Whatever we do lays a seed in our deepest consciousness, and one day that seed will grow. - Sakyong Mipham
Dreams are taken by psychoanalysts as the outcome of the preoccupied mind. If one is an obsessed chess player, he may find the coins stumbling in his dream and himself losing, if he had lost unwittingly a winning game in the recent past. The same is true with all people involved in actions- both mental and physical.
Coleridge was said to have written down the lines he got in a dream – Kubla Khan, which he himself called an opium influenced reverie.
Stress causes dreams. Ambition, expectations, anxiety, fears are all not just reasons for stress alone but also for dreams. I know the person who attended the funeral of his grandfather at the age of three. For years he had dreams of his grandfather laid out covered in a red cloth.
The fevered mind is the cause for such dreams. The stress might not show when one is awake. I had known a woman whose daughter died delivering a child. For years after that until her own death, she used to weep and cry out loudly in sleep, bereaving her daughter’s death. During daytime, when up and moving about, she went about normally.
Stress of any nature may be cause for a dream or nightmare. Love and affection too bring about dreams. The stress encountered while crossing a road may bring about a nightmarish chase by car or even cars.
People usually get nightmares of being chased up a steep by snakes or elephants or other animals and then falling fast down from a precipice. If you have an important appointment or travel the next day, for which you attach a lot of importance, you may dream, most likely a nightmare and while you fall from the precipice, you hear the alarm going or someone calling you or a knock at the door and you wake up to find the alarm clock actually going or your spouse waking you up calling out your name or your friend has come ready to pick you up and knocking at the door.
Shakespeare has immortalized this knocking in his Macbeth.
Though the following was not a dream, it is the reaction of the fevered mind on hearing the knocking at the door.
MACBETH
To know my deed, 'twere best not know myself.
Knocking within
Wake Duncan with thy knocking! I would thou couldst! Act 2 scene II
(This knocking continues into Scene III too.)
People who suffer from stress, mild or severe, are sure to get dreams or nightmares. A likely way to get at the root of the problem may be to psychoanalyze these dreams. For ages people have been aware of this relationship between stress and dreams, but only in the modern times dream analysis is given serious consideration. Some research is also going on in the use of hypnotism in cases where the causes are difficult to trace through normal enquiry.
Homeopathy takes into account the mental symptoms along with what the patient says about his illness and its history. They have the strong belief that even the imple and tolerable headache should have some connection with the mind and its reactions to events and environments. The main benefit is that they don’t saturate the system with drugs which may have very serious effects on the system and those effects may remain permanent or last for years. But one thing is sure. The present day medicines make one weak. So my own preference is to homeo remedies. Even if we use the wrong remedy and don't get the desired results immediately, the remedies do not harm us and destroy our basic health.
Freud has written
“…every dream will reveal itself as a psychological structure, full of significance, and one which may be assigned to a specific place in the psychic activities of the waking state. Further, I shall endeavour to elucidate the processes which underlie the strangeness and obscurity of dreams, and to deduce from these processes the nature of the psychic forces whose conflict or co-operation is responsible for our dreams.”
To complete let me quote Camus:
Life is the sum of all your choices. - Albert Camus
I came across a video of the famous soliloquy ‘To be, or not to be” in YouTube archives. I embed the same for you to view.
Hamlet_ to be or not to be
Video thanks to Youtube
Quotes from quotegarden.com
Read Macbeth Act 2 Scene II
Image: ImageShack
A man's health can be judged by which he takes two at a time - pills or stairs. - Joan Welsh
Who comes to your mind when you hear the word 'Obama'- Obama the Deliverer or Obama the Destroyer?
You can evaluate your own stress by that.
I recently came across an article which wanted people to consider three steps in dealing with stress - first the symptoms and then tracing and analyzing the cause and the last coping up with stress and steps to get relieved. As for methods to cope up, many are suggested from going out into the open air to practicing yoga. In the outset this seems to be logical.
But it is strange that a person has to analyze the cause. The symptoms appear only because the person has become aware of a situation that brings about the symptoms. So for any normal individual the cause is well known and it creates the symptoms.
Unless a third party has to give a helping hand to people who have become mentally ill due to some strong impact of stress, these first two are not necessary. Even there the relatives can very well inform about the immediate cause and the psychiatrist can proceed from there. I have seen a film in which the sound of the approaching train brought about stress and extreme discomfort in which the individual cried out. There are people who go into fits on seeing flames rising high or even hearing a whistle.
The article did not deal with such extreme cases but only day-to-day stress factors and relief. I feel he has misunderstood stress and allergy. For the latter, the steps mentioned can be beneficially adopted and there will be sure relief.
Day-to-day stress
Habits and environment keep one fit to face the day-to-day stress. The happy family is a sure answer. Going to bed early and getting up early, followed by ease at normal daily chores without any hitch and simple stretch exercises for a few minutes, should keep one hale and healthy, both physically and mentally, and also fit for the day whatever be the problems one may have to face during the work-hours. A good breakfast will certainly help.
The Monday blues will become a thing of the past. Thereafter you will look forward to go to work fresh every Monday after the refreshing week-end.
Stress is basically a mental factor and this may cause from simple discomfort, headache, and anger to serious effects like depression. So instead of living a haphazard life where even simple things create noticeable stress, it is better to regulate one’s habits first to suit one’s family and work and accommodate physical exercise into one’s daily routine. Beer and wine may find place in joy as well as sorrow but fruits and vegetables are never thought of as things that thwart stress. The latter, fruits and vegetables, one should regularly take to energize one’s body and be fit to face stress.
The mind is not unrelated to the body and body is not also unrelated to the mind. Homeopaths have certainly understood this. Both co-exist and like eyes when affected both are affected. There is a saying I have heard that the guests and medicines remain guests and medicines only the first three days. There after they become family members and food. So taking prolonged medicine can not be the answer for relief from stress. It is like taking daily a purgative in the night to ease motion in the morning. If something has to be called medicine it should relieve. The relief should also be lasting and come within three days.
For relief from stress apart from what has been suggested on environment and habits, one may adopt the oft repeated ‘taking deep breath’ or counting up to ten – backwards should be a better course.
Try to spend sometime with your parents and children. If it is not possible to live together, make it a point to meet them at regular intervals. The feeling that there is some one who thinks about you with love and affection is better than any chemical. Try to have family get together as often as possible, exchange gifts and gather also friends around you - real friends. Laughter is the best medicine. To have a free hearty laugh at some trivia is a great reliever of stress than any medicine. See that you don’t laugh at others' suffering. Use drinks to the minimum and only when you feel happy and good.
The day-to-day stress is something everyone feels and there is nothing strange you also feel stress.
Picures :Image shack.
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