Dream Programming

Hi all,
I just wanted to share my venture into Dream Programming last night. I took 100mg of B6 before bed, wrote in my notebook that I would like to find out why I am getting tension headaches at night and what I could do about them. I also asked to wake up at the end of each dream so that I could write them. I had four very vivid dreams and woke up after each one and wrote them down (with eyes closed! luckily the writing was legible!).
One dream, where my dying father (he passed away in 2010) lay beside me in the bed and I repeated 3 times, very clearly "I am sorry I didn't hang out."... It might seem like an obvious regret that I didn't spend enough time with him when he was alive, but it doesn't feel like that is the truth of what I was saying. I really don't feel like I have regrets, but who knows. The overall emotion in the dream was sadness. I am going to ask for further clarification tonight.
Another dream was that I was on a platform or stage and was disturbed that the audience could hear what I was saying. I wanted to have a choice as to what the audience could or couldnt hear but they were hearing everything. ?
I had two more dreams that I believe were significant but I dont know what they are telling me. Does anyone have any advice when it comes to reading the dreams? And how to ask for further clarification. I would really like more understanding, particularly about the dream with my father.
Thanks

 

I have some thoughts that occurred to me as I read about your dreams. Just my impressions, but maybe they will trigger something.

On the dream about your father - did anyone else ever make a comment that you weren't spending enough time with your father before he passed, or in some situation prior did you ever feel you were getting pressure to spend more time with your father, not necessarily from him but from someone else? This occurred to me because a relative guilted me at my mother's visitation that he felt I had no right to grieve so since I hadn't quit my job and come home to be with my mother before she died. I didn't get that feeling from my mom (in fact, I found entries in her journal about my frequent phone calls home, and how warm and comforting they were, so I know she was OK with it), but I still felt guilt from it for a long time. So I'm wondering if there could be some comment or behavior from someone else that this may be trying to surface.

As for the one on stage - it makes me think about the work we have to do with our repressed emotions. Maybe the dream represents the feeling that your unconscious doesn't want to reveal all - that it wants to control what you consciously 'hear' and what you don't. The fact that they were hearing everything may be a good thing - it may mean your unconscious is opening up, but your unconscious still has reservations about it, so you felt disturbed.

I've been a vivid dreamer all my life, and I've kept a dream journal for a long time. I understand very well when you say 'it doesn't feel like that is the truth of what I was saying', because I've had that same feel that helps me judge whether I'm on the right track with my dream interpretation. It's definitely a very personal art. Every little experience we've had in our lives influences our dreams - it's a shame they can't be more direct in what they reveal. I am often amazed at how well our minds work when we dream - I've dreamed of corrections to computer code in my dreams that I was missing when awake, and I've concocted such detailed and intriguing stories in a night's sleep that would take me weeks to work out if I was trying to write an interesting story consciously. I find them fascinating!

 

Great post lightkindler,

This is a topic that most people are curious about. Clancy McKenzie, MD, is a dream expert, he's studied it most of his life, and traveled abroad to work with sages. I've had the privilege of communicating with him over the past 10 years. He helped guide me through my research, and gave me the ending to my book ~~~~> forgiveness. He is a great man, kind, sweet, and compassionate. I've always referred to him as "the Dr. Sarno of psychiatry." He revolutionized how we understand separation, depression and anxiety, and pain and illness. But no one cared, as with Dr. Sarno, because healing doesn't involve surgery or drugs; only awareness.

I've badgered him through the years enough, regarding dreams, that I can do cursory programming. You weren't concise enough in your programming about your father. As McKenzie has stated, "the words formulated at night have to be as precise as mathematics." It's akin to telepathy, there aren't "wasted words" between two people, it's just a burst of thought.

Your dream about your father before you sleep should be precisely like this:

First part:
Decide: I will have a dream about Dad. The dream will not be upsetting, and the dream itself will resolve all upset feelings.

The second half of the programming is always the same:
Decide: I will awaken at the very end of the dream, remember it and write it down.

(remember to wait till the end)

Your second dream was about wanting people to see you only as you want to be seen. This is the source of psychological conflict, as described by Dr. Sarno; as a divided mind, eg, superego vs. id.

That dream should be:
I will have a dream about my concern for how others see me, and the interpretation of the dream will tell me exactly what to do that will work out best.

I will awaken at the very end of the dream, remember it and write it down.

Dr. McKenzie has stated that he's never seen a properly programmed dream give the wrong answer, in over 40 years. Sometimes we can't translate the answers. Our lives are built around shame, which is the cause of TMS. Dreams appear whacky to us because even asleep we're embarrassed by our needs and darker desires (as determined by our culture/family). So the brain attempts to hide the truth in riddles and clowns and monsters, wild caricatures of life. Even asleep we are ashamed.

Shame is the most threatening emotion. I'm shamed to say.

Good luck,

Steve

 

Hi, Steve.
This is the best instruction on programming dreams. I will copy it and give it a try.
Not sure yet what I want to dream about.

What shame do I have down deep? A nice guy like me? haha

 

This was the first time in years that I have ever tried anything like dream programming. I did try something similar years ago on the advice of a friend to ask for ‘wisdom from the spirit guides’ right before I went to sleep. However, to my knowledge, and my family will attest to this, I never received any wise advice during my sleep. But I did have an experience years later (too long a story to tell here) which I attributed to spirit guides, so I was open to the idea of dreams possibly giving people information.


So, after reading the experience of the poster here I followed his example and asked before I went to sleep, I asked ‘Why do I have pain and what can I do to make the pain stop?’ I also asked, as he did, to please let me wake up after the dream so I could write down what I remembered of it. I left a still-blank journal, 2 flashlights, and several pens on the nightstand to ensure that I would have the necessary writing tools at hand in the unlikely event that I did wake up and was able to journal-- and in the likely event that, should I wake up and start journaling, one flashlight and at least 2 pencils would break on me.


To my amazement, I DID wake up immediately after the dream, as if on command. That’s the part I still can’t get over. It wasn’t like I ‘just woke up’ in the middle of the night, as often happens. It’s as if someone or something woke me up from a dead sleep and reminded me that I had work to do.


That’s not to say that I was fully awake when I started journaling. but

I wrote down what I could remember. My writing was so bad that I can’t read all of it.


HOWEVER, my dream was so disconnected from reality that I can’t believe it relates to anything that’s really going on in my life. Still, I’ll bring up what I wrote down in case anyone has insights—but please, there’s NO need for anyone to force a stretch to try to ‘make’ it work—there will be other nights and other dreams for me.


The background setting of this dream was a desert-like setting and I was a member of a very large American Indian tribe


First, for background’s sake, I’ll mention that I’ve traveled a little bit more than the average American, both throughout the world and the US.. I’ve vacationed out west 5 or 6 times in my life and have had pleasant encounters with modern-day American Indians; however, I have never lived in a desert among Indians in teepees and the like. This dream was more the stuff of a John Wayne movie.


My dream:


I dreamt I was an American Indian girl, about age 10, living with a large tribe in the desert. I was wearing leather clothing, had long black braids and an Indian headband same as everyone else in the tribe. I lived in a teepee with my mother but she was not my real-life mother and had no emotional part in my dream other than ‘being there’ (like a background person in a movie to set the scene. she had no signifcance otherwise. There were other kids around, but my basic playmate—I assumed my best friend-- seemed to be this one particular girl, who in this dream was annoying me by talking too much, too loudly, and playing too rough. We were kids, all rolling around on the ground and laughing, including me. But I was uncomfortable with this. For me was like being tickled—just because I’m laughing doesn’t mean I’m having fun. I wanted to get away from this annoying friend, at least for awhile.


Scene changes: I find myself as per usual outside my teepee walking my pet pink rat on a pink harness leash through the Indian community (who says you don’t dream in color?). . I am totally comfortable, content and at peace as I walk through all the teepees and dozens of Indians as I always am. As per usual none of the Indians speak to me because they are too busy with their own tasks of the day, as am I with the walking of my rat. Yet all of the Indians DO look at me as they pass me by, and the look is always one of acceptance and contentment—even pleasure—as if they’re thinking, “She’s one of us. We’re glad to have her among us.” In fact, I just realized that that was the enormous beauty of this dream. It was knowing that, as I walked my pink rat through this community I lived in, I needn’t fear that anyone would look at me with hostility or dislike because I knew for 100% sure that everyone fully accepted me for who I was and that they were glad that I was part of their community.


Scene changes to a happy, fun one with us whole community of Indians bouncing up and down, about 10’ in the air each time, on a football-field-sized mat of bright fuschia-colored flowers. It was a bright, sunny day.


Scene changes again: And PLEASE, I fully understand the symbolism of this so please DON’T mention it unless you see a unique, direct connection to the rest of my dream because there’s nothing you can tell me that I don’t already know—but in this last scene, I’m sitting in a room and my husband walks in. Suddenly, the feeling of ease and freedom with myself shuts down and the room darkens as I brace for my husband’s criticism and negativity towards me and me alone. The last words I wrote--and I can’t read my own handwriting at this point but there’s something about ‘falling into a hole’ and a ‘plum-colored shoe coming off.’


So regarding the earlier parts dream about the Indian tribe and so forth. Perhaps it does tell me something about how I wish my community could be. Then again, perhaps it tells me something about myself, about how I MYSELF am not viewing members of my community fairly--after all, who am I to assume that people won’t accept me just because a walk a pink rat every day ?


But does anything in this dream help tell me why I have my pain and how to get rid of it? Or was it just a random, odd dream? Thank you for any insights anyone might have. Sorry for the length of it.


TO STEVE OZANICH, IF YOU READ THIS: I’ve only just read your book this past 2 months, and I thank you deeply for changing my life. But there’s something I need to know that I don’t understand and I don’t know how/where else to ask you:


QUESTION FOR STEVE: Why did you have your wife beat your legs until you cried? How could that possibly make TMS pain go away? Wouldn’t it instead just create injury and make the pain worse?

Thank you for listening.

 

Thanks everyone for commenting. Steve, firstly let me say that I have just finished your book and it really helped me. Thank you. And secondly, thank you for your advice above. I will try this tonight.
Best wishes

 

Did you have an emotionally absent mother? That is a big factor in my TMS.

 

magicbird, that was quite a dream you had. I bet you were a beautiful Indian girl. And walking the pink rat on a leash,
that's wild. I have no idea what it meant. I'm glad you understand its symbolism.

 

Walt, Thanks for your comment but actually no, I didn't understand its symbolism, if there was any. I have no idea why a rat would appear in my dream or why it would be pink. I do volunteer at a local animal rescue so walking dogs on a harness is familiar to me. Coincidentally, I'm a rat on the Chinese calendar.

Ellen, Thanks for asking but my mother was not at all emotionally absent. She was amazingly gentle and loving. The Indian woman who was my mother in the dream--she was just 'there,' like a cardboard cutout. Maybe to fill in the scene--ie., a 10 yo wouldn't be living in a teepee by herself.

I was disappointed that I didn't have a dream the next night, not that I could remember and write down.

 

Following up on this post, for some reason, I haven't remembered my dreams the last few nights. Doing everything that was suggested, but not getting anywhere. I am not going to do any dream programming tonight but I will get back to it tomorrow night and maybe try a different approach to the questions.

I have, however, been mulling a lot over Steve Ozanich's reply, in particular

I love this. Kinda like the false self, hiding behind a mask, but I would never have guessed this from the dream. In the little amount of time that read Steve's reply, I have been loosening up a bit and becoming aware of this psychological conflict. I have also become more aware of a conflict over fear of abandonment and of engulfment.

This is working for me. Today, I have been pain free for 4 days in a row! This is really fantastic. I am dealing with anxiety and fear and anger but it is out on the table and I am just learning to sit with it and not tuck it back in!

This forum and the SEP (I am on Day 12) has been a really fantastic support for me.

 

Magicbird, it's always powerful to hear someone say I have changed their life. It never gets old, it's very humbling, and I never feel worthy enough to do those kinds of things. But it feels good to hear it.

To answer your question, I wrote my healing story out in great detail to show people not only how I healed, but all the mistakes I made along the way. I was desperately feeling my way around in the dark for a life-raft. Sometimes I laugh when people tell me I was courageous in healing. To me, it was more like being thrown into the deep water and flailing my arms and legs just to stay alive, and to keep my head above water. I learned many things on the way, most of which came through mistakes. The one thing I did do that was courageous was to try.

I had my ex wife hit me to try to distract me from the searing waves and agonizing spasms of the sitting pain. I don't know if it worked or not, but I think it may have taken the edge off some. We were going through a divorce so I think she was having way too much fun with it. I said in the book, that she didn't have to have that cigarette afterward, as a joke. She never smoked.

She didn't beat my leg until I cried, I just began to break down after so many waves of pain. The leg beating was ancillary to any tears. I don't think I even felt her punches through the cutting back pain. I do think I was onto the idea of the symptom imperative 8 years before I heard of it.

I hope that answers your question?

SO

 

Lightkindler, you're awesome! Great last post. You too will heal. Your words reveal it.

--loosening up
--psychological conflict
--fear of abandonment and engulfment
--anger, fear, and anxiety out on the table...not tucking it in..

Super!!

 

I started getting real bad post nasal drip last Wednesday afternoon and it's turned into allergies that have been bothering me the rest of the week. And, boy, last night did I ever have a whooper of a dream! I woke up clearing my nose, throat and lungs several times and said to myself: Okay, do a progressive relaxation exercise and see if a dream will tell me what these allergies are all about? Well, I did the progressive breathing relaxation exercise, moving from my head down through my chest and legs etc etc. until I reached my feet. Fell into a deep REM sleep and had the following dream:

I was inside my body except it was like there was an envelope of flesh wrapped around my core. I was sort of like a primitive lizard creature on the outside with a person trapped inside. My late mother was there and I had an operation where the outside skins was removed and a new face grafted onto my head. Next thing you know I was driving my BMW up to Yosemite and it broke down along the side of the road somewhere in California's Central Valley. There was a group of people trying to help me, but they only managed to break my headlights. Very frustrating indeed. One of them noticed the new face stitched onto my head and they all started wondering about that? I did manage to fix my lights enough to get back on the road again and that's when I woke up and remembered my dream, which seemed really eerie.

Interesting too how when my allergies started a week ago, all the TMS pain in my left leg disappeared and has stayed that way as long as these allergies have continued. Interesting likewise that before my allergies began last Wednesday, I had TMS pain in the muscles in my neck that disappeared as the post-nasal drip started in exactly the same location as the sore neck. Last week, I went to the dentist before all this began and noticed how my mouth was sore from the cleaning. The allergies started too exactly after I'd spent the afternoon with a very, very pretty girl, a photographer from San Francisco.

I wonder if it could have been that being with the girl opened me up emotionally and I got too close to my inner self? Sure seems like the allergic symptoms are performing the same psychological function as the TMS was - as a distraction from repressed emotions that started coming out after I was with the girl? Getting too close to my emotional core so I need a false face grafted on that then put me in a precarious position out alone out on the road at night? More questions than answers I'm afraid. I remember being inside a garage of some kind just off the road with a bunch of people I didn't know standing around. Reminded me of when I used to work on cars late into the hot summer nights in Sacramento with my late cousin, who died of alcoholism when he was only 40.

Incidentally, I used to have very bad allergies ten years ago before I had a herniated disk around the time my mother died in 2001. Sure sounds like my TMS symptoms are shifting around as they're almost gone. An extinction burst manifesting as allergies instead of TMS pain? Wild stuff! Keep wondering whether the TMS will disappear completely whenever the allergies disappear? No way to tell at this point. Thought allergies and an asthma were all out of my life, but evidently not.

Bet Eric and/or Steve O. have a lot to say about my dream!

 

I usually get spring allergies and have the stuffy head and sinus tightness and dripping, but just figure
it's TMS because i always THINK I'll get spring allergies. Maybe it is because people put poisons on their lawns,
or the weatherman says the pollen and mold counts are real high. Whatever, I don't take anything for the
allergies, I just try to tell my mind they're not there. TMS is, and I will do more work on that.

 

High pollen count plus stressful life factors seem to do it with me. Otherwise, the pollen meter on my cell phone doesn't have very much influence. Have noticed that the symptom imperative does work with allergies: allergies = no TMS. TMS = not many allergies. Think that asthma and allergies are both driven by a hyper-active autoimmune system, whereas TMS (low oxygen) is controlled by the autonomic nervous system. But since autoimmunity and the autonomic nervous system are both deep brain functions I would suspect they're both highly susceptible to emotional influences. We'll have to leave that to the neuroscientists. I did notice when I was a kid, the greater geographical distance I moved away from my battling parents, the less severe my allergies became. Of course, there's such a thing as psychic distance too.

 

I too think pollen and allergies go hand in hand with stressful situations.

I like the old Doris Day song, "Que Sera, Sera" ("Whatever will be, will be.")

Kind of a "live with it," "take it in stride" message.

 

Exactly the same for me, Bruce. I got rid of my TMS pain, and then my TMS equivalents, including pollen allergies showed up with a vengeance. Grrrrrrr......that symptom imperative.....

 

Even as a kid, when I was 15 years old, I immediately noticed my allergies and asthma went way down when I woke up in the Sierra on a backpacking trip 200 miles away from the stress of listening to my battling parents fighting downstairs in the mornings. After two-weeks of back packing, no allergies or asthma at all. Obviously, much easier for pollens and air-born irritants to act as triggers when you're under emotional stress. Interesting how new stresses that replicate the original tension of old childhood hurts can also re-activate the allergic response. I would imagine it's the same for TMS symptoms too. Wouldn't it be nice to make a "clean start" in life beginning each new day without accumulated karmic debts?

 

We can try to make a clean start in life each new day, but you're right that the karmic baggage fights us.

We just try as best we can.

 

Speaking of reactivating old karmic debts: I realize now looking back that every time I visited my late aunt's house in Sacramento I'd get horrible allergies. I always thought it was the central heating, the smoke from the fire place, the dogs, or the high pollen count in the Central Valley. Well, the first time I "visited" my aunt and uncle there was in 1960 after my mother and father had a horrible fight and my mother ran away with me to my aunt's for the summer while she initiated divorce proceedings against dad. The divorce was later aborted and they reconciled or reached some compromise that kept us together down in the Bay Area. Now, I wonder whether each subsequent time I visited my aunt's place in Sacramento and got allergies or colds it was due to the emotional set/setting of that location reactivating old bad memories of the original abortive divorce and, of course, one of dad's typical immature violent temper tantrums? Remember that the original separation began when my father feel into a rage about something and smashed a vacuum cleaner on the floor in front of my mother, me and my cousin. Must have been a lot of fear in that incident for an 11 year old, afraid for his personal safety and the safety of his mother-protector. Each time I visited Sacramento I was probably re-enacting that original trauma I suspect. This is the same kind of early childhood trauma that leads to PTSD, drug addiction, and TMS later in adulthood when other stressors come along that have the same emotional valence as the original traumatic event I would say.

Too soon old, too late smart! Sure wish I understood how this stuff worked back when I was about 30 or so. I might have had a better handle on how to take charge of my life and reel in one of Walter's "big whales that got away". But moving from being reactive to proactive is not always an easy process while you're in medias res ('in the midst of things' to quote Horace!)