While You Were Sleeping.
NATIONAL JOURNAL OF HOMOEOPATHY 1995 May / Jun Vol IV No 3.
Chetna Shukla.
You were dreaming! According to the dictionary - Sleep is a condition of the body and mind such as recurs regularly every night in which the eyes are closed and the muscles, nervous system, et are relaxed. Here the words BODY, MIND and RELAX are very important. Relax means - cause or allow to become less tight, less stiff, less strict or less rigid. The terms tight, stiff, strict and rigid are not alien to us as Homoeopaths. These words represent to us what we term as FIXITY, RIGIDITY - DELUSION and hence DISEASE.
Thus, sleep, a phenomenon, is a conscious effort, by the indwelling VITAL FORCE which animates the organism, in and through the subconscious, to maintain a harmonious functioning; to maintain a stable equilibrium; to maintain fluidity; to maintain health as it is termed.
A dream in dictionary terms is something which one seems to see or experience during sleep. In other words, it is a PICTORIAL representation or a PHOTOGRAPHIC representation of, or a MOTION PICTURE of some-thing.
- something - this something as we know is nothing but the state of mind of the organism. In the realm of the subconscious - in dreams, the organism has no volition. The organism cannot exert, influence or exercise its WILL upon the subconscious. In other words, the vital force has an autonomy - autonomous control in the realm of the subconscious - especially the dreams. The organism can only think what he WANTS to think but cannot dream what he wants to. He cannot decide on what he wants to dream or what he does not want to dream on any night. He has to accept whatever the vital force has to offer to him in the form of dreams, all lying down!
In the realm of THOUGHTS, he is allowed to have his autonomy. So, he thinks, he conceives and he perceives the way he wants to and invites a derangement. The same night, the vital force makes him dream of what he has thought and he is made aware of its unreasonability. This is verified by is in our practice when we interpret the dreams of an individual as a delusion to arrive at the remedy and witness a cure. Each time the organism in the conscious imposes something upon himself, the vital force immediately, the same night tries to make him aware of the unreasonability in some way or the other. The more he imposes a particular belief or reason upon himself, the more vigorous are the attempts made by the vital force to maintain health through awareness brought through dreams.
These, vigorous attempts are seen in our practice as statements made by our patients, such as:
- "Whenever I fall sick, I have high fever or any acute illness, I always have this
particular dream".
One of my patients of Solanum-t-ae had a particular dream whenever she came down with attacks of cold. During that period, she would see in her dream blood trickling down from the ceiling and collecting on the floor, and she could never understand the significance.
Another patient Lac-can would always dream of climbing a cliff with great difficulty to reach a temple, only to find it in ruins.
Yet another patient of Spider would always dream of dodging a lion before an attack of asthma.
- "In the last few years, since my illness, I have noticed that I have always been
dreaming of a particular dream, in the same situation, sequence and character.
One patient whom I have given Rabbits milk with an associated terrible fear in the dream. Another patient of Mag-sulph with hypothyroid would dream of drowning herself.
Such experiences are not uncommon either to our patients or us as physicians.
These dreams are definitely proof, sufficient evidence to prove to us that dreams are an effort made by the vital force to maintain health. In other words, dreams are the small doses of the similimum which we receive every night. We laugh at them realizing their significance and remain healthy.
When there is a vigorous attempts on the part of vital force fail to maintain a harmonious functioning, the organism needs a similimum to bring back the harmony in the form of a similar remedy.
Thus in health as well as in disease, the vital force, in the realm of dreams is always working towards maintaining harmony.
So, while you-I-we were sleeping, the indwelling vital force was busy trying to effect a cure as it is termed.
