The Blind Car Driver in Me

This is another blog on dream interpretation. May I point out again that I only interpret the impressive dreams or the reoccurring ones. I dream almost every day, thus in my opinion it would be pointless to try to interpret every insignificant dream. I might even overdo it and get obsessed with dream interpretation. That is why I have set myself the limitation of interpreting only certain dreams. On the contrary a person who rarely remembers a dream in the morning would not need this limitation of course. May I warn you that you should consult your psychiatrist first, before you start any kind of dream interpretation, for you have to be stable in order to be able to do it. If one interprets his/her dreams during a mental illness episode for example, the interpreting might even make the episode worse.

In my previous blog I mentioned that I usually use the Phyllis Krystal Method to interpret my dreams. Nonetheless the example in my previous blog was interpreted solely according to my intuition. This time I will describe an example of my dreams that I have managed to interpret according to the above mentioned method. Dream interpretation is just a facilitating exercise that I use as a back-up next to other exercises according to the PK Method that I do regularly. It is not the core work of the method, but it gives useful hints at times.

The dreams: I met a very interesting woman. She was the head of the Union of the Blind People of my country — not the real head, just somebody who appeared as such in my dreams. She was driving a car. I was astonished. I asked her: “How can you drive a car? You are blind.” She gave me a most logical but at the same time a surprising answer: “I see with my third eye.” As much as I was dazzled by her self-confidence and supernatural capabilities I was also just as much disappointed with myself, for I had stopped driving a year ago.


This last bit regarding my driving is real. It is not an imagined story from the dreams. I had been trying to learn how to drive and be relaxed while driving a car for 4 years, but it only got worse over the years, so a year ago I finally quit. The real-life feeling of being a loser who cannot drive a car was combined with the imagined story of a blind car driver in my dreams.

When I woke up in the morning, I first thought the dream was telling me to try driving a car again. Later however I tried to interpret it with the PK method, because this is what I usually do, if the dream is impressive. According to this method the people that appear in our dreams represent parts of our personality. Similarly the car usually means our job or business. Thus the blind woman in my dreams could be interpreted as the brave part of me that knows how to pull off my book project, even though the skeptic in me is still having her doubts, for this is my first project of the kind. In my opinion the dreams were trying to encourage me in my endeavor to publish a book that will help other mental patients in their fight for a better life.

You can ask me more about my dreams and the way I interpret them: bb.bukle@gmail.com

No Pain No Gain

Some weeks ago I ran into an old friend of mine. We have known each other for a long time. We got to know each other in a locked ward of a psychiatric hospital in the previous millennium. When I ran into her the other day, I told her about my book. She was very happy to hear that the book is nearly finished. She said: “I wish I finished something for a change. For the last 10 years I have never finished anything I started.”

Well, it’s not easy to live with a mental illness. However if you do something to improve your moods and your self-image, you will pretty soon find out you are capable of a lot of things.

I remember back in 2004 when I read a book written by L. Hay* that I didn’t know HOW TO START. Her book is full of affirmations and visualizations you can do, yet I didn’t know how to start. It felt odd back then. However, today I know why I felt that way. It’s called resistance. Our mind resists in a very weird way. As if our mind was saying: “But no! I don’t want to change anything. I got used to the way things are. If I get happy, I won’t know how to live anymore!”

As stupid as it might seem, that was the way my mind reacted. Yet there was a little desperate voice in my head saying: “Look. You are constantly wishing you were dead. It cannot get any worse. Do something.”

And I did. I read one chapter of the book each evening. When I got to the end of the book, I started with the first chapter again. I was doing this for half a year, so you can imagine how many times I read the same chapter over and over again. On one hand I was too reluctant to start doing the mental exercises described in the book. On the other hand I didn’t want to give up and forget about the book. So I kept reading it.

After half a year I decided it was time to start the real mental work. I picked 3 exercises from the book and promised myself to do them twice a day. I chose the 3 exercises that felt the least unpleasant. They took me only 10 to 20 minutes — depending on my level of concentration. I was doing them in the morning on the bus to work and again in the evening in bed before falling asleep. I am not sure, but I think I picked the following exercises: 1. The one when you visualize the person that has hurt you on the stage. Then you let the person experience all the good. It’s an act of forgiving. 2. The one when you visualize how your life should be. It’s an act of allowing you to be happy. 3. And the one when you visualize yourself as a five year old child and hug yourself. It’s an act of accepting yourself and loving yourself the way you are. Then you do the same with your parents — you imagine them when they were five and hug them. It’s an act of accepting and loving your parents.

The wish to finish something we have started is not enough. We have to push ourselves to work. And don’t worry — the first mental work is the most difficult. Anything else in life — any kind of work, not just the mental — will be easier to accomplish, if you hang on. It’s like starting a car in extreme cold. The beginning is always the toughest. And remember: No Pain No Gain.

*: The book is called You Can Heal Your Life and I have mentioned it in several blogs.

You can ask me more about my experience with mental work: bb.bukle@gmail.com.

Why me? — Part II

Last week I attended another business seminar for beginners. It lasted for three days. It was so intense that after the first day I got up in the morning and I thought to myself: »What if I skip the first lecture? It's going to be a lecture on business negotiation. I don't need that right now. I can attend a similar seminar later.« But there was another thought equally strong going through my head: »I must go. No explanation why. I simply have to go.«

Luckily the second thought won. I went to the seminar. The moment the first lecturer appeared on stage I knew why. It was K. E. S. that stood there and smiled just like 6 years ago, when I first saw her. Her presence filled the whole conference hall. I was dazzled.

Back in 2003 I attended my first business seminar ever. K. E. S. was the first lecturer. Her topic was the basic motivation to start one's own business. Or in other words: How to start doing something we really like before even thinking about the »big money« ahead. Back then I wasn't a bit ready to start my own business, but I remembered two things she said up until now:

- She mentioned that negative thoughts were like weed. If we want our plants (positive thoughts) to grow, we need to keep removing the weed. Up until that moment I had thought that the happy people didn't have any negative thoughts at all. Wrong! We all have them. The happy people are just better gardeners.

- She emphasized how important it was to find out WHAT WE REALLY LIKE DOING. She asked: »Do you ever jump up and down in the morning, because you are so happy to go to work?«

I couldn't relate to that jumping scene at all. I thought she was talking about some science fiction. But she planted a seed in my head. A tricky question that kept popping up evertime I felt dissatisfied with my job. This went on for 5 years. Then in 2008 I finally gave notice and started writing a book. Of course my husband agreed to support me.

Back than in 2003 K. E. S. was one of the stars shimmering on the horizon. One of the stars that made it impossible for me to give up totally no matter how depressed I felt. Yet I needed another psychotic episode later that year to force me to think. So in 2004 I started the mental work described in Louise Hay's books. I knew that it was crucial for me to find out WHAT I REALLY WANT TO DO FOR A LIVING. Yet I was only able to find this out in 2007.

Today I really feel that writing self-help books IS what I want to do for a living. And it makes me happy. Hadn't I had that last psychotic episode in 2003, I would probably still cling to my job and remain semi-miserable for the rest of my life.

So: Why me again? Because everything is perfect. I am grateful for all the good and the bad that had happened to me. It has made me who I am today.

Why me?

I can laugh about it today, but this was a very serious question 13 years ago when I had my first psychotic episode. It seemed sooooooo unfair. My brain was producing numerous questions of self-pity: »What have I done to deserve this? Is this a punishment? For what? Have I not been taking good care of my health? How come it has happened precisely to me and not to somebody else? My class mates are finishing their studies, some are already married. Some have been already promised a job. And here I am – my BA not finished, single, no job perspectives, no boy-friend perspectives. I'm doomed.«

Well everyone has bad moments of self-pity. That's normal. The problem with my self-pity was that this »mode« was »on« 24 hours a day, 365 days per year, for 7 years. In the meantime I had finished BA, got a job and a wonderful boy-friend, but the »self-pity-mode« was still »on«.

How is this possible? It's called thinking patterns. One gets into the habit of self-pity and that's how it stays, even if the outer-world-situation changes. So in the summer of 2004 I decided to change my »inner-world-situation«. I was encouraged by my boy-friend's friend, who lent me a book by Louise Hay You Can Heal Your Life. I started reading. It didn't seem to work. I started doing the mental work described in the book. It didn't seem to work.

I said to myself: »I hit the bottom. I am constantly thinking of committing a suicide. I cannot fall any deeper. I will continue the affirmations and visualizations. It must start working some day.« I was stubborn as hell and so I persisted. Twice a day for about 20 minutes. The first results began to show after a year. They were not real results you could describe. I just began to feel a bit better. And so I went on with the mental work. Later I added the method of Phyllis Krystal. A year ago I joined a school for emotional intelligence. Now after 5 years of working on my ways of thinking I can say I have changed.

It's either the hard way or no way. It's your choice. But don't worry – after a few years you begin to like the mental work so much, you cannot stop doing it.