My child almost died and I'm having nightmares

[lamommy78]

I am crying as I type this. I think a may have been a little traumatized by watching my beloved four year old daughter slipping away from us and withering away to a skeletal figure and just a shadow of my once vibrant and healthy child. She became septic from a highly drug resistant pneumonia and ended up with a collapsed lung that got infected and required surgery.

She is now recovering and returning to normal, but I feel changed. I have nightmares pretty much nightly. One particular dream involved thousands of red-throated hummingbirds being sucked into the sky by a wind and then raining down dead on the ground all around me. I would pick them up as rain started falling and they started floating away in the water on the ground. I associate hummingbirds with my daughter as we spent the whole summer feeding seven of them that enjoyed our homemade feeder in the kitchen window.

I dream of apocalypse and death frequently. I am going to do some serious energy work tonight. I haven't done any spiritual work in months.

I don't know why I'm posting this. I just wish the bad dreams would stop. I am grateful that I still have my daughter and so happy she is getting better, but I am just not feeling the holiday spirit at all this year:(

[ButterflyWoman]

I think that your daughter's brush with death has stirred up your own unresolved fear of death and of loss. The nightmares are from your subconscious, partly trying to deal with the issues, and partly trying to get the conscious self to acknowledge and also deal with them. You also probably have a bit of post-traumatic stress going on.

Counselling might very well help. Coming to terms with our own and others' mortality is a pretty intense process.

I'm glad to hear your little girl is on the mend. I hope you're well, too, soon.

[lamommy78]

Thanks. My husband mentioned counseling last night, too. I was already in therapy for newly diagnosed depression but that fell to the wayside when my baby got sick and now that my insurance is changing in January I will have to start all over with someone new. My biggest fear has been and always will be something bad happening to my daughter. She's my only child so perhaps I am a little overprotective.:)

[CFTraveler]

There is no such thing as being overprotective. Many hugs to you and your family, from someone who's been there and done that.

[Korpo]

Hello, lamommy78.

The dreams may not be welcome while they are happening, but they are part of your inner healing process. You experienced trauma while seeing your child suffer. Now your dreams are helping release that trauma - fears and suffering as stored within your self. While this may seem uncomfortable, it will also help release those experiences so that they don't burden you anymore.

Counselling can also be helpful. Just don't see nightmares only as unwelcome events. See them as valid energetic experiences that release unwanted energies, and they might seem less distressing overall. Often in counselling you talk about events in order to process them. You also go looking for causes or other traumas related in order to release the trauma at the source. Similar events happen energetically inside you - in dream, meditation and any other outlet available to you.

Take care and may God bless you.

[IA56]

I want to send Peace & Love to you and your family, may you be back into your trust that ALL IS WELL.. Love ia

[dreaming90]

Under such circumstances, nightmares are perfectly normal. There's no such thing as "overprotective" when it comes to our children.

[roman67]

Don’t worry. Everything will be alright. God bless her.

[Frater.Akenu]

May God bless you and your whole family :)

[SoulSail]

Hi lamommy,

I hope your daughter is well. I hope the dreams have relaxed a bit for you. As odd as it may seem, when my dreams sour and seem to dredge up more "ick" or doom or alien/fear emotions, I find eventual comfort in embracing them, welcoming them at their worst. For me, losing resistance and letting the strange tide wash over puts me back toward center, somewhere on the shore.

More than anything, I'm holding you and your family in my meditations.


Best,

Soul

[Dreamweaver]

I believe emotions are like energy "messengers"... they richly inform us of what really, really matters most. What you have experienced is a parent's waking nightmare - a deeply vulnerable, helpless and fearful thing.Your dreaming mind's metaphor captured so poignantly those emotions. Sometimes though fear can get out of control, overwhelming and intrusive. How you make meaning of your experience, your emotional messages, and your dreams can prevent fear and vulnerability from getting too big to handle. Your dream consciousness can be used to transmute and requalify your experience too.

Ask yourself - what have you learned about love from this experience? What have you learned about how strong and resilient your daughter is - and that you are? What have you come to be grateful for having lived this? What can you give to your self, your child, your family and others who are afraid knowing what you know now? Focus on these things actively and mindfully and you will have turned fear inside out. Meditate on turning fear and see what you dream.