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Dr. Bob is Robert Hsiung, MD,
bob@dr-bob.orgShown: posts 1 to 3 of 3. This is the beginning of the thread.
Posted by afatchic on September 18, 2001, at 13:12:58
Dear Friends,
I took the day off today because I thought I could use some rest. After getting my little one off to school, I went back to bed, only to have one nightmare after another. Two of them were especially upsetting but I'm not sure why or what they meant. My dreams have always been very symbolic.
In the first dream, I'm back in Saudi Arabia. I was deployed there two years ago. In the dream, I'm going up the stairs to my dorm room but the stairs seem to never end. At each landing, There is another flight of stairs I have to climb or descend. Then I'm out in the compound and I see the dead body of a young woman, an airman. She's been hung for being a traitor but I think she was innocent. I look at her face and can see the anguish and terror she felt as she died. I feel so profoundly sad when I remember this part.
In the second dream, I had a patch of dry skin on my face and I peeled it off. When I looked at it, I realized that most of my face had come off, including my eyes. I watched as the life drained out of the face in my hands. It was like a snake shedding it's skin. My real face seemed unharmed and I could see a patch of pink baby smooth skin that had been revealed. Funny, as I type this, it occurs to me that this dream was actually positive, a rebirth.
Thanks for listening.
P.S. I'm tapering off Effexor now and I still haven't been treated for my hypothyroidism. Could have something to do with the way I'm feeling (ya think?).
Posted by dreamer on September 18, 2001, at 13:28:13
In reply to Bad Dreams, posted by afatchic on September 18, 2001, at 13:12:58
> Dear Friends,
>
> I took the day off today because I thought I could use some rest. After getting my little one off to school, I went back to bed, only to have one nightmare after another. Two of them were especially upsetting but I'm not sure why or what they meant. My dreams have always been very symbolic.
>
> In the first dream, I'm back in Saudi Arabia. I was deployed there two years ago. In the dream, I'm going up the stairs to my dorm room but the stairs seem to never end. At each landing, There is another flight of stairs I have to climb or descend. Then I'm out in the compound and I see the dead body of a young woman, an airman. She's been hung for being a traitor but I think she was innocent. I look at her face and can see the anguish and terror she felt as she died. I feel so profoundly sad when I remember this part.
>
> In the second dream, I had a patch of dry skin on my face and I peeled it off. When I looked at it, I realized that most of my face had come off, including my eyes. I watched as the life drained out of the face in my hands. It was like a snake shedding it's skin. My real face seemed unharmed and I could see a patch of pink baby smooth skin that had been revealed. Funny, as I type this, it occurs to me that this dream was actually positive, a rebirth.
>
> Thanks for listening.
> P.S. I'm tapering off Effexor now and I still haven't been treated for my hypothyroidism. Could have something to do with the way I'm feeling (ya think?).Hi there ,
Just to say it may be the effexor causing these horrid dreams.
I had them until my dose was increased and probably it's the tapering for you. Try not to worry I've tried to analyse my terrors when I had them, just got more confusion and fed my head for the next one.Sweet dreams.
Posted by Noa on September 25, 2001, at 17:22:41
In reply to Re: Bad Dreams, posted by dreamer on September 18, 2001, at 13:28:13
I cannot say what your dreams mean, but may I tell you the associations that come to mind for me when I read about your dreams?
Effexor's effects on your dreaming notwithstanding, the content of the dreams seems so reasonable to me given the recent terrorist attacks. There may be other layers of meaning to find in your dream, but the associations that arose for me were these quite concrete ones, relating to the horrible events of September 11. My associations are immediately to the Marine barracks bomb in Saudi Arabia several years back---there you are in your dorm in Saudi Arabia. Another association I have to the part in which you are trying to ascend the steps and they go on indefinitely is the stories we heard and read about people in the WTC who fled upward in the towers to escape the flames and smoke and heat and then found themselves with no escape. And then in the dream, you see another service person dead. Also, the second dream's content seems so reasonable because we all know, though we might be trying to not think about it, that many of the thousands who died in New York, and in the other two crashes as well, died in flames, and that there were people who survived the fire in NY (and DC), only to die later of their burn wounds in hospitals, and there are probably still people struggling to survive such burns.
I have also had some strange dreams. In one, I dreamt I was just outside of NY, and decided to take a bus into the city (don't know why). As the bus rode around, I fell asleep and found that I couldn't wake myself up. I was worried about missing my bus stop, but also was trying to look out the window to see what was going on there but couldn't open my eyes enough to see anything. Then, I found I was able to drag myself up from my sleepy state enough to try to get off the bus near Time Square, because I decided to see a Broadway show, per Giuliani's encouragement to visit NY and support the economy, etc. But I couldn't bring myself to see a musical, even though I might normally want to, because I wanted to find a serious play that would stimulate my emotions and be a place to channel my sadness.
I see this dream as expressing my ambivalence about being in touch with the serious feelings stirred up by the terrorist attacks--part of me wanting to sleep through it and be unconscious about it, and part of me wanting to look around and see what was happening, and then settling on finding something structured to hang my feelings on so they won't be too overwhelming.
This attack has, I believe, affected all of us to varying degrees. But many of us are feeling "unentitled" to our feelings because we might not have been touched by the horror directly, as so many were. But we are entitled to our fear, grief, sadness, anger, confusion, horror, etc.
This is the end of the thread.
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