Recurring dreams, the same one/theme, just before I woke up this morning AND yesterday morning – can go on night after night after night, has been for years – setting, always University or school, always about exams, going to fail them or have failed them, my life crumbling…
I must be in REM dream sleep just before I wake up – it’s often hard to shake off during the morning – or the whole day! – the upset and anguish that I’m obviously experiencing during the dream. The dreams put a dampener on my day before it has even started! I got up this morning, went for a run, but instead of feeling the buzz from the run, I was, literally, tearful, on the verge of bursting into tears! The dreams spill over into the day and as one who suffers from depression, as one who has to fight, with the help of meds (and my running) to keep it at bay, this ‘carry over’ is not helpful.
I don’t need Joseph to interpret the dreams – the exact interpretation would require some deep soul-searching on my part, some real, genuine, honest soul-searching, but the big picture seems pretty obvious…
We can try to ignore, ‘bury’, feelings and truths, try to wipe them from our minds but we can’t rid our hearts, our souls, our essences, of feelings and truths. It seems clear to me that, deep – or maybe not so deep – in my subconscious, lives a strong feeling, sense, of failure. I do suffer from an inherent poor sense of self concept but that, perhaps, is not what I thought it was, a symptom of my clinical depression – maybe, just maybe, that poor sense of self concept is a natural consequence of my not facing and dealing with deep-rooted feelings of failure, disappointment and regret.
Furthermore, if that’s what it is, it must be dousing the flames of my depression like lighter fuel on a BBQ! AND another furthermore, let’s say moreover, maybe my lack of self-belief/self-confidence, my inability to believe that I can ‘achieve’, is not an inherent element of my character but is caused by my ignoring this festering sore. It could be that this seemingly festering sore is blighting my very existence, my present and my future – perhaps it forms the extremely unstable foundations on which I have to build my life and my future.
For the record, I did get my (law) degree but only a 2:2 (Hons) – (disappointing!) and I’ve always felt that I could have done much better at school. Ok, so I went through a divorce during my time at university (I was a ‘mature’ student – started when I was 27 years old) but people go through illness, bereavements and other torments and they manage so no excuses, I got what I got.
After graduation, my depression got worse and in 2001, cutting a long story short, my body ‘gave up’ under the onslaught of more and more meds (prescribed by a psychiatrist who, to this day, I think was, if not negligent, unprofessional/incompetent). I collapsed and went into cardiac arrest but I also think I reached such a low point that I lost the will to live.
The mind/brain is ‘just’ a machine, a brilliant – and little understood, much MISunderstood – machine but a machine, nevertheless, just cold mechanics.
Our soul/essence, what makes us us, that all resides in our ‘hearts’. Our ‘self’, our humanity, our motivation, our drive, the engine of it all is the heart. The heart is louder than the brain – our hearts make us do what we do. When I’m running and it gets tough, my motivation and drive comes from my heart – it’s not mind over matter, it’s heart over matter. I don’t dig deep into my brain or my mind, I dig deep into my heart. I can stifle/muffle my mind but I cannot tell my heart to “put a sock in it”, I cannot – clearly – ignore my heart/the voice in my subconscious as it will simply get louder and louder, as it seems to be doing – via the medium of these recurring dreams – until I have no choice but to obey. I can’t ignore the voice – if I listen to, and act on, it, it can be a launching pad for the rest of my life. If I continue to ignore it, it will be an anchor, keeping me rooted to the spot. I have to deal with this obvious sense of failure and I guess the only way to do it is to fuel the necessary fire in my belly, to motivate myself to ‘achieve’ in such a way that it drowns out, or eradicates, the sense of failure.
I think the message I have to impart to you is this:
We fool ourselves if we think that we can ignore the voices in our hearts, in our subconscious – they will never fall silent! The consequences, the manifestations, of a gagged subconscious, can be severe, life-limiting symptoms, such as depression (my depression is clinical but this sense of failure doesn’t help!)
Time to raise the anchor of regrets….
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