Operations medical

Memories regarding actual operation, or a sick inner attitude which needs attention. Do you have a fear of illness or even physical illness that you fear will lead to an operation?

Many people have difficult feelings or memories following a car accident, or during any natural upheaval such as an earthquake or flood, or after a medical operation. If you dreamt of having an operation, what part of the body was being attended to? If you have pain there or strange feelings it is worth having check.

In most cases the person under anaesthetic is taken into a room they have never seen before and operated on by people they have not met. They experience the separation of their awareness from their anaesthetised body and not only observe the people in the room and their actions and conversation, but also sometimes go exploring adjacent rooms. Their descriptions have frequently completely tied in with the facts of the location they were operated in, the people present, and the adjacent rooms. See Out Of Body Experiences

In the book Ishi – the Last of his Tribe, by Theodora Kroeber, Ishi, a Native American unspoilt by exposure to Western life styles, was allowed to witness a tonsil operation on a child. He was horrified to see the child put into a sleep state by a man who had not himself been initiated into consciously entering the inner worlds of the unconscious. He was vitally aware that without such knowledge the anaesthetist was exposing the child to many real dangers. In fact many people have been left with psychological scars from lack of awareness on the part of surgeons and anaesthetists, of what is being experienced by the person being anesthetised. See: The Labours of Hero Cules, a straightforward description of what it was like to remember an actual tonsil operation.

Another description of a child being anaesthetised during a nose operation:

 Example: As I explored the dream it worked out as my struggle to avoid the rectal anaesthesia as a child. I didn’t experience the emotions of that, only the movements and intuitions about its connection with the dream. That is, I kept saying, “I didn’t hurt anybody. I didn’t.” This was expressive of a sense that the pain inflicted to my face (nose) during the operation, must be because I had done something wrong. I could see that I associated inflicted pain with the punishment a parent gave because of some “bad” action. I could not understand why the pain had been inflicted on me.

Also, I felt that religion itself was a projection out of the unconscious, from such fundamental premises. In other words, inflicted pain equals punishment. Pain equals God’s punishment.

Because I felt I was dying during the anaesthetic, the sense of death equated with pain and people hurting one. At the time of the anaesthetic my conscious identity had been plunged with awareness deep into the unconscious. The loss of shape or senses was felt to be death. So a conditioned reflex had been set. During anaesthesia I had fought desperately with the nurses – for my life. While I was fighting for my life and kicked and struggled so much I had kicked the bottle of anaesthetic out of the nurses grasp and it broke. Then I was held as a fresh bottle was used and the anaesthetic was poured into my rectum – it couldn’t be given my nose – and I have a memory of the nurses saying, “Don’t do that!” To me it was like a hypnotic command saying, “Don’t fight for your life. Give up!” That was kept in me until I relived it.

Uncovering the ‘past’ that is still with you here in the ‘present’ takes real work and needs dedication over a fairly long period of time. It is a work that is desperately needed in the world and in society. Very few people, even those in high positions of government or society, have actually grown up in the full sense. They are still operating in the world either from promptings and fears from their earliest babyhood, or from social conditioning that is out of date and needs upgrading. See Life’s Little Secrets

 Example: I was being shown round a huge warehouse. In one of the rooms, there were my paintings. In the next room I was shown there was a girl being operated on. She was being revived by electric shock treatment. I remember feeling that it was creepy watching her body jerk and convulse as she was being brought back to life. Then I turned to look in a mirror and saw there was glue all over my face, I was tearing it off to get the layers off my skin. Then I started to tear at my skin. Caroline.

Caroline’s dream is full of references to the body. It occurred at a time she was breaking with a long time partner and shows the re-discovery of her artistic skill, the pain of coming to life again after the deadening effect of the relationship, and the change of self image she is undergoing.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What feelings did I experience during the dream?

Did the dream kink with any operations I have experienced?

Did the dream release any forgotten trauma?

See Life’s Little Secrets – The Two Powers – Characters and People in Dreams – Techniques for Exploring your Dreams