Loneliness

velouria wrote:Anyway, in the dream I go into the hotel and am confronted by the strange lady who is now accusing me of doing something horrible to her, too horrible to mention. My friend comes up behind her and insists she tell me what I did so that I may answer to my actions.

The woman then announces that in the middle of the night I sneaked into her room and "planted a bug in her skull." Now they're both screaming at me and all I can do is walk away, knowing that this woman is crazy and that my friend is deluded for the sake of delusion.

Hey V

Have you read Karen Horney's book about Self-Analysis? She says a lot about analysing your dreams - and although a lot of images and people that appear in dreams seem disparate, she says that each dream has an over-all 'theme' and that it is the theme you are looking for, rather than considering the detail - if that makes sense?

In your case the theme seems to be about 'thought-control':- your friend tries to control or judge your thoughts and actions through the listing and the image of the bug-implant thing would have the same effect. With that in mind perhaps the dream is saying that you are over-policing your own thoughts. It is interesting that you are lying by a pool - something that I would associate with relaxation and with 'letting your mind go' - yet the two striking images are of mind or thought control aren't they?

Maybe the dream is telling you NOT to control your thoughts or over-think (if that is perhaps what you have been doing lately)? Could that make sense?

I also read about Emotional Thought Management (another kind of mind-control tool - yes?) here - there are some good suggestions for 'amending' memories that you could use?

http://counsellingresource.com/quizzes/ ... index.html

Dear Normal,

That was not me that had the dream about the pool and the woman, etc. It was Velouria. Was this book about dreams? I have trouble focusing on reading books, I buy lots of them with good intentions. I can read articles in a magazine or on the internet. I guess I should just try reading a little at a time and not feel like I have to read the whole book at once.

Thanks for the input,

KK

Hello there KK

The book is about analysing yourself (rather than going to a therapist I suppose) and there's some focus on trying to analyse your own dreams if you can? I thought it was interesting but I wonder if sometimes we miss the point if we analyse them ourselves?

She also advocates 'free association' when you just write down everything that comes into your head and read it back later to see if you can make head or tail of it!

I like her mostly though because although she was a fearsome psychologist 'in her spare time she read detective stories, threw parties, doted on her daughters, and flirted with younger men'.

KK wrote:

Raz wrote:I'm feeling sad and lonely too. I'ts crazy cause a while back I started making a huge effort to chat to strangers and go to new things and meet people (I even read those "pick up art" books, but i just wanted a bigger social life). And it worked, my positive attitude got me loads of adventures and fun times. And chats with strangers who became friends.

Thanks for the advice, so what kind of groups did you find? The groups available in my town are ones like AA, Alanon, various disease support groups, churches and that is out for me right now. Or a singles "dance". Perish that thought! Yes, maybe I am discounting things before I try them, actually no, I have tried all but the singles dance. Yikes!

Bars are the only places I have found a few people to talk to, but men nor women call you and try to be friends when I have reached out to them. I am female, btw and probably these are not people I need to hang with for real. Although the thought of just staying drunk all the time kind of appeals to me ( I hear someone's blood pressure going up) because reality sucks for me right now. Truly, I really do not like feeling drugged but when I am awake and clear headed, all the reality makes me want to cry and run away.

Not very good choices. As the movie title says, Reality Bites!

KK

I went to Quakers ( in case you don't know a kind of mystical Christian church with meditation and political activism), I got a new job which caused me to meet lots of new friends, I tracked down my old college friends to get back in their social scene, and I found some people of my own age, location and interests on myspace. I've also met up with people in real life from a UK only mental health forum i post on.