I don't remember when they started, but I've been having them my entire adult life, I know: These
recurring nightmares where I have a baby that I'm supposed to take care of and somehow I lose it, or don't protect it, or it just disappears with no explanation. I've never had a child, never been
pregnant, never even had
a time when I thought I might be pregnant, so it's hard to see how these dreams could stem from any real-life past event. I'm still pretty young and in my waking life I don't give much thought to child rearing, so I don't think this is my
biological clock. And yet these dreams come more and more often, especially when I'm under a lot of stress.
I'm holding my new baby, and its head is too big for its body. I know I'm supposed to always support the baby's head, and remembering to do so is causing me great agitation. Finally I forget, just once, and the baby's neck snaps.
I'm holding a baby to my chest and running for my life. There is a man after us and I know if he catches us he'll kill the baby. He catches us, takes the baby from me and starts to eat it (at least I know where this image comes from: Saturn Devouring his Children by Goya). I wake up screaming.
I lie down to take a nap with my baby on my chest. As I lie down I'm very careful to place the baby where I won't roll over on it and I'm very worried about this. I fall asleep and when I wake up the baby is gone, with no explanation.
I'm going about my day and people keep stopping me and asking me where my baby is. I don't remember having one, but according to them I did. I seem to have lost the baby and all memory of it ever having existed, and I feel agonizingly guilty.
These are just the ones from the last month or so. Any armchair psychologists in the audience? One friend of mine is convinced that the baby is really my creative efforts, which I'm afraid will be destroyed (plausable. sometimes I swear my clients are out to sabotage their own projects.) Another friend says I just haven't acknowledged the fact that I really want children because I'm afraid of the responsibility they'll bring. (less plausable. I think I know myself better than that.) I've always known that because of my endometriosis it will be very difficult for me to conceive, if I ever decide to try. Could the dreams be related to that even though consciously this fact doesn't bother me that much? I'm at a loss and I'm starting to dread bedtime.
I hope no one minds my using everything as group therapy. I feel a lot better after writing this down and knowing someone else will read it.