The Mindful Migraine

One of the first things my neurologist recommended I do as part of my new holistic approach to healing my migraines, was therapy (we call it counselling in Australia).  He recommended CBT (cognitive behavior therapy) which I’ll post about soon.  (Un)fortunately, there was no one doing that form of counselling available near my home at that time.  So, I went to a ‘regular’ therapist who focused on discussing issues from my past in an attempt to locate potential subconscious triggers for the ongoing pain. 

One of the things that she recommended was that I should record my dreams.  I replied, ‘I don’t dream: I’m either in too much pain to go to sleep, or I fall into an exhausted sleep which is dream-free’.  She asked me to keep a pen and paper near the bed and try it anyway.

The next night I had a vivid dream (shortened here):

“My husband and I were debating how best to renovate the laundry, but he wasn’t listening to my ideas about the plumbing and keep walking away.  I moved to the garage nearby, and towards its back door. It now had a window in it so I could look outside without going outside.  I saw a cow and a bull roaming around my backyard which had now become a large park.  The scene was idyllic and made me smile.  Suddenly two metallic robot-cows began chasing the first two cows, and then my two dogs joined in, chasing the robot-cows.  Then, to make it all very Noah’s Ark, my two teenage daughters appeared outside to watch all the action.  I was screaming at them through the window to come inside, to be safe, be sensible.  But they ignored me.  They were laughing and looked content to hang outside and be part of the action.  I turned away in frustration only to see my youngest daughter suddenly inside making a Lego house on a trestle table in the corner of the garage.  There were blocks everywhere, and even though the house she was making was very impressive, I was furious at the mess and began to yell at her.  She ignored me and I slumped to the ground crying impotent tears of rage, then woke up.”

OK.  So even before I went back to the therapist, I could spot the recurring themes;

1) I want life to be idyllic, neat, orderly, controlled, clean, safe (hence being in a renovated laundry – the room designated for cleaning – and the frustration at the Lego house mess). 

2) I was obviously feeling very frustrated that no one listens to me (my husband turning away, me screaming through a door-window I can’t get past, even at a stretch, the fake cows combined with the real ones could be seen as a ‘non-traditional-herd’, i.e. ‘unheard’). 

The more I thought about it, I recognized other possibilities.  I felt trapped inside, unable to go outside.  A garage is a peripheral part of a house, partly inside partly outside, both home and away, you don’t go in there unless you’re leaving (but I couldn’t).  Noah’s Ark is a story of overcoming catastrophe, but I was not included in the survival strategy.  I was fearful of life changing (the regular cow-parents being replaced by ‘the future’).  I wanted to parent my children, but as teenagers they were growing up as independent young women who would soon be making homes of their own.  They were happy amidst the chaos of contemporary life. My fears were not their fears.

Taking a step back, I realized that for me life had been a perfect storm of accumulating changes over the recent years; covid lockdowns, my babies turning into independent teenagers, reducing work hours because of increasing migraines, even menopausal changes in my body that made it feel beyond my control.  The control-freak in me was not coping.  The control-freak in me was learning that I was probably never in as much control over my life as I had imagined.  That control was potentially an illusion; hence the impotent tears of rage.

Whilst all this sounds a bit dramatic, a potential over-reach of the imagination, whether I was right or wrong about my dream interpretation, I gained a sense of personal insight that made me start to see things differently.  It’s normal to be fearful about being made redundant (at work and as a parent) – but – how fantastic that my girls are growing up brave, self-sufficient and happy.

Dream analysis is a strange aside in a mindful migraine journey, but maybe monitoring your dreams will reveal some insights of the subconscious that can help you better understand your place in the waking world.

Here’s hoping your next dream is not a nightmare. 

Take care on your journey, Linda.