|
PRODROMAL DREAMS Excerpted from Dream
Wisdom: Uncovering Life’s Answers in Your Dreams. Berkeley: Celestial Arts, December 2002. ALAN SIEGEL, PH.D. The term, prodromal, refers to a symptom that appears before the
outbreak of a disease that gives some clue to the nature and severity of
the illness to come. Prodromal Dreams have been observed and studied for
centuries and have been considered to have predictive value in
anticipating the onset of an illness or medical crisis. Clinical case
studies, content analysis research, and anecdotal reports from health and
mental health providers have demonstrated a variety of types of Prodromal
Dreams. These include dreams which 1)
Reveal or foreshadow an internal physiological condition including an
illness, or psychosomatic event often before there is conscious awareness
of the illness or medical condition; 2)
Coincide with the onset or immediate aftermath of an illness, injury, or
surgery; 3)
Play a role in triggering episodes of certain disorders including asthma,
epilepsy, heart attacks, or miscarriage; 4)
Portray or predict stages of recovery or deterioration in response to a
physical condition; 5)
Symbolically depict normal physiological events and processes such as the
phases of the menstrual cycle, conception, the stages of pregnancy,
physical maturation and aging; 6)
Depict or predict stages of resolution of emotional blocks related to
illness or injury; 7)
Indicate the imminence or awareness of impending death in terminal
patients. DREAMS
AS A VITAL CLUE TO IMPENDING ILLNESS On the verge of serious illness, a compelling nightmare may foreshadow
our imminent physical danger. Many people I’ve worked with have
associated a particular dream to the period just before they became aware
of their illness. In psychological literature, there are many examples of
troubling nightmares in the weeks before the onset of a serious or fatal
disease. Six weeks prior to her cancer diagnosis, Susan dreamed of a terrible
earthquake. Although earthquake dreams are not uncommon—especially for
people living in the San Francisco Bay Area, as Susan does—this dream
stayed in her mind, troubling her for weeks. My House Is Crumbling All Around Me I
am in my bed and my house begins to shake. I am not worried at first, but
the shaking gets stronger and stronger. I am horrified as I see parts of
my house falling down all around me despite my terror and the destruction
that occurs, I end up being safe. She tried to reassure herself. What could be wrong? She’d had a
mammogram and a full physical just a few months earlier. She had never
felt better and was taking care of herself—not overworking, eating a
healthy diet, exercising, and feeling fulfilled with her new career. In the days following her diagnosis and surgery, Susan’s earthquake
dream kept coming back to her. She knew there was no way of proving it,
but it seemed to have predicted a disaster about to strike her. As she progressed in her recovery from cancer, Susan thought about this
dream many times. She thought that the house represented her body. In the
dream as in reality, she couldn’t believe the disaster could really be
happening. Just as parts of her house broke off, a part of her body had to
be removed. The one element of the dream that Susan began to draw solace
from was the ending, where she survives despite the destruction. In her
more optimistic moments, Susan imagined that she would survive the
destructive influence of cancer just as she had survived the earthquake in
her dream. Susan also saw the crumbling house as a metaphor for the upheaval in the
stability and structure of her life that was about to occur. In her
recovery, she felt she was rebuilding her life on a firmer foundation. Dr. Robert Smith of the Department of Psychiatry at Michigan State
University has researched the relationship of dream content to recovery
from heart disease and other ailments. He found that men who had dreams
featuring death themes and women who dreamed of separation themes
recovered more poorly and had a higher death rate (1). Other researchers have found a recurrent theme of heat in dreams of
people suffering from thyroid disorders.
Cancer surgeon Bernie Siegel, in his book, Peace, Love and Healing, described a journalist who had a Prodromal
Dream about being tortured by hot coals placed on his throat, searing his
larynx. Simultaneously, his girlfriend dreamed that the two of them were
in a bed that was filling up with blood. When they discussed their dreams,
he found himself blurting out that he had throat cancer, though no such
condition had been diagnosed. Soon he had another dream that featured a
group of medicine men circling around him and sticking hypodermics into
what they were calling his “neck brain (2).” A few months later he began having symptoms and went to see a doctor.
Upon initial evaluation, all of his tests were normal, and the doctor
expressed skepticism about the dream-inspired self-diagnosis. When
pressed, the doctor reluctantly scheduled further tests. When they were
completed, a diagnosis of thyroid cancer was confirmed. C. G. Jung and other Jungian analysts have observed that animal themes
in dreams may predict illness and also provide an indication of the
recovery process. Jung and his colleague Marie-Louise von Franz wrote
about horse symbolism in dreams as an archetypal or universal symbol of
the unconscious or animal life of the body, connected to our instincts and
aliveness. Jung was consulted in the case of Marie, a seventeen-year-old girl who
had been diagnosed by one specialist as suffering from a disease of
progressive muscle atrophy and by another as suffering from hysteria. When
he inquired about her dreams, Marie said she’d been plagued by
nightmares. Her recent dreams included one in which her mother was hanged
and another about a frightened horse that jumped out a fourth-floor window
and ended up mangled in the street below. In mythology, horses have heralded death, and in reality, horses are
subject to stampede behavior. For Jung, the panicked self-destructive
horse was a symbol of out-of-control biological forces at work in the
girl’s body—forces that she was not consciously aware of. Jung felt
that the morbid symbolism was forecasting a more serious diagnosis; in
fact a fatal prognosis was later confirmed by her doctors (3). Von Franz reported another horse dream in a sixty-one-year-old cavalry
officer who died unexpectedly of heart failure four weeks after having the
following dream, the setting of which was his days in officer training
school thirty years earlier. Discovering the Horse in the Lead Coffin An
old corporal, who in reality had the meaningful name of “Adam,”
appeared and said to him, “Mr. Lieutenant, I must show you something.”
He led the lieutenant down into the cellar of the barracks and opened a
door—made of lead! The dreamer recoiled with a shudder. In front of him
the carcass of a horse lay on its back, completely decomposed and
emanating an awful smell (4). For von Franz, the horse in the dream took on further dimensions because
it was intimately connected to the officer’s life work as a mounted
soldier. In his dream, the horse may have symbolized the instrument of his
work as well as his life force. The setting of the dream, back at the
beginning of his career, and the death of his horse suggested that his
career cycle was ending. The value of exploring such dreams is not necessarily in making concrete
predictions. Dreaming of a dead horse or an earthquake does not mean we
are doomed or will soon be afflicted with a life-threatening illness! But
our dreams may reflect processes in our body of which we are not yet
consciously aware. This is especially true if those changes impact our
physical survival. Another way of saying this is that disturbing dreams
are an inner warning when we face both emotional and physical crisis. Heeding these warnings is not as simple as looking at a thermometer.
Rather than using our dreams to make concrete predictions, we can take the
cues we receive to explore whether there is some aspect of our physical
health that we need to consider. This may help us to discover a health
problem sooner through intuitive and emotional reactions to our dreams. Recurrent symbols and themes seem to appear in the dreams of people who
are approaching death. Some are inspiring images. Others are more
disturbing or confusing. Most of the dreams suggest an inner struggle to
acknowledge and accept what the dreamer knows is about to happen. Even
when the dreamer is consciously denying or fighting the inevitable, the
images reveal the psyche’s attempt to prepare for a transformative
experience. DREAMS
FORESHADOWING THE END OF LIFE Carl Jung’s last reported dream, just days before his death, featured
an image of a mandala (Hindu magic circle) that was similar to the
symbolic patterns he observed in his patients during periods of
psychological and spiritual growth and change. The Stone of Wholeness There was a “great round stone in a high place, a barren square, and
on it were engraved the words: And this shall be a sign unto you of
Wholeness and Oneness.” There were also “many vessels to the right in
an open square and a quadrangle of trees whose roots reached around the
earth and enveloped him and among the roots, golden threads were
glittering (5). The image of the gilded tree of life carved on a stone for eternity
suggests that Jung had reached an acceptance of his imminent death. The
dream reveals a final sense of fulfillment about his lifelong work with
the healing power of imagery in dreams, mythology, mysticism, and the
arts. Dying people’s dreams contain fewer characters and a greater degree of
separation and aloneness. There is often a sense of loss that is not
resolved at the end. In some cases, death appears as a stranger
approaching or stalking the dreamer. The dreamer frequently is a target of
violence or a victim of cataclysmic events such as tidal waves and
earthquakes that are symbolic of the overwhelming natural force that is
about to overtake him or her. A dramatic and recurrent theme is that of clocks and the limitations of
time. Jungian analyst Marie-Louise von Franz cites the following dream of
a mean on the verge of death. The End of Time He
sees the clock on the mantelpiece; the hands have been moving but now they
stop; as they stop, a window opens behind the mantelpiece clock and a
bright light shines through. The opening widens into a door and the light
becomes a brilliant path. He walks out on the path of light and disappears
(6). Von Franz associates the window to an alchemical term, fenestra
aeternitatis, Latin for “window into eternity.(7)” The dream appears
to be picturing not only the sense that time has run out, but a view and
pathway into an afterlife of other reality. Despite the alluring light of possible afterlife in the dream above,
imagery of rebirth is common in people recovering from serious illness but
not in those who are dying. Life-threatening illnesses can offer us a
heightened opportunity for psychological growth and awareness. The sense
that death is near may stimulate the desire to resolve important
relationships and to express hidden feelings before it’s too late.
Discussing and exploring our dreams can be very valuable, especially in
the days and weeks prior to death. Dream sharing helps the dreamer to
process his or her emotional reaction to the imminence of death, to
overcome denial and to find the energy to finish old business in the outer
and inner worlds. WHAT
DREAMS CAN TEACH US DURING ILLNESSES Dreams allow us to monitor vital information (in the form of images and
symbols) that can help us understand the emotional and medical factors
that influence the onset of and recovery from an illness. They may
occasionally foreshadow illness, picturing physical changes in our health
that we aren’t yet aware of. And they can help us see what stage we have
reached in our response to an illness. It is important to keep in mind that most such dreams are symbolic and
should not necessarily be taken literally. However, when we use the
images, stories, and feelings of our dreams as a jumping-off point for
further exploration, we can take advantage of their healing power.
Exploring our dreams helps us to tune into the vital resources of our own
intuition, allowing us to be more actively engaged in whatever form of
medical treatment we seek. Illness forces us to face the finiteness of our physical existence. Our
unconscious becomes sensitized to the physical threat that illness
represents. When we sense that we may have less time left, we become
concerned with resolving deep conflicts. In this way serious illness can
spark a psychological turning point that inspires personal growth. Dreams can help us turn the suffering of an illness into an opportunity
for becoming more fully alive. As we work out solutions to problems from
the past and present, we may discover new sources of hope that may
influence our ability to recover our physical well-being. REFERENCES (1)Robert
Smith, “Do Dreams Reflect a Biological State?” Journal
of Nervous and Mental Disease 175, no. 4 (1987). (2)
Bernie Siegel, Peace, Love and
Healing: Bodymind Communication and the Path to Self-Healing: An
Exploration (New York: Harper and Row, 1990), 64–73. (3)
C. G. Jung, “The Practical Use of Dream Analysis,” in Dreams,
106–109. (4).Marie-Louise
von Franz, On Dreams and Death.
(Boston, Shambala: 1987), 19–20.. (5)
Marie-Louise von Franz, C. G. Jung:
His Myth in Our Time. (New York: Putnam), 287. (6)John Sanford, Dreams:
God’s Forgotten Language. (New York: Lippincott, 1968), 60. 7)
. Marie-Louise von Franz, On Dreams
and Death (Boston, Shambala: 1987), 146. BIBLIOGRAPHY Bosnak,
Robert. (1989). Dreaming with an
AIDS Patient. Boston, Shambhala Publications, Inc. Garfield,
Patricia. (1992). The Healing Power
of Dreams. New York, Fireside, Pages 60-76. Jung,
C. G. (1974).”The Practical Use of Dream Analysis”. In
Dreams. Princeton, NJ,
Princeton University Press, Pages 87-109. Levitan,
H. (1980). The Dream in Psychosomatic States. The
Dream in Clinical Practice. M. D. Joseph M. Natterson. New York, Jason
Aronson, Inc,: 225-236. Siegel,
A. (2003). Dream Wisdom: Uncovering Life’s Answers in Your Dreams.
Berkeley, Celestial Arts. Smith,
R. C. (1985). “A Possible Biologic Role of Dreaming.” ASD
Newsletter 2(2): 2,3. Van
de Castle, R. L. (1994). “Somatic Contributions to Dreams.”
In Our Dreaming Mind.
New York, Ballantine Books., pp. 361-404.
von
Franz, M.-L. (1984). On Dreams and Death. Boston, MA, Shambhala. Wilkerson, Richard Catlett (1999 June). Dreams and Health: A Brief Historical Review. July 11, 2000 from Electric Dreams on the World Wide Web: http://www.dreamgate.com/electric-dreams Alan Siegel, Ph.D. - author of Dream Wisdom: Uncovering Life's Answers in Your Dreams |