dreams and the unconscious

Ive not read much about dreams relating to tms but I understand that they are the window to the unconscious emotions.

I had a dream last night that I had an operation on my back and that I sat through a lecture telling me about all the structural abnormalities in back pain. I when I woke up I was so relieved that it was a dream/nightmare.

Anyone had similar and how do you go about analyzing your dreams to your unconscious emotions?

By the way my dreams are usually weird like getting chased down the road by a chocolate bar or something lol.

 

My more recurring dreams are about not remembering where I parked the car
and also time running out in taking an exam. I bet that provides tons for anyone
who can interpret dreams.

But I had a good one last night and wish I had it every night.

I still haven't had a chance to look into how to program or reprogram a dream.

 

Walt, you never said what dream you wished you had every night or is it one of those dreams you would rather not share

 

It was kind of x-rated. haha

 

I'm too old to do it anymore, but glad I can still dream about it.

 

Thought so walt haha. I bet that gives you emotions that you definitely dont want to be repressing.

 

I'm laughing at your reply. No, those emotions never will be repressed, I hope.

And I have a very good memory, although now I can't always associate the name with the face.
A rose by any other name would...

 

My dreams are often either getting chased by something (Usually King Kong). or im back at school or college with deadlines for homework.

 

Richsimm22,

The Interpretation of Dreams by Sigmund Freud. That's one of the first written on the subject. You might like it. I've been meaning to read it.

I'm okay at interpreting my dreams, but I'm no master at it by any means.

It helps to know symbols and understand your emotions. For instance, if a person feels trapped by their libido and sexual-related issues, they might have dreams about snakes. Snakes (and even bottles) are usually symbolic of male genitalia, because both are cylindrical and have a hole at the end. I used to have an issue in this area, but once I accepted that part of myself rather than feeling trapped by it, the dreams about being trapped by snakes everywhere went away.

One of Freud's cases (or maybe Dr. Sarno talked about this one in one of his books) was about a guy who dreamed about a crab he would chase and try to kill with a knife. Freud (or some psychologist) told him the crab might be a part of himself he'd rejected and wanted to kill off. It was suggested that he make friends with the crab (accept it as part of him) instead. Once he did that, the dreams stopped.

If chocolate bars are chasing you, you may well have the idea in your head that chocolate is killing you, and you feel trapped by it or scared of it. You may feel like a victim of sugar or food. You may fear gaining weight or health problems due to eating habits.

I used to have some weird recurring dreams. Usually just fears of mine. One more recent one was me going to get a beer for my dad, but I couldn't find one. I got the impression I was trying to make him like me, but failed. I'm 34 now, but in the dream, I felt like I was back home with my parents. My dad was turning my room into an office, though. To me, this said, "You're not important. My work and my hobbies are more important than you." That made a lot of sense with my childhood.

Hope this helps.

- Brian

 

I used to have dreams of being naked, or in my underwear, at school. (Insecurity--feeling unaccepted by peers. It's caused by me not accepting myself, actually, though.)

Or I'd dream I ran out of time during a test, or I'd miss the test. (For me, I think that's me feeling inadequate intellectually, because in school, I felt that way sometimes when a test would take me a long time.) I'm fairly intelligent, but parts of me feel like I'm stupid. I put very high standards on myself at some point as a kid, I think...then I repressed those standards. But they're still in me from the past, I'm guessing. It's that perfectionist in me.

My wife dreams about the weirdest things. Bunnies in green fields where chocolate is growing on plants. Or chocolate bunnies in fields. Though she often has dreams where it's like a movie, but she's not in it. She says she's rarely in her dreams. I think it symbolizes some part of her thinking she's not important. She's a very selfless person. Selfless to a fault, at times, I think. Makes sense--she grew up on the missions field in Taiwan, so selflessness was major.

- Brian

 

Brian, those are interesting interpretations of dreams.

I had a dream last night that I get once in a while... like yours, it's about first missing a test and then running out of time during a test.
I think it's because I have a lot on my plate related to work and my perfectionist personality wants to keep up with it or get ahead of it.

I have to remember to do what I can more slowly and not obsess about being overloaded.

 

Walt,

Yeah, I think that's also a component of those dreams for me--the whole too-much-on-my-plate thing. I haven't yet figured out how to not freak-out (obsess and get emotionally distraught) when I get overwhelmed. But I suspect that the Presence Process is teaching me how to do that since it's just an emotion I'm reacting to.

What do you do for a living?

 

I studied journalism and became a reporter for the Chicago Tribune for seven stressful years,
then a magazine editor for more of the same, and 40 years ago I dropped out of the rat race
and became a fulltime freelance writer. I wrote a lot of magazine articles on upbeat subjects
and have been writing books on a wide range of subjects. A list is at my blog:
walteroleksybooks.com

I spend about two hours a day looking at and replying to posts on the TMSWiki because
I healed from back pain because of the Sarno principlies. I work as a writer-researcher-editor
freelance for a friend who is a book publisher. He keeps me very busy with his book projects,
and I have my own books I work on. But I just let my "goodism" side talk me into helping
a cousin get her book published about her sister's lifelong struggle with schizophrenia.
I didn't realize what a job that was going to be because my cousin (a female) is relying on me
to do all the work getting it published. She will eat me alive if I let her. I'll be glad when
this extra work is off my plate.

What do you do? You said work has slacked off for a while.

Where do you live and do you have any writing experience or background in it?
You write well and clearly, two of the most important things.

 

Walt,

That's great! I love to write. I just checked out your website.
You're quite the prolific writer.
You've nearly got my dream career. lol I'd love to do fiction and a little spiritual writing on the side.
I love writing YA fiction (in particular, urban fantasy), and I like writing adult fiction with good twists. I like using science to make the fantastical stuff in urban fantasy stories believable, too.

I finished the first book of a fiction trilogy not long ago, and got around halfway through the second one, but I keep wanting to go back and make changes to the first one.
It'll help a ton when I get my system for laying out a book developed. I just get so many ideas while I'm writing that it's hard to stick with my original plot. lol Complicates things.
Getting an agent is really hard to do. But I keep feeling I need to get my emotional issues sorted out before I really pursue my writing career.
I do plan to write some non-fiction books pertaining to spirituality, eventually. I just don't have a reputation or any notoriety, though, so I'm not sure how I'd get an audience.
But it's fun to put some spiritual aspects into my secular fiction stories. I like to reshape how people see the world, whether they're spiritual or not.

I know what you mean about getting overwhelmed with writing tasks. I'm very careful not to take on hardly any editing anymore. That really drags me down for some reason, even though I'm told I'm very good at it.

My main job is vehicle delivery. I have a very small business (just me).
I do hotshots. Hook my car to the back of the truck I'm delivering, drive the truck out to the company, drop it off and drive my car back home. Sometimes I take the train (I love trains), and sometimes I fly or bus.
My deliveries are usually in the state of Texas nowadays, but every once in a while, I go out of state. I like the out-of-state trips. I used to do a lot of those.
My clients aren't needing to use me much the past few months. Oh well... It's good, because it gives me time to work on this emotional pattern of feeling worthless when I'm not working.

I live in the Dallas area. Dr. Sklar's practice isn't far away over in Fort Worth, actually.

Where are you located?

 

Thanks Brian. Ill look into that. I have always been fascinated by how strange our dreams can be and what they mean.

 

Well, programmed dreams are one way of releasing the emotions repressed into your unconscious mind that are driving TMS symptoms. If you write down your dreams immediately after waking up from REM sleep, you may assist in processing those emotions by forging a link between your conscious and your unconscious minds.

 

Interesting Bruce. Sometimes I remember a dream immediately as I wake up and other times not till later in the day.
Im going to start writing my dreams down in my journal when I wake up.

 

Yes, you can remember dreams a lot better in the morning right after you wake up from REM sleep, during which most vivid dreams occur, the ones with plot lines and that are often in color. By writing them down right away, you forge a link between your rational conscious mind and the essentially irrational unconscious regions of your mind-brain. In any event, it feels very therapeutic to me.

 

Great comments all you guys. Thanks. Im learning alot.

 

Yeah, I think Bruce is talking about basically the same thing the guy with the crab dream was doing, except you're doing the forgiving or accepting after the dream instead of during it.