Dream Shows Deceased Mother Still Attached to Her Daughter

By: Ron Masa, Ph.D.
Submitted: 2007-01-17 16:27:00
Print this article | Tell a friend | For publisher | Social Bookmarking
Rating:
 

Intensive dream work, which reveals the interior workings of the psyche, is guaranteed to change your view of reality. One of the stranger cases I encountered in decades of professional work echoed a story by Isaac Bashevis Singer which told of the Yiddish concept of the dibbuk.

One definition of a dibbuk is a soul who, at death, attaches to another person as a living host rather than leave this plane of existence. In Singer's story, the deceased person's soul jumped into the body of another family member and began to act through them, influencing their thoughts and actions. The present case seems quite similar.

The dreamer, a woman in her sixties, came for psychological assistance, reporting a major decline in energy, health and the clarity of her thoughts. I asked when this change began and the client said it dated from about six months earlier.

"What happened around that time?" I inquired. The client said her mother, a strong willed woman in her nineties, had died about then: "Maybe I am just depressed about her loss, but it seems more than that," she said. I asked her to record her dreams and she brought the following dream to the next session:

"I am sitting in my car which is standing still in the middle lane of a freeway. There are cars whizzing by me on both sides but I am not moving. Concerned that I should not be standing still here, I search around and see in the rear-view mirror my mother is in a car right behind me! I get out and discover that her car is attached to mine. I look right at her and she looks very embarrassed and pulls her car into the right lane and speeds off."

The client said her mother did not believe in an afterlife and had been very fearful of dying. The dreamer's "current car" that was inappropriately stopped included her life and health which had been stopped in their tracks. The image of the mother's vehicle being attached to her was not unlike the dibbuk. Had the mother's spirit found a way to attach itself to her daughter rather than make the crossing at death? Is that what was draining her life resources and confusing her thoughts.

I asked the woman what the mother's attached vehicle suggested to her. She said, "I bet she never left, I think she's still with me, somehow." The dream suggested that taking a hard look at the mother would be sufficient to encourage her to depart under her own power. The mother's embarrassment suggests she is doing something she does not feel is justified and that she will correct the situation once confronted. I was hoping so, since my doctorates in psychology and social work did not cover exorcism!

Using the gestalt technique of addressing an invisible other, the dreamer confronted the mother directly: she said this was her body and her life and that the mother's attachment was not right, that it was clearly harmful to the daughter. She said that she wanted the best for the mother and that the dream showed a clear path for the mother to follow and that she had the power to go there on her own.

The dream showed that both people were being impeded by their connection and were stagnating due to this "inappropriate attachment." A "freeway" is a path without stop lights, one that is meant for continuous movement and flow, life energies. The "freeway" may also suggest the "free will" of the daughter who should be allowed to go on her way. This "imaginary" conversation with the mother seemed to be sufficient, for within a few weeks the client reported feeling a great deal better physically, and emotionally; she said her thought processes had begun to clear from the day of the session.

Whether the "attachment" that was broken was entirely in the mind of the daughter, or actually involved the mother as "post-departum" house guest, you can decide for yourself. Whichever it was, the dream guidance resolved the problem. As Jung once said, "Death ends a life, but not necessarily a relationship."

Get the free 8 part email class "Discover Your Dreams: A Beginners Guide to Dream Interpretation" and newsletter.

DreamTalk is a low-cost dreamwork email group and TeleDream is a weekly telephone dream group which Dr Masa, Debbie Hart and Dr Marjorie Miles co-moderate. Work on your dreams and help others too.

Ron Masa, Ph.D. wrote columns on dreams while in private practice for 25 years. He and Debbie Hart co-lead University of Yourself.com: "Helping You Hear the Guide Inside."

Article source: Expert Articles

Most Recent Articles in Psychology category

  • Serious Problems in Psychotherapy Require Serious Medicine - By: Steven A. Frankel
    As a psychotherapy patient, do you wonder whether the work you and your therapist are doing will succeed and produce lasting results? Patients frequently remain in the dark about whether treatment is actually succeeding. The solution to this dilemma is a treatment considerably broader in scope than conventional psychological and psychiatric therapy. In conducting this innovative method of treatment, the therapist assumes the kind of clinical responsibility that is typical of a physician. He or she takes responsibility for addressing the full range of the patient's presenting and underlying problems, and coordinating all aspects of the patient's treatment.
  • Help With Psychology Dissertation Available Here! - By: Maki Kopper
    When thinking how to write a psychology dissertation, you to analyze, to understand, to evaluate and contrast, to reveal cause and effect...
  • Getting the Most Out of Therapy: How to Collaborate With Your Therapist - By: Steven Frankel, M.D.
    If you are in therapy, you and your therapist have already invested a significant amount of time and energy into your work, and you both have the same goal in mind: helping you achieve your own objectives for emotional growth and healing. If and when a difference of opinion over the treatment does occur, rather than walking away from your therapist, it is usually well worth the effort try to find a collaborative way to again go forward.
  • Colors in Dreams and Their Meaning - By: Daniel Zoleta
    Dream interpretation is the process of assigning meaning to dreams. In many of the ancient societies, including Egypt and Greece, dreaming was considered a supernatural communication or a means of divine intervention, whose message could be unravelled by those with certain powers. In modern times, various schools of psychology have offered theories about the meaning of dreams.
  • Boost Your IQ: Techniques to Increase Your Intelligence Quotient Today - By: Evgheny Stivenson
    It is possible to enhance your intelligence quotient in a matter of 10 minutes. Some techniques to do so are discussed below. Don't you want to enhance your IQ? Of course, you can use the brain power exercises and techniques. But these are long term and you would need to regularly practice them. What if you want to boost your IQ now, when you don't have more than 10 minutes.
  • Online Psychology Programs - By: Mary Jackson
    Students pursuing psychology online degrees learn about the human mind and behavior and its biological, social and cognitive bases, as well how to apply this knowledge to practical problems. Student enrolled in online psychology programs can choose to specialize in areas of psychology such as educational, child, clinical, sport, forensic, industrial, organizational, social and marriage and family therapy.
  • Toronto Psychologist and Psychoanalyst - By: Sandra Palef
    If you want to get an idea of what psychotherapy is all about, watch an episode of the television series The Sopranos. Tony Soprano is a mafia don in New Jersey who is in talk therapy with Dr. Jennifer Melfi. He has panic attacks, loses consciousness, and has slipped into a depression. All of this seems irrational to him, but he can’t help it. He has some hidden agenda lying just outside his awareness that is controlling his feelings and behavior. He doesn’t believe in therapy at the start, convinced he cannot talk about himself and that it won’t help anyway. He resists, evading Dr. Melfi’s questions, withdrawing, and even walking out. But eventually he is intrigued.
  • Magic Happens When Eternity Meets Linear Time in Dream Work - By: Ron Masa, Ph.D.
    Even if you're speeding around town, frantically running late, your dog in the back seat is perfectly on time; centered in the Now.I once thought "eternity" meant: Tuesday, Wednesday, etc. forever.
  • One Dream Interprets Another to Predict the U.S. Mid-Term Election Results - By: Ron Masa, Ph.D.
    Dreams come from wherever we do. They regularly predict the future and they link people together in the world of dreams. In the following case one dream even arrived to interpret another dream!
  • Dream Telepathy: Some Dream Workers Make Late Night House Calls - By: Ron Masa, Ph.D.
    "Not until a person dissolves, can he or she know what union is." -RumiNothing seems more obvious than that every human being is a distinct and separate entity. America champions the rights of the individual and self-determination.