Dreams, Trauma, and Healing: Insights from Dr. Loren

Transcript auto-generated from the episode audio; formatting has been cleaned up, but wording is verbatim.

Hi, I'm Cynthia Marks. I head up the Holistic Psychoanalysis Foundation established by my late husband, Dr. Bernard Bail. Welcome to AM Now, love. Dr. Lauren is with us today. Always great. Always thought provoking. I know this work pretty well, but listening to Lauren always creates more curiosity for me. Bernard's theory puts us in touch with who we really are and is continually compelling. We are never done learning how to be our best selves. We are here today to talk about dreams and the amazing keys to our unconscious. They absolutely hold.

Dr. Wiener is going to share the dreams of one patient as we discuss the interpretation of the dreams. You will see how the patient was able to heal and find out who they truly are and live life in a new and truly meaningful way. Let's get started. Hi. Thank you for having me back. Of course. Thank you for being here. So I have another case. I'd love to jump right in, if that's okay. Let's do it. This is a patient who has been in treatment for a reasonably short amount of time, six months ish. So a lot of things come up in the beginning of a treatment.

They emerge. Often it gives the patient an understanding. It gives me a starting place. And I know that we're going to be coming back to these ideas over and over and over again. Is there a typical amount of time that it takes for you to kind of get the big picture of who this person is so you can better interpret the dreams? It depends on the person and in part, it depends on whether that person is geared to start more at the top or the bottom. And I say that because some people come in and then the first few dreams, if I know that I can get a good enough picture, because sometimes it is in there, I don't know the person well enough yet to know everything I'm seeing.

So some people will start and they give you, wow, a whole deep, big picture right away. And some people start more at the top and say, okay, look, let me see how this goes and we'll make our way down. I see. So, you know, and everything in between right? And then I suppose some people have a dream they can share right off, but you can't really give it a good interpretation until you have more information about them. Absolutely. Nonetheless, that dream will be valuable at some point. Yes. And sometimes I will go back to a dream, say, you talked about this in the first dream.

You brought me. Now I understand more of what I was saying. Yeah, this makes sense now. And so I may have to reinterpret or add to the interpretation to make it more meaningful. And it provides information. So I'll. I'll get to it. All right. Okay. The patient, Brian, is a young man in his mid-thirties who has suffered from lifelong depression and has felt that from a young age he would at some point take his own life. He was referred to me by a psychiatrist who was prescribing him antidepressants and working with his medical team to help diagnose and treat a new and potentially complicated medical condition.

Brian is the eldest of two children and grew up in a very unhappy home marked by palpable dislike between the parents and with constant bickering that often turned into screaming matches. Both parents also had short tempers with both of the children. His parents married after dating a short time because his mother became pregnant with the patient. He said that he did not think that they would be together otherwise, and it makes him feel guilty and the cause of the family's misery. Specifically his mother's. And this is all without having any information about the imprint theory.

That's right. He just always felt he knew the timeline of how how it all went down. And he always felt guilty. This wouldn't be happening. Nobody would be here suffering like this. If not for you. what a burden for me. Right. So and that's you know, he knew it. That's, you know, part of what he felt was. All right. Well, if I do away with myself, everybody's free to just go on. Everyone will be better off. Everybody. He reports that both parents had their own painful histories. His mother spoke very little about her family of origin and generally spoke very little about most things.

What she did say was that her father was an alcoholic who was verbally abusive towards her mother when he was drinking and that it was never mentioned. He would get little bits of information over the years. But, you know, she was a very reserved woman prone to yelling but not prone to real conversation. He described his mother as cold and depressed much of the time, which resulted in her isolating herself in her bedroom and leaving the running of the house to the children. Once they were old enough. He did not remember her offering either of the children much comfort in the way of emotional or physical affection.

And she was easily angered, which would result in her yelling and occasionally hitting the children until they became older and too big for that. She appeared more interested in her work than anything else, though the patient wonders if it was just so that she could escape from family life. He said that his father lost his own father when he was in his mid-twenties and that he felt his father had to take on the role of the father being the father in the family at that time. He describes his father as distant and said that he spent much of his time outside of the home at work or involved with his hobbies.

So neither parent is really present emotionally. Nobody's connecting with these children regularly. Everybody's suffering. And the arguments or the yelling or the hitting that occurred wasn't spoken about. Was it just supposed to feel like those things didn't happen or they did happen? But don't you dare talk about them. It was more like they happened and it's not up for discussion. You know, I don't know that it was so much in this family that they pretended it didn't exist the way they did in the mother's family, but it was just more This is how it goes.

I see. This is life. Yeah. There is nothing to talk. And the children certainly have no say. Sure. So if this happens, they're to go along and that's that and figure out how to be better children next time, you know, Which is right. That's how the message lands for them. And then, of course, when those children go out into the world outside of their family, they're carrying on with that sort of behavior. That's right. This is this is the model for how life goes, how interactions go, how relationships go. The patient was a high achiever in school, despite his deep feelings of being a burden on his parents and seeing himself as fundamentally stupid and a waste of a person.

His words. He earned a degree in computer programing and went on to make good money in his field. He had a harder time with his romantic life and knows that his experience in his family colors his expectations around romantic relations ships and keeps him alone. He worries that his depression and self-loathing would eventually ruin any relationship he had and doesn't want to bring pain to another person. He also cannot guarantee that he will be here, which he feels is unfair to a potential partner and greatly complicates any relationship. He imagines having.

I will say that he is very well-liked by his friends. He has a nice circle of friends that I think all became sort of second families for each other. So there is that bit of positive input for him. Luckily, and I think part of what keeps him here. And that's a different experience than he would have with a partner because two partners really rely on each other. So if he goes missing, then he's left this partner in a big lurch with friends. Exactly. Friends. They'll all have each other. So, yes, it's a much bigger commitment to that one on one relationship.

And I think for him, while he's had some experiences in a romantic relationship in the past, minimal. But I think it very quickly brought up so much of the family dynamics. It was too much for him. He would find ways to back out of it quickly, several months before he began treatment. Brian began having some unexplained symptoms, muscle spasms, some numbness in his feet at times, and a feeling that his muscles were not what they once were. This is a young man. Yeah. Doctors, you know, couldn't quite figure it out. He was a person used to being active outdoors.

So relying on his body was something that gave him a sense of security. And without it, he felt more depressed and also scared. He saw many specialists, and it was unclear what was causing his pain and muscle weakness. Though the doctors had ruled out most things that would be devastating to him. The fact that he was still experiencing symptoms and that it was unexplained was deeply unsettling to him. He was prescribed pain medication to help him combat the discomfort, but he reported needing it and also finding it made him less clearheaded. So he was careful about taking it.

In the early days of treatment, he asked me about whether I was comfortable talking about suicide. Well, he had never made any actual attempts to kill himself, which I think is notable. But he did engage in some dangerous behavior during his teenage years, such as hanging out of the window of a speeding car while driving with his friends and mountain climbing. That could be more or less safe, depending on how you did things. He said he wasn't actively thinking of doing anything to harm himself currently, but he wanted to make sure he was okay if he talked about it since thoughts about it had been a constant companion to him over the years.

I told him I wanted to hear everything that was on his mind, including that the link between his guilt over being an unplanned baby and his suicidality came up very early in the treatment as he imagined that had he not been born, his mother would have gone on to find a life that actually made her happy. As he explored his life and history more carefully, his idea that either parent would have been fundamentally happy began to fade. And the following sessions are several months into his treatment. Did he come to you because of the physical pain?

And he was looking for a solution to that that might be outside of medicine? Yes, I think the psychiatrist said you have now another thing on your plate. You should talk to someone. And he had had some brief therapy prior, a few attempts. Some was helpful for a little while. Nothing stuck all that long. But he was open when he said, okay, I'll try. And he heard that I work with dreams, which I don't know that that was a big draw for him, but it was at least a little bit of a curiosity. And so he came I have a feeling he came sort of assuming it would be like the, you know, other he'll do it.

He'll see how. Whatever. You know, he he did stick around, which was I think showed he felt it was helpful. Do people come to you or others in your field wanting to share thoughts of suicide, but not really ever intending it for themselves? Yes, that happens. One of the reasons he checked with me was that in the course of some of these questions related to the physical symptoms, some of the doctors, you know, sort of on the checklist, any thoughts of suicide, any of this. And he said, I made the mistake of telling a few of them because it's been part of my life, but it's I'm not going to do it.

But people freaked out. So he wanted to make sure I wouldn't freak out. And I was very happy. He was so frank, you know, bring it up. Let's talk about it, get it on the table. It gets you to where you need to be in a little faster. That's right. And it really lets me understand where he is instead of just pretending. But he sort of kept this, you know, this was the idea was that if it ever gets too painful, he'll check out. And if he's not married and he doesn't have kids and there's nobody depending on him, he's free to do it. And he is if at any point he decides, I suppose he's, you know, depending on your beliefs, he's free to do it.

Right. And I think for him, just knowing and now adding to it the physical symptoms, if it if life really just was so unbearable and he felt it was too much pain for himself and if he ever felt he was bringing too much pain, like to the family because he carried that piece from the unplanned birth or a pregnancy. Well, and that's a maybe a topic for another day. But the responsibility you as a human must feel when you hear these sorts of things. Yeah. And to be able to talk about something like this, because a lot of people think about this, you know, it's much more common that people think about it and at various times in their life and with different stresses.

Now, luckily, most of the time it doesn't mean somebody's really got a plan and they're really right about to do it. But you you don't always know immediately. So I'm going to start the first session that I have with us. This isn't his first session. This is a few months in. And he starts by saying, Maybe I've been more depressed than I realized. I've been sleeping on and off. And still this morning I'm very groggy and I'm worried it might be a little hard to talk. My arms open in a lot of pain, but I didn't take a painkiller this morning because I was worried I would go back to sleep and missed the appointment.

I also wanted to be clearheaded. When we speak, he tells me he had a dream. I had a dream last night that these two guys were after me. It was as though I had testified at a trial or it was going to and my testimony would incriminate them. Then the scene changes from the middle of the city to the outskirts of town, and it's a more wooded area. And I still feel that I'm in danger. I'm running and trying to hide behind trees or find any place that I can duck into to get away. It occurs to me that I have my cell phone on me, but I look and there appears to be no service.

I move again, trying to find a place where there is service. I find it, get a few bars and I feel I will be able to get help. Though the dream ends there and I don't know what happens. Then he starts to tell me his thoughts. I don't know why I had this dream. It was a very quiet weekend, and I mostly stayed home resting. I've been very low energy and need to rest right now. I was supposed to go over to a friend's house, but I canceled because I just wasn't up for it. And everyone understood. I don't know whether I'm depressed because I'm not able to do my regular stuff or if I'm just in one of those down times right now.

Then he's quiet for a while and I'm waiting. I want to I don't want to interrupt him. I want to let it flow. But I don't hear from him. I don't hear another comment for what feels like too long in my mind. So I ask what else comes to mind about the dream? I may have asked him, What's what is he thinking? Then I ask him what comes to mind about the dream. He's. I have no idea. It was anxiety provoking to be chased. I definitely felt that it was as though I knew what they had done and I was going to tell everyone and they had to get to me before I did.

I felt like I was in a video game and maybe I was even this character from a game I played when I was young. It was this game called Mario Brothers, and there were these two characters named Mario and Luigi and their cousins who are plumbers and have to save the princess who has been imprisoned. I think I was Mario. I haven't played that game or even thought about it in a really long time. I said, Well, what did the bad guys do? I think they murdered someone and I knew about it or saw it. Maybe it's a little unclear, but I knew I was very afraid and running for my life.

And so why Mario brothers? That would put me back in childhood. I suppose that game was a bit of an escape for me. I could play it with my friends and we could lose ourselves in it for hours. Those were brief moments when I remember enjoying myself. I was with everyone and we could be carefree while we played. So who do you feel you've testified against now? I don't know. That seems very far from my life right now, so I don't know. And I said, Well, is there anything you feel is chasing you at the moment? I don't know. I don't think I'd say if anything was chasing me.

But I have been thinking about my childhood and my mother. After our conversation last week, I was thinking about how my childhood was not normal and I had no idea at the time there was a lot of family stuff going on all the time and we were just supposed to not feel it, not react to it and keep going to school, keep getting good grades, making it all look like we were a perfectly normal family. And that was a lie. I don't think I was supposed to know and surely wasn't supposed to talk about that back then. I used to think that my father caused all the problems and he certainly caused his share.

But I'm seeing now that it was both of them. They were both completely occupied with their own stuff and paid no attention to us. Why they had us when they really were not interested or able to parent is a mystery. I wasn't even supposed to question anything. I wasn't supposed to think about whether it was fair or normal. All of those thoughts are starting to come up now. And I said, So you're telling me about it, You're testifying. And he said, Yeah, I guess I am talking about it. We didn't get to talk about those things growing up. I couldn't get either of my parents to talk to me about anything emotional.

They would go silent or change the subject, and it was clear it was a no go zone. I have to say, it's weird to talk about it. I feel guilty like I'm betraying them. And I also wonder whether the things I say are accurate. Like, was it really that bad or does it sound worse when I tell you? But then I have to remind myself that it was not good. And my brother and I both have problems in one way or another. I think my depression is the worst and more like my mother's. But we both have something. Neither of us got out unscathed. So this was really the first time where he was able to express these thoughts out loud with you.

He was starting to you know, over time, I would ask questions. He would tell me about his life. I would ask what it was like growing up, because I like to know. And through his prior dreams and the interpretations and him talking about, you know, beginning to open all of this up and start thinking about, my gosh, maybe this wasn't normal. Maybe everybody doesn't go through this. It started to register. And then his mind just Yes, started thinking. Now, of course, then immediately he's testifying. Not good. And when you said to him that you're testifying, even in me, I felt like, my gosh, yes, that's that's it.

I can check that off the list. That is clearly what that means in my dream. And when you do that, when you realize that whatever that is, I'm testifying in this case, it does something inside of you. I think there's a feeling you have that you either weren't allowed to have or you didn't recognize that in a little way helps to start making you whole again. Right. This starts to let him put understanding to all of the things he had been through. It starts to set the mind. Now I'm going to say at ease in one way. Right. Because somebody is now bearing witness to the fact that this wasn't normal.

And you're allowing yourself to feel some validity. Right. And have somebody take it seriously in the family. It was a no go zone. Yeah. So the complaints, I mean, forget taking them seriously. They really weren't allowed to even emerge. You could not complain. But he can complain now and say, I didn't like this. That didn't feel good. They weren't attending to us. We felt all alone. So on the one hand, it's relieving. I can tell you the other hand is. And now I'm in trouble. And now this is going to be hard. I am violating the family rule. And then, of course, he has to wonder, you know, and question his mind's ability to recount his own history that he went through.

Is it right? And I. Feel guilty. As am I making this worse than it was, right? How how dare I talk about these people who gave birth to me and raised me even if it wasn't perfect? Don't you think so many of us can relate to that? I think so. No matter what it was like that there's some say, Am I allowed to say this. Right and everything. We thought was normal because that's how we grew up. I mean, what is normal after all? But it's the way you grew up. You're thinking everybody else in their households, they're growing up the same way. Must be the same.

Yeah, right. Everybody has a mother who's gone into her bedroom from after work until the next morning and doesn't talk to you. Everybody has a father who maybe checks in, has a sandwich with you, doesn't say much, and then has to go, you know, meet his friends to watch a game or whatever it is. Right. Or you find yourself tiptoeing around just to keep the status quo. Right. Don't disturb anything. So, you know, I think some flavor of this, you know, more or less most people can relate to. There is some circumstances. This was, you know, way over here and the edge.

Right. I think for for a lot of people, but not as unusual as we would like. And I think through this, if we say to ourselves, okay, I'm I'm allowed to be curious about these things that I grew up with, I'm allowed to be curious about these feelings, not create a space that is absorbed by guilt and therefore blocked off. I think that's one of the great benefits about these conversations, is letting us know that it's it's okay to have your feelings and it's okay to question things. And these are you know, this is a traumatic upbringing. Yes. This does things to your psyche.

It Right. This shapes who you are, what you're allowed to talk about and what you can feel about yourself. And he's saying, look, I felt terrible. I always thought this was my fault in some way. I carried all of this around and nobody there was softening the blow. One could imagine that a lot of people might get pregnant before they get married or something like that. You know, you hear the stories, but in certain families, okay, might have an impact, might not have an impact these days. But even if it does have a bit of an impact, there's enough love that it softens all that and said, all right.

Yeah, but they. Love each other or, you know, here. my God. And they're stuck. These people are imprisoned all because of me. That's tragic. Pretty difficult. You know, And so the parents didn't have the capacity within them. They had not had upbringings that supported them developing, knowing how to love. So they didn't they didn't have no idea how to give this to their children. And they had no idea that the children were waiting to love them back. So they also missed out on this enormous well of love that could have been there for them to help also heal that.

Not that it's the children's job to heal, but that's the circumstance. And so these children would have given anything to love these parents and create a new, new relationship. So who would the gangster in the dream be then? I feel like it could be my mother or my father. They were both pretty brutal towards us, though. I always thought I should protect my mother since she was my mother. I always thought she was so unhappy and that it was my fault and my father's fault. But I don't think it was just him. She was hard to talk to. She would just go silent and not respond to him.

I think it would make him so angry and hurt and he shut down. I don't know if he started that way, but it was clear that he stopped trying with her. And then by default, both of the kids. I said, That sounds like when you were young, your mother could have been the princess that needed rescuing. Yeah, that could be. I really wanted to just make her happy. When I was young, I knew she was unhappy. I would try to think of things that she would like and do them for her, but I don't think she even registered it. They were both miserable but pretending.

Or maybe it just never occurred to them that they didn't have to stay in the marriage. They just stayed and suffered. So I said, I think there's a part of you that must feel you told me the truth. We see that you testified. So now you're a wanted man. I also think that you're Mario who has to save the princess. But I think that Mario is also the PM for Mother. You had to become your mother because she was emotionally absent. So then you're having to save yourself and your mother and also be your mother. Big task, I think here. The bad guys at the Depression, That's the depression stemming from the idea that life is painful and hard and that's how it is.

And that seems to be how your mother felt. So you're saying it's her emotional experience that becomes the gangsters that are after you chasing you, going to get you. In fact, they have gotten you. You've had to live her life with her depression. So the question is, how much pain do you have to be in? And are you allowed to call me and tell me about it? That's the part in the dream where you say, I realize I have a phone. Can I get help? wait, I don't have service. wait, I think I do now. Otherwise, you have to keep it all in. If there's no one to talk to.

If you can't get service, you're stuck with it all. And that's how you've lived. No bars until you were able to start talking about it? He asked me. So Waits. He has to clarify. So I have to be the mother. He wanted to understand that. And I said, Yeah, from what it sounds like you unconsciously had to become the mother to yourself and probably to your brother, I think is why it's your Mario, not Luigi. And from Mother, she was emotionally unavailable and unhappy. But you need a mother as a baby and a child. So what do you do? You become the mother now.

Once you become the mother, all kinds of things happen. Because once you become the mother, you take on parts of the mother's personality to do the job. You took on her depression. You feel like she did a lot of the time down unhappy. But that's what it means to be the mother in this situation in here. Yes. So, yes, for him, for everybody, it's going to be specific to what your mother felt her life was like unconsciously, maybe even consciously. His mother was, as he described it, was just going to suffer it. There was no choice. There was no option to get out of it.

So she's caring an idea that life is painful. I'm unhappy, but this is just what it is. There's no changing. So I told him he'd have his own pain. Also. But now he's got a double whammy because he's also the mother. So he's got to carry her pain and his. No wonder he's been really depressed most of his life. So I explained all of this to him in a back and forth. He was asking me questions. I was wanted to make it really clear to him. So he understood because in the dream, that's what's been chasing him his whole life. The gangsters. But the gangsters are this depression and this way of feeling.

That's it. Life is just hard. It's never going to stop. I'm always going to be on the run. And it was trying to end his life. And he's right that depression, not only would it end his life, let's say, in a suicide, but it's kept him from really living. He's constantly back and forth between, am I going to be here or not be here? It's not a life. And all of this is in his unconscious and really dictating his conscious existence, but not knowing what that unconscious is saying to you means that in your conscious world you're doing these things and not understanding why.

You wouldn't even think about it. I think, you know, it's just you that's the problem here, is it? So isn't something you question. It just feels like you. It's like I'm left handed. I am just left handed. I don't know the question. Why am I left handed right? I am just depressed and of course I'm depressed. I caused my family enormous pain and that is in there. I don't want to say that peace isn't a big part of this, but the dream is telling us, Look, I had to become the m m. I became the M to save the princess and the princess as Mom and I am now both plagued with guilt about testifying and telling you all about what happened and what he didn't realize is he's not only telling me the conscious pieces that happened in the family, he's telling me the unconscious piece, which is I had to become her.

There was no love to get from her. She didn't have it. So I had to become the mother to save my own life and save her. I had to rescue the princess. But now I am part me and a great deal my mother. And what is her life look like? So here this is important. You can start a person can start looking and saying, okay, wait a minute, How how much of my mother's characteristics way of seeing the world, way of feeling, way of being in the world, Am I. Kerry? And is that really me? Because what we're going to do in part in this treatment is help peel off what is mom.

We have to get back to Brian, not Brian as Mario. Mom. And most of this peeling away will come via the dreams. Via the dreams that if you have it, is one of the best ways to do it, because it's I don't know that I would ever get to this idea from just what he's telling me consciously. I might over time. Just a longer, slower process to to hear that. Wait a minute, he's back. He's telling me, here's how here's the game I played in my childhood. Psychologically, I played a game. I became the mother. I rescued the princess. I gave up part of myself so that I could imagine I could have a fairy tale life.

And a big piece here is that his mother just didn't have it to give. She didn't get it in her lifetime. I don't know how many generations back that goes, but she didn't have it, so she couldn't give it to him. But he felt that. And as a baby, as a child, if you're feeling that, you don't have a lot of choice because not having love makes you have to do mental gymnastics, we actually need that to survive. You could think about that like water or air. We're really designed to have it. If we don't, we have to imagine it. We have to become our own caretakers and conjure it.

But that means we're not ourselves. And what we're conjuring that we think is love is probably not love. It can't. Really be because we don't know what that. Is. We don't know what it is consciously experience right now. I think some people probably come in where where it comes from, people can discuss, but they come in with more of a capability to love. Naturally, that does happen. But I would say generally no. People are having to sort of do mental gymnastics and imagine and you'll hear people talk about this, they they tip their hat to this. well, it was really, really hard.

But I know I was loved, you know? Right. So you get both the denial and probably a little acknowledgment that there's been some gymnastics. I had to make this loving. All right. Well, yeah. How'd you do that? We've got to look at the deepest level and see how each person did it in that family. Given those. So he and I have some of this conversation because a lot of this well, he's heard some of it. He's still trying to get this idea. Hey, wait a minute. You mean what do you mean? I'm I'm not my mother and I want to be my mother, you know. How dare you call me my mother?

You know, I mean, he he understands. I'm not insulting him, but this is a big idea. Takes a lot of getting used to a. Lot of getting used to. As we talk about this, we go back and forth and he asks me, But what about? My father and I said, I'm sure you got a lot from your father. There's no question. And this is important for people to hear. You got a lot from your father. What I'm going to do here is follow your dream, this particular dream, because you're telling me you had to become Mario and save the princess. This dream pertains to your mother.

That doesn't mean we're not going to get another dream that pertains to your father and what you had to do with him. So I wanted him to know we're going to explore everything. Dad's not left out of it. Dad made huge contributions. He was removed, Didn't really talk to the kids here. He's got two boys and he's not showing up as a father. Dad will be covered. But this dream is so important because it shows us probably very early on he had to become the man. Which makes sense given that we start our existence in our mother's womb. Right? There are few other things that I think are important about this, which is I know hearing that he was a baby who felt they didn't plan him, he wasn't wanted.

The unconscious is powerful. So the parents didn't also didn't work to not have the baby. So we can think about that. But that I know. Then he will be wondering whether I want him to that. And at the top of this session he even says I didn't take the pain pills. Now, in one way, wonderful. He wanted to be clear headed. He was thinking about the treatment he wants to be able to engage. But I think he's also telling me a little bit, you know, one would wonder, how much pain does he then have to be? And for me, see our suffer. I won't take my pain pill.

My arm is killing me, but I have to do it because I need to show up for you. So that's in there too. I see. Because I was just going with what you first said. How great He didn't take the painkiller, that he just wanted to be present. Right. So but I think it's both. There are a lot of things that come up in a treatment and you have to decide any given session. What's the most salient piece to interpret. You only have so much time. What do you really want to get to? And there are certain pieces that will stop somebody from coming back potentially, You know, you can feel that building, so you want to interpret it.

Some things you may want to let if you know you're going to see them. Another time that week or soon, you might let that slide a little bit and come back to it. But you'll you'll catch up to it because this is going to show itself in the treatment all over the place, because he felt he caused so much pain in the family that I know he's going to feel it here. And what you don't get to in a given session will probably continue to show up in his dream until you get to it. Yes. Or in what he tells me. Right. This doesn't necessarily show up in the dream, but it's what he opens with.

I'm going to tell you, I didn't take a painkiller. Right. Okay. There's a. Message. There's a message. And he wants to know that first. So is there any kind of revelation or soothing that he feels after having shared this dream, or does that come in your next session that you were going to discuss? I don't know that this is a session where I'd say we wrap it up with a bow. He feels better. Neither of these are high, but what they are is incredibly important in terms of him getting the uncut conscious lay of the land. He has to know what he did early on.

He became his mother. He is carrying both his own depression and her depression. No wonder you want to commit suicide. Yes. And like you said, it's a double whammy. It's a double whammy. So that's the big revelation. So it's not a big revelation. But now these things have bubbled to the surface. So do most patients. Then go away and it continues to sort of fizz, or do patients think that is big and scary and try to dismiss it, even though they really can't because it's sitting there all the time in their unconscious? Both can happen. Some people might.

You know, to me, this is a big revelation, but, you know, I don't maybe it didn't sound like it, but it is if you find out you are not yourself, that's a pretty revelation. But as a patient to take that in, maybe it's being watered down. Well, one has to see. And so what I'm always doing is seeing, I mean, a you want to see if your patient comes back, you know, how do they respond? After the interpretation, He starts asking me some questions. Now, some of that may be to shift back to intellect a little. Right. And so I'm always weighing that because otherwise the feeling might just hit him.

Right. And I weigh it because he's new and there is some education that has to go on. But I also know I'm being pulled to answer questions, intellectual questions. In a way, the dream is going to be all the feeling, conversation, conscious conversation can be half and half or maybe even all intellect, but it may be used as a bit of a buffer. But I'm going to do it here knowing that that may be happening. And let me see where it goes. You know, I don't want to leave this patient unattended to and ignored that way. And so maybe looking back now, if I had found a way to interpret that a little bit for him, I might have.

But at the time my thinking was this baby has been unattended so much of the time. The last thing I want to do is not be having a conversation with him. He didn't get enough of this. He needs it. Right. So both things are going. On, right? So intellectual or not, he needs that connection. He needs. A connection. And he's new in treatment. And this is, in my mind, a bombshell. Yes, You know, you are not yourself. Part of the reason you always want to kill yourself is because you are living your mother's life. And that is just the way it's going to be.

Okay. So to answer your question, some people are going to completely deny that. Some people are going to the wheels start turning and they may of I could barely sleep. I'm thinking about is what does this mean? I'm looking all over like, how am I my mother? Do I drink my coffee the way she does? Do I complain the way she does? Do I feel depressed? Do I look like do I dress like her? Do I only cook things I know she would want to eat for dinner? The whole picture. And some people are going to be most likely somewhere in the middle. Then I have to look at the next session.

As I said, A, do they come back or did that just blow it out of the water? If they come back, what's next? What do you want to tell me about next? And you're looking to see does it you know, does the dream deepen? Does the treatment start to deepen? Do they shut you up? Do the bad guys win? And the patient is lying dead in a warehouse somewhere in the dream? What happens? Follow the unconscious. That's where the feeling is going to come. So Brian does come back. And does he come back all in and come back soon? Brian stays in treatment. So yes, he comes back soon and keeps working on this.

This didn't blow him out of the water, which is good. It didn't cure him. I want to be very clear. You know, this just starts to set the stage. Brian, here's what you're dealing with. You are not Brian. You're you're Brian. And Brian. Plus, Brian. Plus when Brian is thinking about it when he's not with you. Well, I guess it is, as you just said, people go in all different directions. He might just put it out here. He might be taking it in, he might be thinking that's impossible. But he comes back and this next that you're sharing, is it subsequent or is it a few dreams in?

This is a few months in. Okay, so this isn't the next piece. He starts working on all of this in his dreams. He's figuring out how I'm mom, Who am I? How my dad. What's going on? And he's also wrestling with this physical problem, right? So that the next dream will have to do with some of that. And I like these two dreams a lot because these are two of the biggest complaints he came in with. I've got a lifelong depression and now I've got this medical piece. I'm dealing with. So I want if I can get an understanding of this, this is why the guy came to me.

Sure. Right. What are you going to do with this now? I can't always do this. Sometimes I don't see it. Sometimes the material isn't there. But I think the next dream is very interesting in terms of his elaboration on how he felt as a very young person and what that had him do in his mind and why he's suffering the way he is. So that in that sense it's tied to the first piece, but elaborates. So he comes in to the next session. I haven't been sleeping much. I've had some trouble with my legs again, pain and they aren't doing what I like them to do.

I also think I have gotten sick. I had stomach cramps and that kept me up a lot of the night I was in a fetal position and I'm hoping the worst is behind me now. But it was a pretty bad night. I just wish they could figure out what was wrong with me. I know people must think I'm crazy, but I'm not. Really. I just want to be able to get on with my life the way everyone else does. They're starting to decrease the pain meds, which should help me a lot. That will mean I have more energy think, and I won't have that feeling of being in a cloud sometimes.

But then I worry about whether that is also protecting me a bit from the emotional side of it all. Life has changed so much. I thought I was really on my way to having life finally be happy for a change. Maybe I really am not supposed to be happy or get that I see it more now. It is tough and it brings back all of the depression I make it through the day, but I don't really feel like I do inside. It's always sort of there these thoughts that people must think I'm just this horrible, lazy piece of shit since I feel dependent on everyone for everything.

I was such an active person and now I'm just wasting away and I don't know where this will go. I know I'm scared a lot. I ask him if he was able to dream I was at school or college. I think I opened a door and I'm suddenly in a 1940s or fifties plane and it's big, empty and maybe for cargo and the back is open and I can see out and maybe we are on a military base. And then I see there's a can of frosting which I love to eat out of the can I take two or three spoonfuls and it makes me sick. And then I see it's some kind of airplane sealant and I leave the plane and I see these people and they take me to an Italian restaurant and I eat pasta with seafood.

And I think I like it. It's very nice, but I'm not sure about it. And then dinner ends and I walk to a park, but I'm not sure if that happens or not. And the dream ends. So many parts and pieces. Lots of pieces. So I asked him to tell me about his thoughts and he knows how to do this now. And he says, I'm back in school a lot in my dreams. And I ask him what comes to mind about that? And he says, Maybe I feel like I have things to learn. Is that too obvious? And then he tells me he has no connection to a plane, has no idea why he's dreaming about it.

And then as he sits there, he says, wait a minute. Actually my uncle, my mom's brother, was in the Air Force, maybe someone else in the family, but I really can't remember. But I think it was mentioned at some point I would have to ask someone what the story was. But I guess there is some family connection. I just don't know the details. I think it might have been her father, too. Yeah, that sounds right. So I ask him what comes to his mind about this frosting. That's sealant. And he said it. It just look like frosting. And I ate it. He said, it's embarrassing, but I like to eat frosting out of the can.

It's very sweet. I like it. And I said, Well, couldn't you tell after one spoonful that it was sealant? And he said, I knew it was off, but I guess I couldn't tell. And it wasn't bad enough to get that it wasn't food. And he said there was a spoon or some scoop in the can and it was ready to go. But then I got sick, which is no surprise. So I stopped, but I wasn't that sick. So I was okay enough. I asked about the family and the next part he said, I know I'm in the fifties, sort of in the dream and it looks like it, but I'm also somehow aware of time too.

So I think it just looks like that. And the families actually current day, if that makes sense. I don't remember much about the dream, but they seem nice. They invite me to eat and I think there are vegetables in some pasta with mussels, but for some reason I don't really feel comfortable. I ask why not? They said. I think because I'm never fully comfortable. I think I was wondering whether they liked me or was there something else going on? I wasn't sure. Could I trust them? That's common for me. If someone seems like they like me, I always wonder whether there's an ulterior motive, even though I realize there's not a lot someone is going to get from me in terms of money or anything else.

But I still worry. So what I ended up saying to them was that it sounds like the plane is his mother and he's saying that already in utero he got a frosty welcome. You had only your mother's toxins. I see the sealant to eat, no love. And yet he had to eat them. He had to eat them. I said that I must be the family that is offering to feed him real food. But he isn't quite sure if he can trust me. I also think it's interesting that the food offered is pasta with mussels. Given your problems with your mussels, you might be saying that your mother offered you no real food, so you've resorted to eating your own mussels to feed yourself the love you needed.

Now, I think the painkillers and maybe the way painkillers really work is that they're dulling the effect of having no love. It's not really the pain in the body. And he said, I think I'm going to have to think about this one. That's a lot to take in. But it's interesting, I didn't mention it was mussels initially. I realized when you said that I thought of it as seafood, but it was mussels. It was mussels. That's why we ended. That's amazing. Yeah. So this is an interesting dream because he's really saying, here was my mother, she was an empty cargo plane.

I'm inside and there's nothing for me to eat but airplane sealant. I imagine it's sweet frosting. Where's my love? Where is the love? It's just sealant. So that goes to what you were saying earlier, where we all, most of us, devise something that we call love just to get us through. Right. Just to survive. Said it wasn't bad enough. Didn't kill me. Right. I'm here. Might make me. Sick. Might make me sick now what? Starting at the beginning this time, he says I couldn't sleep that much. So he's waking up right now. He's uncomfortable. He's anxious.

You know, the dreams are showing him more truth about his life. So people will worry because patients will come in and complain. I'm not sleeping, but that may have to happen and we may have to help our patients understand, yes, this is hard to go through, but you're working towards something and you will get a better understanding of your life, but it may disrupt your sleep. And so these awkward things that happen or uncomfortable or physically, emotionally, we need to be told that there are signs likely that you're making progress. That's right.

This is a big sign. Both he's deepening. my gosh. You're going to tell us what's happening here. You're going to tell us there wasn't any love, right? He's going to keep testifying. He's getting, I think, pretty This is pretty direct, pretty frank. I was in an empty cargo plane. You can imagine the metal hold of a cargo plane. Yeah. What's soft in that? Yeah, nothing. Cold, metal, steel. And this is what he had. This is the cargo planes, Mothers. The cargo plane. Right. He was the cargo. Then he's going to come. I'm going to invite him to this dinner.

You know, I'm going to invite him to come eat. Things that taste good. Hopefully healthy food, right. Understandings about his mind. Even then, they were nice, right? I don't know if I can trust you. How do I know you're not going to feed me? See, Lynn, How do I know you're not just cold back there? Well, he's got to talk to me a long time to realize I'm not actually his mother. And you can't really say to him point blank. Well, of course that's not the case. I mean, it doesn't matter what you say intellectually or on the surface, that doesn't undo where he's coming from unconsciously.

That's right. And that's why you want to keep working and keep showing him that you're working to understand him. Keep working on the dreams. He gives me a hint here that at least it's vegetables and seafood. So I think he gets to the idea that it's muscles, but it's also he's starting to see you're offering me food to see my life. But I don't trust you yet. Well, of course you don't. And you're not going to trust me for a long time. You may trust me. A pocket here and a pocket there. But you couldn't trust your parents to love you. So how can you trust that a person who's not actually your mother is going to love you?

Yes. Because of all people. It's your mother that you should be able to trust or your father. Right. And if your mother doesn't love you, if your own mother. How can it be? Am I going to think he's really just a lazy piece of shit as he says? Of course he's going to wonder that from time to time. Now it's not so strong that it keeps him from coming back. And if I see those things popping up too much or in such a strong way, I'm going to really go after them to interpret as well. You must have me as your mother, who you imagine thought you were a piece of shit, because that will ruin a treatment.

You won't come back if it's too strong. So this is what's going on for him, is he says it because I had no love. I've turned to eating my mussels. So no wonder they can't find a simple cause for why the mussels feel weak and like they're deteriorating. It's a psychological underpinning. Now, I'm not going to say that he might not have some physical pathology going on, but certainly he is telling us that, Wait a minute, you better catch this. It is absolutely connected to my state of mind. And of course, the body and the mind say say I was starving for love, starving.

And that's still a hard thing for a lot of us to settle with that our feelings and our physicality are so connected. Yes, it's still a difficult concept. I think we're very connected. And the other thing I think is hard for people is to really say, I wasn't loved very hard. There wasn't love there. I was starving. I'll eat sealant. Meaning his mother was so filled, she was filled with all sealant. There wasn't any frosting of the sweet kind in there. It was frosty. It was freezing cold. But didn't have you know, it wasn't as though this woman was hiding sweet cans of frosting from them and just wouldn't give them.

She didn't have it to give. That he was able to take all that she was able to. Offer. That's right. And he. Did. Is Brian still a patient? Brian is not a patient. Did Brian overcome or begin to work on his true self even more? What happened to his physical pain? Right. All good questions. Brian worked with me a few years beyond this. His depression got much better. Not gone. It wasn't gone, but much better. He was able to put distance between himself and the bad guys. The dreams would start to show that he was no longer on trial. He was no longer feeling he was solely testifying.

But I would say that his symptoms, the physical stuff, didn't get worse. This certainly also did not cure that. You know, this is not magic. But what it did was it didn't get worse. Right. And he was able to scale back on the pain meds and get back to some of his activities. Brian went back to his life. That's great. I don't think Brian was. At the end of the day, Brian just wanted to live his life. You know? I don't think Brian was looking to be in therapy for as long as it would have taken to really clean all of this up. But I think he felt he got enough relief.

I think he probably testified as much as somewhere deep inside. He felt he was allowed to. See some of these things, though, that he was sharing with you that allowed him to sort of become okay with himself, with who he really was. Is that knowing then maybe even on his own, he could say, okay, wait a minute, here's a moment where I'm really feeling guilty about an experience I'm having. What is that about? I feel like some of this would give us a few tools to to question ourselves. Yes. Not in a negative way, but just to say, wow, it's okay for me to think about this.

It's okay for me to feel this way. And why am I feeling this guy right? I can talk. I can have some experience that there's a place that certain people are going to want to hear what I have to say, even if they're hard things, I can start to think about the internal map I now have of my unconscious, my internal world. OG Sometimes I'm living completely as my mother. Sometimes maybe there's a little more me there. Can I now see when I'm deeply, deeply in my depression, I have to at least be thinking which part of my depression is this? Is this my mother who feels this?

It will never stop. This is just life. It goes like this. Or am I me who thinks, Well, wait a minute, I don't have to be her. I had my own pain, but I got some help with that. Maybe I don't have to be that depressed. I don't have to constantly be thinking, Well, if this doesn't go well, I can always off myself. Yeah, because there's nothing about his mother's depression or way of living life that's truly his that he must own. It's just fiction, right? That. That the part that is hers is hers. Now, the one piece where Brian did get more of the life he wanted, as well as he was finally able to have a relationship and feel less that he would kill himself or that that option was so strong that he couldn't go into something.

And, you know, he said if if he's ever there again, he'll call me. And you may not know, but that relationship was he was he or is he truly able to feel love there? He'll have to tell us. Maybe if he comes back, I hope because he's using the rule that if he really feels like he's going to do himself in, they'll come back. Yeah, but if he does show up again, I'll have to ask him. I'll have to see what he's doing, see what he tells me. And I think there was probably some way of saying, look, I won't stay here and talk to you, but I can have a girlfriend.

She'll substitute in for you and I'll go on and live my life with her. So in a certain way, I've got a part of this that I'm going to hold on to, even if I can't be here and tell you everything about the rest of my life. There's something about the level of trust he was ultimately able to feel with you, that he was then able to transfer to another human. Who hopefully loves him. Will, Will hope and will hope it can hold some of that up. Is there anything else you want to share about this? That's a lot, love. That's what it all comes down to, right?

And now love. That's what everybody has to get to. You want to know why you're taking the pain meds to block out the feeling, the pain from not having enough love. And it's at the root of everything human beings are navigating. And that's that's the the critical piece in this dream is he feels the way he felt because he didn't have love. And that and now love. I think it's, just imperative that now could be right this very minute, that now could be when you're pregnant and thinking about your baby, that now applies to our government, our politics, our humanity.

It's so big, right? We need it now. We needed it yesterday, now, now, now. More love. Yes. Well, thank you. Thank you for that giant message. And this, as always, fascinating conversation. I it's so precious that you can share these dreams there. They move me deeply and I'm sure others, too. It's just it's huge. It's really a gift. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for having me. And thank you to my patients for being. Willing. To share all of this. That's awesome. Very important material. Okay, so you'll come back. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for joining us.

And be sure to check in with us often and let us know what you're thinking about our program. See you soon. Okay.