I had a client that came to me recently because she used to have recurrent dreams of drowning in her childhood which had returned with a vengeance a few months ago.
She had always had a huge fear of water and could not stand in the Sea even if the water was barely ankle deep. In the tub she never took a soak as she imagined herself being pulled into the Sea through the drain. She said, ‘I know it sounds crazy, but that is what I automatically think’.
She had started exhibiting this fear more and more after her honeymoon about six months ago.
Her husband who loves the water had suggested the Maldives, even though it was very well known that she had had this fear since childhood. Nobody made much of it now as nothing had happened to alert them recently. Not a dream in the longest time, so everyone assumed including herself that she had overcome it.
During the day they spent time on the beach and while she stayed away from the water for the first two days quite happy to just sit by far away from the waterline, on the third day her husband managed to persuade her to hold his hand and just walk along the shore. What could possibly happen he said. She reluctantly agreed.
Very fearfully she allowed herself to reach the shore and walk the first few steps into the water and feel the sand shift below her toes. They hung around for about two minutes just standing still, she said. Suddenly the husband pulled out his hand from hers and walked back to the shore without turning around, even though she kept calling out to him to hold her hand and walk her safely back.
For a moment her fear of drowning returned full blast and just froze her to the shifting sands and just then a huge wave came up from behind and engulfed her totally. She was sucked under the giant wave and taken back into the Sea. She was hysterical, drowning and angry and her husband a good swimmer pulled her out. They returned from the honeymoon practically in silence and she has been quite repulsed by him ever since.
He apologized later, but something inside her was very unhappy and refused to forgive him for that mean act.
Six months later she was sitting in front of me. She had these dreams almost daily now and wanted to understand why she had such a deep fear of water when no incident had ever happened to make her feel afraid of water until this Maldives incident. Now she was wondering if she would ever get over it that horrific moment in Maldives. She also wanted to know how she had attracted such a person in her life who could just leave her in the Sea and walk out so casually despite knowing that she was terrified of exactly such a thing.
We spoke about the process of Dreams Therapy and I explained to her that dreams are usually the way in which the sub-conscious mind sends us messages. ‘What message is my mind sending me?’ she asked. ‘There’s only one way to find out’, I said as I prepared her for hypnosis.
Twenty minutes later she was in deep trance. I asked her, ‘Where are you?’
‘I am in the Ocean’, she said in a far-away voice.
'Who are you?’ I carried on. The usual answer is ‘man’, ‘woman’ and the description follows. What I got was - ‘I am a boat!’ she laughed out in pure joy in her hypnotized state.
I am used to hearing all kinds of things by now right from ‘Dinosaur’ to ‘Boar’ to ‘Horse’ and many other creatures, besides of course human beings of various description including the ‘first cave man’. When I had countered this woman who had said this with a - ‘Cave man, which year is this?’ The client had said – ‘No, I am the first cave man’, as if that was an honour of some kind to be that and I had instantly known that she would have to be addressed as the ‘first cave man’ for the rest of the session. Perhaps it was an honour to be that; I am not in a position to comment when my clients start talking – this is when they know better and boy are they certain of what exactly they see.
Being a Boat or any inanimate object was a first for me. I laughed with her. I can see Angels now when I am in a session or when I meditate and I saw then that they clapped at our pure joy. This therapist was as much overjoyed as the client I can tell you that.
We continued happily.
What are you doing? - Floating along. It’s a warm sunny day.
How are you feeling? - Relaxed. I love the water flowing around me. It’s cooling. Birds are sitting on me. Oh, I know what they are saying.
Who is in the boat? - A man, a fisherman.
Look closely at him and tell me if you can recognize him? - Oh, he’s my husband!
What happens next? - He’s tired. He falls asleep. (after a short pause and in a sense of urgency and pain). Oh, I am hurt, I am drowning. I hit myself against the rocks. The fisherman is drowning too. He’s swimming to the shore but cannot reach there. He dies. He did not even try to save me. I am so afraid of water. It’s so dark in here. It’s choking me.
She started to gasp and I calmed her and made her complete the session with a forgiveness with the fisherman, now her husband and implanted the suggestion that she need not have fear of drowning anymore as that was an accident, and finally brought her out with some more routine stuff characteristic of such a session.
No sooner was she out of her hypnotic state than she started talking non-stop about how she had never imagined that she could ever have been an inanimate object! And then on her own she said well after all I was made of wood and how silly of me to have not realized earlier, wood comes from trees and trees have life. But I thought they died after they were cut off.
Apparently not, I said.
I guess she is fine as she hasn’t called ever since – and this is typical of a session gone well. They just send you more clients.
I am looking at my fears closely now for they surely have to story to tell. Like the boat that died of drowning and subsequently developed a fear of drowning could I also perhaps have been an inanimate object?
This made me think.
Being an inanimate object = being of service. Isn’t that what all inanimate objects do selflessly?
Methinks I might have been a tray and carrying on in the same theme – ‘I am always at your service’.
Fearlessly yours,
Latika.
(C) 2010 Latika Tripathi
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