Baby Having Seizure
I had a nightmare last night that started with my mom and I taking care of the baby of a middle-class African American lesbian couple for a day. The baby had a cold, and my mom gave the baby medicine. We thought of taking the baby outside to an amusement park but then realized we didn't have to and that it might be safer and more comfortable to stay inside. When the couple arrived home, the baby began to look sickly and to have a seizure. When the couple found out that my mom had given the baby medicine, they were very upset and felt that it had caused the seizure. My mom was peacefully defensive, explaining that the instructions did say that the medicine was alright to give to babies. The couple took me aside and told me that my mom was crazy to do that and that she always does crazy things. I felt confused because a part of me felt that my mom was right about the instructions but then another part of me wondered if the couple were right that my mom had made a bad decision. It felt strange and a little scary that I didn't question my mom's decision to give the baby the medicine when it was just her and me alone together with the baby. I had taken her word as gospel. I was watching the baby have the seizure but somehow I knew that the baby would be alright. I felt that in a way the couple were more upset with us than they needed to be. Then the baby was a a little older (within seconds), and the couple started talking to the baby about what happened. They were questioning her about what my mom did to her. I wanted to listen and even be able to jump in and manipulate the situation so that the baby/infant could not tell her story, fearing that it would implicate my mom and maybe me by association of having done something very wrong to her. Instead, though, I went in to the kitchen to wash dishes. I thought about trying to control the infant girl telling what happened to her but then I let it go and just washed dishes. While I washed dishes I felt almost like a zombie, like a strange calm. I looked down from outside myself and wondered why I was letting the girl speak. I woke up feeling anxious, angry, fearful, guilty and confused.
5 Comments:
Hmm... not really sure what this is about. I know that it is a pattern of mine that I have dreams of trying to silence a little girl. There's always much anxiety on my part and sometimes my mom aids me in silencing the girl. I always feel scared and guilty. My mom always looks vacant in the dreams. Often the girl ages in the dreams and I worry that the older she gets the more likely she is to tell her story. My mom and I try to hide her and yet I feel responsible for her and try to take care of her while at the same time wanting to make her just disappear because I'm scared. They are always intense dreams with a similar storyline.
I don't know much about dream interpretation in any school, but what comes to my mind reading the dream and your comment is that the little girl is your pure unfiltered self/emotions/responses/truth. Maybe she's the unsocialized raw you? Part of what mothers, at least broadly speaking, do is train their daughters in womanhood. It could be in a way broader context, too; not you and your mother, but girls, women, girlhood/womanhood in the context of society and/or the world.
Here I go, babbling a novella in your beautiful post! Huge hugs and lots of love from the Babbling BVFFFFF#1FCSS.
From the dream dictionary, because God forbid I should have an original thought:
Babies symbolize something in your own inner nature that is pure, vulnerable, helpless and/or uncorrupted.
To dream that you are washing dishes, suggests that you are moving on and planning for the next thing that comes your way. To see or dream that you are a zombie, suggests that you are physically and/or emotionally detached from people and situations that are currently surrounding you. You are feeling out of touch. Alternatively, it may indicate that you are feeling dead inside and are simply going through the motions of daily living
To dream that you are babysitting, suggests that you need to care for the child within yourself.
To dream that you a seizure, suggests that you need to have more control in your life.
I will add that you might be both you and your mother in this dream. The criticism coming from the baby's parents reflects some stuff you've been going through recently and the calm reaction of your mother and your decision to leave and wash dishes might mean that you are trying to move past it, but the doubt about your mother means that you are still doubting yourself thinking maybe the criticism is valid. But it's good that after the doubting part, you leave and wash dishes. It means you are starting to move on.
And B, if you are reading this, it doesn't mean she blames you for anything or that it's even about you.
My therapist believes everyone in my dreams is a representation of a part of me. She has me imagine I am that person in the dream and say how I am feeling as that person. If you are your mom in the dream, how are you feeling? If you are the little infant girl, how are you feeling? If you are either of the women in the couple, how are you feeling? These questions often lead to fascinating self-reflection for me.
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