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ABSTRACT

 Precognitive Dreams in Pregnancy: A Case Study.

 Karen Hagerman Muller, Ph.D. Karen Muller is a psychologist in private practice in Hayward, California.

e-mail: khmuller@earthlink.net

4. This dream series traces the author¹s dreams from several months before conception through delivery. The dreams predict the timing of the pregnancy, record its health, and predict the timing and nature of the delivery. Applications to dream interpretation in pregnancy and in general are noted.

5. Learning Objectives. A) 1) Attendees will be able to state the features that distinguish dreams during pregnancy. 2) Attendees will be able to state possible reasons for increased precognitive dreams during pregnancy. 3) Attendees will be able to distinguish dreams indicating theses such as ovulation and pregnancy. B) 1) Why might dreams be more vivid and recall better during pregnancy? 2) Why might dreams be more likely to contain precognitive material during pregnancy? 3) How can precognitive dreams be distinguished?

8. Abstract: The author posits that pregnancy is a verdant time to observe dreaming, especially precognitive dreams and dreams reflecting biological processes otherwise difficult to observe, such as ovulation, conception and imminent delivery. She follows a dream series from preconception dreams illustrating ovulation without fertilization, through conception which is predicted a week before it occurs, to dreams during pregnancy reflecting a healthy pregnancy. The last two dreams in the series describe the delivery and its timing. Both spiritual and biological reasons for precognitive dreams are discussed.

Dreams Of Fertility, Dreams of Infertility
Karen Hagerman Muller, Ph.D.

I have noticed several functions of dreams in pregnancy, both before and during my two pregnancies. An examination of the dreams of the first pregnancy may serve to illuminate some of the unique functions of dreams in pregnancy, which seems to be a special case in the dream life. Dreams seem to be especially frequent and vivid during many pregnancies, including my own. There is a high frequency of dreams with unusual information, which may be recognitive or telepathic (between fetus and mother), or it may simply be due to the fact that the dreams reflect the body¹s state before it comes into consciousness or can be measured in laboratory tests. In the following, I will map via my own dreams the period before pregnancy, as psyche and body prepare, and then during pregnancy, as the dreams reflect the changes of the pregnancy as the baby grows, finally announcing both the timing and the nature of the delivery.

About six months before I became pregnant with Amy, my first child, I began to watch my dreams for help with the process. I was anxious about becoming pregnant, since we had already been trying for more than three years. The anxiety was becoming overwhelming, and I hoped that watching my dreams might help me manage it. I hoped that my dreams would be able to tell me whether the time was upon us; whether, indeed, I ever would be able to get pregnant. They did, in fact, provide both big picture and detailed guidance.

At the time, I remembered a book whose appendix contained a log of dreams during ovulation, meant to be an aid to family planning. The book, Hygeia, a Woman¹s Herbal, notes that women's¹ dreams change with our menstrual cycles. The author lists several of her own dreams of ovulation, noting the imagery that accompanies ovulation, imagery such as eggs falling out of a refrigerator. Armed with this information, I began to watch my dreams. I also refer the reader to a more recent book containing ample imagery from women's dream in relation to the menstrual cycle, Patricia Garfield¹s book Women's Bodies, Women¹s Dreams.

Here is one of the first dreams relating to the menstrual cycle:

I have an oval, blood red brooch. The stone has fallen out of the setting. Unfortunately, it is not repairable and I have to throw it away. I¹m sad about it because I loved the brooch.

This brief dream conveys beautifully much of what was going on at the time. The depiction of the egg as an oval (egg shaped) red (blood colored) jewel shows its value and underlines its femininity I took this vivid, emotionally intense image to mean that this was not the month, but I was hopeful that I was indeed ovulating. Another ³not yet² dream:

I have loaned my radio to my hairdresser, Hope, who has played it using the batteries rather than plugging it into the wall. The batteries have run down.

There is no reference to an egg in this dream, but a radio (embryo?) has not been plugged into the wall (implanted?), so its batteries run down and die. It is also possible that the radio is an egg which dies because it is not fertilized. Radios, since they ³talk² and ³sing² seem to be alive. The name ³Hope² speaks for itself. We were hopeful, but not yet ³plugged in² to the life force.

One week before the conception occurred, I had the following dream:

Barry, my friend Jan¹s boyfriend and I were carrying out an important and solemn ritual. We swam to a small island where we drank champagne with our arms entwined, then swam back to the island.

This dream seemed very hopeful to me, although Barry¹s presence seemed odd. The drinking of champagne is traditionally done at marriages, New Years, the launching of ships--all new beginnings, as is the conception of a new life. Barry was someone I hardly knew, but a friend suggested that his name might be a play on words referring to the embryo that would be ³buried² inside me. The act of swimming out to an island reminded me of the sperm swimming out to meet the ovum. At the time, I found the dream generally positive and encouraging, although not so transparent as it seems retrospectively. The fact that swimming to the island and drinking champagne is a solemn ritual in the dream is also suggestive of conception because the creation of new life is a miracle, which is treated appropriately, as a sacrament.

This is one of the dreams of unusual knowledge. It might be considered precognitive, or perhaps it merely reflects the body¹s readiness for pregnancy.

One week after conception I incubated a dream on the question of whether I was pregnant.:

A man comes to see me in my psychotherapy office to ask about his dog. My office looks very different that it really does. It has a Hawaiian theme: rattan furnishings, blues and greens, and big picture windows overlooking San Francisco Bay, reminiscent of a restaurant at the Berkeley Marina. Out of one window I see a flock of birds in a Eucalyptus tree. I tell the man that these flocks of exotic birds-one can see green parrots and yellow canaries- are made up of birds that escape from captivity. He cannot see them. I tell him that they survive well in our climate because it never gets very cold. The problem with the dog is that she has a minor irritation which has been licked until it is a wound which will not heal. I tell him how to treat it, with a combination of plenty of exercise and attention to keep the dog busy, a bitter application so that it tastes bad. It is basically a problem of anxiety.

This dream was accompanied feeling of certainty that I was pregnant. In fact, I was disappointed and hurt that my husband did not regard it with the same certainty that I did! I have noticed that this feeling of certainty about the answer to an incubated question sometimes occurs without necessarily understanding the symbolism of the dream. I felt that the birds were an indication of creativity, whether literal (conception) or spiritual (creative ideas). I had a patient whose artistic inspirations were often represented in her dreams as birds, and I had noticed in other patients and in my own dreams that the unconscious would treat a literal pregnancy in a similar manner to a spiritual one (artistic creativity as opposed to biological creativity).

Considering this dream retrospectively, it does not seem to me to have the same clear message of pregnancy that the previous one did, although one cannot ignore a dreamer¹s feeling of certainty, and I did feel quite certain at the time that the birds represented not creative ideas, as I would be inclined to think now, but a pregnancy. This pregnancy was clear to the dream ego, but not to the patient in my office. I took the man to be a logical, concrete animus figure who could not see what I sensed, that the long-awaited pregnancy was indeed present. The two figures were a good representation of my mixed feelings: a logical self who said it was too soon to say, and an intuitive side that had felt pregnant since the other dream which had occurred before the actual conception. Naturally, in situations like this in which the feelings run strong, it is impossible to distinguish intuition from hopes and fears.

The fact that the birds are exotic species escaped from captivity is interesting. Perhaps it is the view of the embryo as a foreign being in the body. It is prognostically positive that the climate is appropriate for the exotic birds. The dog¹s problem of anxiety I took to suggest that my own fertility problem was one of anxiety.

During the pregnancy I had several dreams of traveling through lush, primeval forests and grasslands, sometimes walking, sometimes swimming. There were traveler¹s lodges along the way, where one could make oneself at home. I remember two of the lodges, both rustic, simple log cabins, one with no roof, so that one could watch the stars while sleeping. The sense of peace and harmony with nature were pervasive.

I thought of the setting in those dreams as the ³Pregnant Country², a representation of the mother archetype which is dominant during pregnancy. Mother Nature seemed to remind me that my purpose was to be an incubator, a carrier and nurturer of new life. Accompanying the feeling of being an incubator is a feeling of being special. This feeling is experienced by many pregnant women, especially with first pregnancies, expressed well by Lilith, the character in the TV series ³Cheers², when she enters a room full of people, saying, ³You may touch me. I am with child² This is an identification with the Mother Archetype. It is the grandiose sense that ones pregnancy is special, unique, even divine, as if no one else has ever had a child.

The following dream occurred near the end of the first pregnancy:

I am with my friend Hank, walking over some big rocks to get to a lake, where we plan to go on a long swim. Going over the rocks is difficult in my ungainly state, so we go slowly and Hank helps me. Once I¹m in the water, I feel comfortable, relieved, and I move much more easily. I feel ready for my long swim.

Hank in the dream is an old friend I used to do a lot of hiking and backpacking with. Hank was also the name of my obstetrician. This fact gave me the idea that the dream might be describing my labor. It was an apt description, rocky during the long prodromal labor period but surprisingly smooth once the pushing phase started, hard work, but doable, like a long swim. Both Hanks were sources of support. This was another dream of unusual knowledge in its description of the labor. Here, again, it might be that the body knows what the labor will be like.

The following dream occurred two days before I went in to labor:

I get a phone call from the Port Authority of the Port of Oakland regarding a container ship that I have in the port. It is overloaded and so weighed down that it is barely afloat. They tell me that I need to unload it immediately and put the ship in dry dock for repairs.

This dream was very helpful because it allowed me to prepare by eating well and resting, knowing that the labor and delivery were imminent. The image of the overloaded container ship was apt and funny. It was one of those dreams that speaks for itself.

This brings me to the issue of how it is that pre-conception and pregnancy are so full of precognitive dreams. I am inclined to think that there are two reasons, at least. One is that dreams, at least some dreams, tap into Absolute Knowledge, as Marie-Louise von Franz calls it, referring to Jung¹s idea that dreams come from the Self and, as such, are connected to sources of wisdom beyond the physical. Another more mundane possibility is more biological. There are profound biochemical changes that occur in the body during conception, so a dream like the exotic bird dream, which occurred about a week after conception, might simply be a reflection of body knowledge. Changes in t he body are often represented in dreams before symptoms appear, or when diagnosis is not yet possible because symptoms are sub-clinical. Body knowledge might also be the source of the container ship dream. It is also possible that a brand of dream telepathy is present in dreams during pregnancy, especially in dreams like the container ship dream and the dream of swimming with Hank, because labor is triggered by the fetus, not the mother, at least on a biochemical level.

Perhaps because of hormonal changes, and certainly because of the introspection brought about by pregnancy, vividness and frequency of recall are high during pregnancy, making it a good time to study dreams. From the champagne toast to the dry dock for repairs, this series for dreams from pre-conception to delivery exemplifies pregnancy dreams: intense, vibrant, and full of information about the progress of the pregnancy and upcoming delivery.