Ran Dumb
in Crystal Cave (a large underground geode) on South Bass Island, Ohio - 6/23/2010 - photo by Dianne Borsenik
I had nightmares last night. One involved a rupture. In another, Robbie and Brian were living with us, watching the grandkids. I walked in with one or both of the girls to see Brian watching TV, Robbie doing something like cleaning off the dining room table, and Marky, the grandson with cerebral palsy, sitting at the table with a spray bottle of some sort of household cleanser (I wanna say Lysol with bleach) at or in his mouth, while everyone else was oblivious. I panicked — had he ingested the poison? — how did he get the bottle anyway with two adults "watching" him? — and how could he put it in his mouth right in front of them without anyone noticing? Robbie tried to say it was no big deal, suggesting that the worst that could happen was an allergic reaction involving some hives or something. "I have allergic reactions all the time," he said. I pointed out that drinking bleach or other poison is far more serious than developing a fucking rash, "just ask Geri and my mom, both of whom are nurses, if you're not smart enough to figure it out yourself," whereupon he started throwing things (I think they were cupcakes) at me. "Or ask your own mom," I said, whereupon he charged at me, apparently taking this as a criticism of his mom, who works at Wal-Mart, while Brian continued watching his movie or playing his X-Box and Marky just sat there looking bemused and healthy like maybe he'd drunk none of it after all, seemingly forgotten by all but me. Geri must've been at work. I awoke before I could get him to the hospital, and before Robbie's first punch made contact with my face. There were other nightmares, too.
Yesterday I uploaded pics from the last Lix and Kix (and more) on my Facebook page.
Does society really need to medicate its children as much as it does? I don't really agree with diagnoses like ADHD. I remember back in the day when there was a thing called manic depression. I almost became convinced I had it, and then the experts decided there was really no such thing or it was a misnomer, and now there was something called bipolar. What'll it be 10 years from now? What'll ADHD be? I spurn such labels. Why does different or supernormal or even subnormal have to be called an illness? Why does abnormal have to have a bad connotation? I think being different from the lowest common denominator of humanity can be good. If we were all LCD we'd still be in the stone age or dark ages or replaying some never-existed-anyway Leave It to Beaver episode.
And look at this tombstone I found on Kelley's Island the other day. What the Fuck?
found in cemetery on Kelley's Island, Ohio - 6/23/2010 - photo by John Burroughs
Posted by Jesus Crisis at 6/25/2010 7:11 AM 
Categories: Dreams and Supernatural, Travel and Places
Tags: Nightmares South Bass Island Kelley's Island Dick ADHD
Categories: Dreams and Supernatural, Travel and Places
Tags: Nightmares South Bass Island Kelley's Island Dick ADHD
"DICK" and "Suffer little children to come unto me" is surreally disturbing.
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If this had been the grave marker of someone named Dick who'd died during infancy, I could almost see it -- but the dead Dick in this case was a 78-year-old WWII veteran. Was the person who chose the inscription totally clueless? Hard to believe....
I nearly wrecked the golf cart when I saw it.
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I wonder, if your surname is Dick, at some point do you have to cut yourself off from (castrate?) the slang meaning of your name? Just blank it out so that you don't go nuts (and become Andy Dick).
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Ha! Good point, Shel.... I don't think the name Dick needs to be a laughing matter. When I was a child, some classmates were fond of making toilet jokes about my first name. At some point, you have to move on. But why in hell, of all the Bible verses you could choose to accompany a rather large DICK last name, would anyone pick "Suffer little children to come unto me"?
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And why do I think of the former Vice President of the United States when I see this?
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There's a lot here, especially as regards children and your concerns for and about them as innocents who have no way to function in the world except through us.
suffer the little children to come to me indeed!
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Ah, yes... I could spend days interpreting this dream. Thanks for reading and commenting, Joy!
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I wanted to address the add issue since two members of my family have adhd. It's a misconception that these children are medicated because their parents can't control them and they are simply spirited. ADHD is a very complicated condition that is controlled in a variety of ways, medication is just a small part of the puzzle. There is also a great deal of special education and behavioral therapy involved. My best friend's son has it and his father seems to have the same problem. The difference is that the son receives a myriad of strategies to deal with his disorder while his father was labeled incoragable, just a bad kid. It's a very complex issue. There is no one answer and there is no easy answer. Also, every child is different, different things are going to work for different people. Medication is a part of a much broader treatment.
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I'm certainly no expert - so I greatly appreciate your feedback, Tara!
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I appreciate your concern. We do tend to put a lot of stock in medications in this country. Medicating children can be good, but it can also be dangerous. It is someting that should only be done after very careful consideration and should never be seen as a cure-all. Of course in America they have a pill for everything and that is indeed disturbing.
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I'm sorry, John. I should have explained that I am rather sensitive about this issue. I went through a lot with it with my friend and family members, but one thing especially bothers me. My friend's husband accused her of wanting to put her son on medication so that she would have an eaiser day. In reality, in this case, nothing could be further from the truth. Her son really did need some extra help. His behaivor was completely off the wall. I do everything with her and our kids, and we weren't welcome anywhere because we couldn't control him around the other kids. He had a lot of anger and frustration that goes along with ADHD. It really hurt me when my friend went through all this with her husband. I was not meaning to criticise you. I was just kind of stuck in defending her. No way you could have known that
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Thank you, Tara!
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You start to realize there's a problem when you and your friends get kicked out of every kid hangout in town because of that one child who just can't handle it.
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Lots of questions about your dream .. perhaps I'll ask them privately and not clutter up your blog thread with my thoughts.
But dreams often are very literal in their meaning . And "people" often stand in visually for fears and issues to be faced. Having studied them over a long period of time I can see some immediate correlations you might not see.
They are good about taking available imagery and weaving them in to a story of sorts you tell yourself..
Anyway... just sharing.
What do you mean rupture? And when you refer to the ADHD or ADD are you referring to yourself? Same with the MD or bipolar? You seem like an unlikely candidate for either....
Though I think we all go thru things at one time or other in our lives that might resemble them due to stress or lack of sleep. Both can really have a strong effect on ones psychological states.
As far as children... i think the current educational system has little leeway or room for children who learn differently or mature differently in social skills. Like the military any variation from the "norm" is considered a "problem". Montessori and Waldorf education,,, and other alternative methods of learning are much more tolerant of differences and more open to working with and helping a child to develop their special skills.
If you are talking about grand children perhaps explore other options might be an idea to medication.
anyway... your photo I love.. it is like something right out of a movie.. honestly... Indiana Crisis and the Crystal of Doom.
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I was not referring to myself with the reference to ADHD, though I was with the bipolar. None of this has anything to do with the grandchildren - but the train of thought was inspired/renewed by things I'd recently read about others.
Ah, well, the rupture.... that was a different dream altogether. I don't remember it so clearly now.
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you can delete my response then...it isn't relevant or helpful.. sorry.
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A couple of brief comments on subjects that deserve more than brief comments.
Dreams: I spent a lot of years analyzing dreams in therapy, including a couple of years on the Freudian couch 5 days a week. I eventually concluded that it's too easy to manipulate the contents of dreams to mean whatever we want them to mean. So I was particularly tickled to learn more recently that some (not all) sleep scientists now believe that dreams are simply a side effect of sleep, completely random, and have no meaning or use in human function.
That said, I will still take the feeling from a dream, if it's strong, and do primal work with it, but that's my mishigas. At least, working with it as a feeling rather than an intellectual exercise, I'm not in a position to manipulate it to mean something.
Mental illness diagnoses: My personal experience is that various diagnoses become "trendy." They're constantly shifting. Bipolar was "in" for awhile, then "borderline personality disorder" seemed to supplant it. IMO, the popularity of a diagnosis is directly related to the treatments available. So borderline personality disorder became popular when certain medications became available to "treat" it. As new medications come along, other diagnoses will rise in numbers.
Medication for kids is tough. When your kid's not functioning, and all the experts tell you that medication is the answer or part of the answer, what do you do? What do you do when the school tells you that they won't allow your child to attend unless he takes medication? (Actually happened to someone on know. She put her kid on medication. Couldn't afford private school.)
We want our kids to thrive. We live in a culture that makes it difficult for anyone to thrive. And we don't really have a lot of room in families or in society for kids (or adults) to act naturally, especially if that means acting outside of the narrow parameters of "normal." Medication can be a way to control people and bring them within the boundaries of "normal."
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I'm certainly no expert, but I'm intrigued by the possibility "that dreams are simply a side effect of sleep, completely random, and have no meaning or use in human function." Often we read too much into too many things -- trying to fill in the gaps of our knowledge and understanding with, essentially, guesses. We do it often in waking life -- reading meanings that may not be there into things like random coincidences because we desire (or need) certainty or a sense of meaning. So it makes sense that we're also tend to read too much into our dreams.
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There are those who study dreams... that feel ALL the various interpretations of a dream are valid... not just one. Jung being one of them. The Greeks and shamans are others. I think I would agree that Freud talked about things he knew nothing about many times. Dreams being one of them.
But dreams do reflect or work in a similar area of consciousness as that of "mental illness" or hallucinations... or even drug induced trances.
Stevens research and work on dreams talks a lot about that.
I myself would not wholly discount dreams...
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I think there's a Boob buried next to Dick. She comes from a long line of Boobs...
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Dream therapy? This was Freud's big way of interpreting his patient's problems.
You call it a nightmare. It seems to express a fear for little Mark who has had so many problems and you have been responsible at times for his care and others have ignored this. I have not had too much experience with kids with ADHD and was interested in what Tara wrote. A psychologically troubled child can ruin a marriage and often they are misdiagnosed. But please don't worry about your dream-nightmares.
If the same dream keeps repeating and repeating it means something but it usually is only a reference to something that was recently experienced like a fear for something or someone.
We had a joke when I was traveling with the Mayanists. There was one Mayan king who was Penis Jaguar translated from the Mayan language. Linda Shele referred to him as Dick Jaguar. Also the ritual of piercing the penis with a stingray spine as a sign to the people of the right to rule ... Linda called it "pricking the dick" and she often shocked her audiences who came to listen to her interpretations of the
Mayan language and culture. We were all just amused...Linda was fun to travel with since her translations of the glyphs were hilarious. I took a couple of videos that I used to show to my classes of her on the Mayan ruins. Do you remember any of my photos of these ruins?
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I believe Freud said all dreams can be roughly separated into two categories: wish fulfillment and fear fulfillment. If so, I think we can safely say the dream I described above fits into the latter category.
As you know, Helen, from the Intensive Journaling workshop we went through, Jung would have other ideas.
I certainly remember your ruins photos.
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I've gotten myself into a shitload of trouble saying this before, but I'll jump into the crapper again:
Freud was an imaginative man who knew absolutely nothing about human function. He very well may have ruined more lives than Hitler.
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I heard the Peters family is also related to the Dicks.
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Can we please stop making these outrageous comparisons to Hitler. They are ridiculous. No one was like Hitler, certainly not Freud. You may have a valid point, but your calling on Hitler detracts from what you are saying
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Other cultures more "primitive" than our own felt dreams were in fact more important than waking consciousness. Because they informed about the realm of our being we didn't have conscious awareness of.. ie.. our spiritual life.
So held dreams and their interpretation as highly valued.
If you are a materialist then dreams have no value they are just brain miss-firings... and that seems to be what you John.. re leaning towards.
But if you feel there is any spiritual or subconscious background to your life than I feel dreams are an invaluable tool to getting a good peek into an area of ourselves that is often unexplored.
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John, from what I've heard from you these last couple of years, you may consider a diagnosis of anxiety and depression. It's the gentler form of bipolar, not psychotic, but neurotic. I, Sir, am no expert either, but it's funny how you become well versed in a subject when it directly impacts your own life. Unlike Christina, I am going to take the chance that you will take this comment as it was meant, as a friendly exploration of ideas, no right or wrong. We're not saving the universe here. Or are we...
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