Depression Dreams

140 dreams were collected from a group of patients suffering depression. The same number of dreams were collected from people similar in age and social background, but not suffering depression. The dreams were given code numbers, mixed and given to an independent judge. He was asked to look for any evident themes of self punishment – such as ‘I was waiting for my friends all night but they never turned up’ – ‘My fiance married somebody else.’ Such self punishing themes occurred with greater frequency in depressives dreams. These self punishing themes can be changed using such techniques as outlined under Secrets of Power Dreaming.

Here is another approach that few people acknowledge:

Example: I’ve also been at a seemingly low energy level all my life, and I’ve always had to be very careful and selective, in the same way you describe, about where I spend my energy. I’ve made leaps and bounds over the past years in coming to a place where I have a healthy relationship with sex, and raising my general operating level of energy, and just becoming happy with life. I explored the psychological aspects of feeling bad after sex, and uncovered and eliminated them. But even with the taboo/guilt about masturbation and sex removed, I found I continued feeling tiredness, exhaustion, or even dropping straight into a kind of instant depression after ejaculation. So after going through the long process of becoming comfortable with my sexuality, I’m tackling what seems to be the next thing on my path to health – nutrition. I seem to have completely ignored the physical component. Which is a little funny, because it’s clearly the most obvious 🙂 See Cupid’s Poisoned Arrow

Example: I know what I am about to say will be taken as stupidity by people who suffer depression, but it is largely a matter of imprinted habits. Having suffered depression for years and having found a way out of the dark place, I know the route out. It is not a route for people who are in the habit of believing there is no cure, that drugs are the only way to deal with it, or suffer enormous fear about change or meeting new aspects of self. Some people actually believe that depression is normal, and so it is our real nature to be depressed. But having found my way out without antidepressants and am on stable ground – much more so that normal – I know that we are not destined to feel pain and despair. Life is not all about pain as Buddhism states. It is all about a stable emotional life with so much to offer us. But it takes work and consistency to remove all the rubbish put into us, and to clear all the dark debris that is the cause of depression – debris that block the light of our being.

Example: Since she was 11, Sara’s life had been a nightmare of mental and physical suffering. Her history included chronic insomnia, episodic loss of reality, attempted suicide by hanging, amnesia, partial seizures, nausea, vomiting and loss of  periods. Her knees were so painful (X-rays showed poor cartilages) and her mind so disperceptive that she walked slowly with her feed wide apart like a peasant following a hand plough drawn by tired oxen. Psychiatrists at three different hospitals gave the dubious waste-basket labels of ‘schizophrenia’, ‘paranoid schizophrenia’ and ‘schizophrenia with convulsive disorder’. At times her left side went into spasms with foot clawed and fist doubled up. Both arm and leg had a wild flaying motion. Restraints were needed at these times. Psychotherapy was ineffective. The and most tranquillisers accentuated the muscle symptoms. She tested positive for pyroluria and was given B6 and zinc. Urinary kryptopyrrole was at times as high as 1000mcg%, the normal range being less than 15. She was diagnosed as B6 and zinc deficient and treatment was started. Over three months her knees became normal, the depression subsided, as did the seizures, her periods returned, the nausea vanished and so did the abdominal pain. She has had no recurrence of her grave illness, finished college and now works in New York. She takes zinc and B6 daily. When under stress of any kind, she increases her intake of vitamin B6.

Perhaps the most significant discovery in the nutritional treatment of mental illness is that many depressed and mentally ill people are deficient in vitamin B6 and zinc. But this deficiency is no ordinary deficiency that is simply corrected by eating more foods that are rich in zinc and B6. It is connected with the abnormal production of  Kryptopyrroles. Treatment for pyroluria 

The suggestions to manage depression are to start working on every dream you can. I am not talking about interepting dreams but exploring them. Use Techniques for Exploring your Dreams. Or if possible use Life’s Little Secrets. It takes practise to make these work, but stick at it, the rewards are wonderful and the the greatest adventure in life.

Also take to heart what is said next – We are all victims!

The situation of being a victim is a central and key point so time will be taken with it. We are all born victims of circumstance. But we need not remain a victim.

Therefore it is wise to be able to recognize that these are habits of reaction to events. We might say we are victims of the world or life. But we can alter it by learning how to change our habits. And it started for me a long time ago, because I had to learn things without which no change could have taken place. I do not mean book learning, but learning by living it.

The first thing I remember learning was that I could change habits. Fortunately it was a simple habit. I noticed that as I walked through the building I worked in I left the doors open. I believe I had read somewhere that the only difference between a criminal and a successful person was their habits. So whenever I left a door open I would close it – even if I had forgotten and walked on, I turned around and closed it. Within a short time it became a new habit to close doors, all done now without effort. So that was the first thing I learned, and then moved into greater challenges with my psychological habits. These were hard because many of them were unconscious and I had to dig deep to find them.

The next thing I needed to learn was that we are all victims, but we do not admit it. What I mean is that we are all victims of beliefs, convictions, words people say, what people or parents have told us or hit us about – and I am not talking about traumas. We are all born victims of circumstance. But we need not remain a victim.

Your natural response to your environment is to be influenced by it. A disturbing event would stimulate you to feel fear, a calming event to feel pleasure. Your moods are usually influenced by what happens to you. So being in prison would be more depressing than being free. Being rejected would cause more pain than being admired or loved. That happens because we are basically instinctive aimals still, we have not moved beyond our inbuilt reactions – flight and fight for one.

We are all an amazing keyboard influenced and moved by all the interactions with people, animals and events. The keyboard responds to and produces all the emotions and fears we are capable of. So if we watch movies or read, then words and images move us to tears, fear, wonder, curiosity, terror or even enlightenment. Yet we are only seeing images, yet we are moved, and unless we are aware of it, we can become victims of our own impressions.

People are often terrified or deeply worried by their dreams; they run in fear from an animal chasing them, or are paralysed by a demon attacking them, yet they are only images that we create in our sleep or witness on a screen. To run from them is to run from your own feeling of fear. That might be the right thing to do on the street if you see an attacker approaching you, but it is not good to become a victim of your fears, worries, speculations or even hopes.

So we need to see how events, words, our own thoughts are playing on our own victimisation. If you learn these two you are taking steps toward your own wellbeing. Change the habit of being a victim.

But I found through working with people that many are terrified of Life – I mean they cannot trust the life process to heal them and make enormous efforts in thinking, in striving with different methods to find a change, all to no avail. As explained in Life’s Little Secrets, it is about letting our life process move us.

I was in awful pain for years, and eventually recognised the cause of it. I had left my wife and children and married again, and was in agony. That is until I saw the cause – the culture and people I grew up with were all sure and believed that I was a failure as a father and husband. That I was not following the rules of the crowd and so was of no account as a person. Those habits of beliefs were eating away at me. So much so I dreamt I was walking along the roof of a university building carrying a bag with a dissected body in it and the head of the body in my other hand. In exploring the dream I realise that the body was me. I had cut my self in pieces trying to find a way out of my pain. But then as I explored further I saw the causes of what I had done – the habits that we all take as normal; the pain in relationships; the fear of death and the agony of losing someone – and so on and on and on. They are all there and can be shifted.

The exploration of the dream led to me trying to understand the head in my dream. When I looked at the head, Wendy had been saying I was a masochistic. I just felt such labels didn’t help. Love was like breathing. I couldn’t, didn’t want to, stop loving either my children or Hyone. As long as I could, I would suffer the pain the conflict produced.

I had a strong fantasy of the head coming alive it was me and what I had done to myself, torn my body and head apart trying to find a solution. Then I saw flesh on its cheeks. Then it was like a native mask made of various things, and feathers. The feathers predominated in the fantasy. The mask kept breaking up, leaving only a few feathers, as if it or I were all nothing. I remember saying – “There is not even a mask, it’s just a few feathers!”

With enormous certainty I realised that there was no cure for my sickness and I had struggled in vain. It was a tremendous blow – and I gave up. I mean I gave up hope, everything, and simple lay there.

Then I had a vision of one feather tied to a twig by piece of wool, blowing in the wind – a feather blowing in the wind. This was very stable and persistent in the fantasy. Everything resolved back to the feather blowing in the wind. It seemed like a Red Indian symbol, perhaps tied to the suspended body of the dead, but I could not understand.

Then it came to me that I had to listen in deep stillness – not think, not seek to understand, not struggle, just listen. My whole being entered into silence, gently listening as one might listen to the rain falling on a lake. Then suddenly it was known – the feather blowing in the wind – the sound of one hand clapping – the essence of human existence. Open against the sky – emptiness – enormity. I was healed.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Are you in fact frightened of Life?

Do you avoid anything that frightens you?

Do you live in a tiny prison the bars of which are your beliefs, opinions, fears?

See Prison – Avoid Being Victims – Techniques for Exploring your Dreams