"I will now turn the microphone over
to Dr. Joshua Gates."
Thank you for that introduction. I
have come here today to talk to you about a very interesting case I had
last year. We will call my patient Mrs. X to protect her identity and
doctor-patient confidentiality. At the time of treatment, Mrs. X was a
32-year-old woman, of Caucasian descent, and an upper-middle-class
economic standing. Mrs. X has no medical conditions, and no history of
mental illness.
Mrs. X came to me complaining of a
recurring nightmare that had her so upset that she felt great anxiety
about falling
asleep. When I asked her to tell me about the dream, she could only
give
sketchy details, as most of her memory of the dream would fade as she
awoke. I decided to give Mrs. X a recorder and I asked her to describe
the dream the moment she awoke, preferably without even opening
her eyes. I will now read you the transcription of one of her more
vivid recordings.
**************************************************
I am
exhausted, but waking up. Every limb in my body feels like lead, but I
also recognize the feeling of hunger and thirst. As I open my eyes, I
realize I am lying on a beach and the calming white noise I hear is the
ocean lapping at my feet. I don't remember how I got here. Just
as I will my aching muscles to let me sit up, I realize I
can't. I have been tied down! My effort to raise myself has resulted in
nothing but pulling my hair, thus triggering a headache. I close my
eyes
trying to sort it all out. And then I hear them.
Voices, lots of
tiny voices layered on top of one another. Some of the voices are
shouting and others whispering as if in gossip. I can't understand any
of them. I decide to keep my eyes closed and attempt to return to
sleep, when
something pokes my hand. Instinctively my eyes snap open and now I can
see them. Tiny people are everywhere. Some crawl up my body and it
feels like crawling insects are swarming over me. I want to bat them
away but I can't. As I struggle against the restraints that hold me
down, they begin to
shoot arrows at me. It feels like being bitten by hundreds of ants. I
stop struggling and they stop attacking. I begin to cry and they look
at me confused.
They talk amongst
themselves, but I cannot understand them. Even in gibberish I can hear
a voice talking in an authoritative tone, yelling something to the
others, and I begin to move. I now realize that I have been tied to a
big platform that must have many wheels underneath, for I am rolling
ever so slowly away from the ocean. Eventually I find myself surrounded
by little houses and buildings and I realize I have been taken to their
town. I wonder where our end destination is.
I soon find myself
imprisoned. The ceiling is so low that i cannot stand up and
I must crawl through the doorway to get in and out. I am chained to
an anchor on the side of this building with only enough line to go
slightly out
of the entrance. I begin to cry again. I am miserable. I am being
held prisoner by tiny people with whom I can't communicate. The
building is so small it feel like it is closing in around me, I have no
privacy, no one to talk to.......
******************************************************
"This is where Mrs. X's dream stopped.
I asked her why it stopped here and she said her two-year-old daughter
came in and started grabbing at her recorder. That is all it took to
make
her forget the rest of her dream. While I was
personally fascinated by her dream, and wished to hear more, I
didn't need more than this in order to make a diagnosis. Mrs. X had
given me all
the information I needed.
Mrs. X was suffering from severe
postpartum depression. She felt tied down to her home and imprisoned by
her children. She could not understand the people in her dreams,
because
in real life she often could not understand the demands and baby
talk of her two-year-old child or six-month-old infant. She felt alone
because
she had recently moved away from her family and friends and her husband
travels most of the week for business. On top of that, Mrs. X felt like
she had lost all control over the direction of her own life.
My solution was for her to join a
"Mommy and Me" group and interact with other moms in the area. Then I
told her to ask one of the moms she trusted about a good babysitter,
and to hire one to give herself regular time off. She began
taking a few
internet and evening courses, made
new friends, and taught her daughters sign language so she could better
address their needs. In less than two months, the nightmares had
stopped
completely and Mrs. X was feeling better than ever.
*************************************************************************************************************************************************
Author's note: I have changed the
original story drastically. I added a psychological convention as
a frame tale around the story telling. This part of my storybook
is a retelling of Gulliver's time in Lilliput. In Gulliver's Travels,
Gulliver
is washed ashore in Lilliput after being shipwrecked. He falls asleep
from exhaustion and awakes to find himself tied down by the inhabitants
of Lilliput, who are roughly six inches tall and speak in a language
that Gulliver had
never heard of before. From here I kept the story very similar except
that Gulliver focused on being inquisitive about his surroundings
instead
of panicked or distraught. In Swift's story Gulliver is also taken to
town and
chained to a building, just as in my version. I ended my retelling
here, but the story continues in the original. In Swift's story
Gulliver
learns the
local language and the people of Lilliput eventually release him from
his prison to live among the natives. All
goes well until Gulliver is asked to act against his beliefs in the war
between Lilliput and Blefuscu. When Gulliver refuses, he is found
guilty
of treason and sentenced to be blinded. Gulliver makes his escape on a
small boat and is picked up by a larger ship at sea and safely returned
to England. I ended my retelling before this and put Mrs. X out of her
dreamland and back into the frame tale.
