerous legs, which were pathetically thin compared with the rest of his bulk, danced helplessly before his eyes.
‘What has happened to me?’ he thought. It was no dream. His room, an ordinary human room, if somewhat small, lay peacefully between the four familiar walls.’  
(Franz Kafka, The Metamorphosis)
‘…but then they sent me away to teach me how to be sensible, logical, responsible, practical and then they showed me a world where I could be so dependable, clinical, intellectual, cynical ..’
(Logical Song- Supertramp)
‘ I have not always been a psychotherapist. Like other neurologists, I was trained to employ local diagnosis and electro-prognosis, and it still strikes me myself as strange that the case histories I write should read like short stories and that, as one might say, they lack the stamp of science. I must console myself with the reflection that the nature of the subject is evidently responsible for this, rather than any preference of my own.’
(Sigmund Freud, Studies on Hysteria)
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