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Author Topic: Reoccurring dream (sensitive subject matter)  (Read 4968 times)

Dragonfly

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Reoccurring dream (sensitive subject matter)
« on: September 23, 2017, 11:22:38 AM »
Hello!

For many years I had a very painful and shocking reoccurring dream. It would me feel ashamed and I wake in the night crying and distressed to where it is hard to go back to sleep. It pains me to say but it was of hitting, punching and pinching a baby. Due to the baby not reacting to the pain I was inflicting on it, I would then throw more abuse and anger onto the child with the dream ultimately ending in me waking in frustration and fear. One of the last dreams of this nature I had meditated on it, painful childhood memories emerged and have not had another of these again... until last night.

The dream was same except that the child was no longer a baby; it was a toddler. In the dream, the toddler doodied up it's back with no nappy and I was washing it angrily with clear water. I cleaned it away but got mad because the cleaning and friction from the cleaning was not making the child react. This wound me up more and more until I started pinching and hitting the child harder and harder. But it (he) didn't react - he just looked bewildered and glazed. I am crying even typing this due to the shame that any part of my psyche could think of such an act. That my mind could be filled with such frustration and anger to harm another person, let alone a child. I feel bad.

The dreams first emerged when I started to read the book "Counselling for Toads: A psychological adventure" (based on transactional analysis). This was about 4 years ago. I would have them sequentially over two or three nights and then they would stop for a while. The last ones were about 12 months ago and I thought I had found a breakthrough and peace with them because I realised that the baby being abused was an amalgam of me and aspects of my children. This toddler though, I do not recognise. Another similarity is that they always start on a Friday night. I think this is from a dream dictionary I read as a young person which stated that important subconscious dreams are always on a Friday (?!). Not sure if there is any truth in this!   

Will someone please give me some advice on what to do to bring this to the surface? Whatever it is, it needs to be addressed.

Best wishes,

CG

Tony Crisp

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Re: Reoccurring dream (sensitive subject matter)
« Reply #1 on: September 24, 2017, 01:38:35 PM »
Dragonfly – Don’t feel ashamed, because the dreams are not trying to shame you, but educate you about your inner workings.

You have taken the first step in the learning process by recalling your painful childhood memories. The second step is to also meet the feelings of anger that you – the child in you – was made to feel dirty.

I imagine yourself as the baby, talk to it a tell it that is has been hard for you to stop punishing yourself for what was done to you as a child – use http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/acting-on-your-dream/#BeingPerson

It may take several attempts, so be patient. Then see if you can feel love for that small and defenceless you.

Tony

Dragonfly

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Re: Reoccurring dream (sensitive subject matter)
« Reply #2 on: September 25, 2017, 03:00:55 PM »
Dear Tony,

Thank you so much for taking the time to reply. It is very kind of you. I shall check out the page you suggest and start some work.

May I ask your opinion on epigenetic links to trauma and stress please? I'm not suggesting this may be the case for myself, but have you come across any cases of intergenerational dreams? For example, trauma messages being passed down from parent to child.

Best wishes,

CG

Tony Crisp

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Re: Reoccurring dream (sensitive subject matter)
« Reply #3 on: September 26, 2017, 09:27:25 AM »
Yes - it is not exceptional but basic that such messages are past on. So please see http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/the-conjuring-trick/

It gives an example and explains the process. But my experience is tha genes are not the main way such things are passed on.

To quote from Dr. Stanislav Grof's book Realms of the Human Unconscious -

Ancestral experiences are multiform and complex. Sometimes, they involve actual reliving of short episodes from the life of one's ancestors or whole sequences that are specific and rich in concrete detail. In other instances, they follow the pattern of tuning in to the personality of a certain individual in one's biological lineage to the point of complete physical, emotional, and intellectual identification with this person. On occasion, ancestral experiences are of a much more diffuse and generalised nature; they can have the form of complex feelings concerning the psychological atmosphere and interpersonal relations in families, clans, and tribes, or that of intuitive insights into cultural attitudes, belief systems, family customs, traditions, Superstitions, and prejudices.

Some subjects have reported in this context that as a result of such experiences they have developed a new understanding of some of their personal problems and conflicts. They could trace them back to friction points, incompatibilities, and incongruences between their maternal and paternal lineages and realised that what was considered to have been primary intrapsychic problems were actually introjected and internalised conflicts between generations of their dead kinsmen.

Tony

Dragonfly

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Re: Reoccurring dream (sensitive subject matter)
« Reply #4 on: September 27, 2017, 05:59:55 PM »
Thanks! I love this subject and it fascinating! There are several biological and psychological research papers on the subject of epigenetic transmission of trauma and anxiety. It is interesting to know that you have experience in this crossing over into dreams. Could this is where just one link in the origins of our common dream symbolism?

CG