DREAM FORUM - I FOUGHT OFF THE RED CRABS - another persons dream.
POSTED July 17, 2011, 19:07 by iceberg rose (Viewed 6690 times)

THE DREAM : During my nursing career patients often shared their dreams. This dream was shared by a man who died three weeks after he had it. It was so clear it has stuck with me for over thirty years and led me to taking a personal interest in my own dreams and the dreams of other people.

I was called to the mans bedside by his wife as he was shouting out about his dream in a desperate state. No one could settle him down.

I saw a highly aggitated man who was yelling out his dream in a desperate manner to anyone he thought might listen so I decided to just listen to his story and take him seriously.

The man told me his dream in vivid and intense detail impressing on me that he had fought off the red crabs who kept biting at his toes all night.

In the dream the man was being fought into a black hole by red crabs that were constantly biting his toes. He shared his dream with gestures and actions showing me how he fought off the crabs and how he had won this battle on this night. He was keen to impress on me that they came every night and he was getting weaker. That night he thought he was going to loose his battle so he was desperate to tell someone about his plight.

His wife looked at me as if to say "Don't you reckon he is going mad?"

To be honest he looked quite frantic and mad - but he was suffering from advanced peripheral vascular disease and his toes were dying. I knew from his medical diagnosis he was toxic. So his not making sense made perfect sense to me when I considered his medical condition.

I guess it was my own reaction that surprised me. I turned to his wife while her husband was continuing to ramble on and on about the crabs and told her quite plainly - "Your husband has just told you he nearly died last night. The red crabs are the disease attacking his toes that are now dying. The dream is telling us that he is being pushed into a black hole by the red craps that represent his periperal vascular disease and that hole is his grave. He has told you he can't fight them off much longer so he has just told you he is going to die."

When I spoke to the wife I had absolutly no doubt about what I had said and no doubt at all about the meaning of the dream. It was so crystal clear and consistent with how a delerious person might experience dying toes from inside himself.

THE BACKGROUND:Why the dream has stuck with me so long is that I took a professional risk when I did this. I knew he was delerious from a medical point of view but he was a person inside a very sick body and he communicated his reality as best he could. He needed an interpreter and I voluntarily stepped into that role.

As a nurse I took my role as a patient advocate very seriously and implemented a medical response to the man's dream to try and make his dying time more comfortable.

Every morning I would ask him how the crabs were during the night and guaged the level of success of our intervention by the response the man gave.

By this time the man was not conversing with reality the way we all usually do but the crabs and dreams enabled me to communicate with him very clearly I found. I was able through his dreams to enter into his experiecne of reality and become part of it. My decision to do this definatly eased the mans distress and his wife was able to put plans in place in advance of his death.

After I had spoken to the wife about what the dream meant I suggested to her she specak with her husbands doctor and ask him questons about her husbands condition. She did so and he confirmed to the wife in a medical way that her husband was at the end stage of his disease.

There were several other patients I was able to do this with. Not many in the many thousands I cared for but at critical times I found their dreams helped me provide appropriate and humane care for people at the end of their life in particular.

I can recall most of these dreams with out using notes because they made a lasting impression on me. It was a real privaledge to share the dreams of these dying people in particular. So many were incredibly clear and precise.

I especially loved the lady who told me she had a dream self who slept beside herself in a coffin all night. They often talked to each other and I had to laugh when she told me this.

I asked her at the time "Thats a funny thing to tell me - arn't you concerned I might think your mad." She just smiled and said "No - I think you will understand and I have to talk to someone - my family doesn't understand."

People are so very precious - this lady died of liver cancer some 12 months after she shared this dream and toward the end of her life she talked about her dreams to everyone. We got to meet her long dead husband this way and she even told us the day, the time and the person who would find her dead. Her husband told her what was going to happen. It happened exactly as she said it would and we all talked about it for some months afterward.

The whole medical team was aware of this but there was nothing about it recorded in her medical notes.
-----------------------------------------------------
Unclesirbobby (POSTED July 18, 2011, 01: 1: 44)
Thats fascinating. He had clearly got to to the point where he had lost touc with reality and his dream metaphors became reality.

I know all too clearly how dreams about illness can be represented by dreams. I once had the worst tooth ache. I dreamt I was in a mental asylum. My state o mind was so deranged that it felt likeI was going mad. Tooth ache is that bad.

But in my case I knew I had tooth ache and I knew it was a dream.-----------------------------------------------------
Unclesirbobby (POSTED July 18, 2011, 04: 1: 10)
The lady who had liver cancer. You mention she knew of her own death - was that through a dream.-----------------------------------------------------
Iceberg Rose (POSTED July 18, 2011, 23: 1: 18)
The lady who had liver cancer knew of her own death because her dead husband told her when and who would find her when she died. Did he come in a dream - I am not sure about that because I was not the nurse who heard that report. I was told about it the nurse who found her dead. This nurse was not a believer of all this dreaming stuff and thought all hocus pocus till it happened to her.

I was the nurse the patient told about the dream she was in a coffin lying beside her self when she slept at night.

The family of this lady did not want her told she was dying so we were not allowed to tell her she was. When the lady told me about her dream I was quite surprised and said to her - Dreams have a way of telling us the truth when we need to know it don't you think.

I now believe this lady needed the dreams so she could talk about her death because the usual channels of communicatin were being blocked by the family. The dream was the way this lady communicated to us that she knew what we couldn't say.

I was so glad she knew but also amazed at the detail of her dream. To be dreaming you are lying beside yourself in a coffin is pretty graphic.-----------------------------------------------------
Unclesirbobby (POSTED July 19, 2011, 15: 2: 51)
I believe in psychic forces. I once had a dream and laid in bed trying to understand it. I linked it to one person (in more than one way) and that very person died that day. I had a really bad feeling about that day.

As far as this old woman is concerned I think she should have been allowed to talk about her own failing health. Old people are much more able to talk about death than you think. They are much more practical. My own grandmother recently had to bury my grandfather. She then paid for her own funeral at the same time. At 97 you cannot really argue with her.

Its wrong not to talk about the most pressing issues in your mind. Even if they are linked to death.
-----------------------------------------------------
You are not logged in -

---------------------------------

DREAM ANALYSIS Reading other peoples dreams helps you understood how dreams work and how they relate to recent thoughts and feelings. Below are some links to some interesting dreams.

Vampirism by Gypsyroving
Arrested by Gypsyroving
I FOUGHT OFF THE RED CRABS by iceberg rose
Komodo Dragon by KarenT
Swimming in a pool with frogs by Jillw06
1poision3nonpoisionsnakes by sweetwater5655
Pregnancy Premonition by ecslater
My Premonitions by BrandonBanks720
THE ROAD MAP - my husbands dream by Iceberg rose
Tornado Dream by rkwarr6f
THE DOWNSIDE OF CHANGE FOR ME by Iceberg Rose
waking up by lastride77
I FINALLY FOUND MY OWN HEAD : D by Iceberg Rose
Wild Horses by LindaBBlack
Dolphin jumping to God by Carlee
A DOING STUFF DREAM by iceberg rose
THE HEAD IN THE GLASS CAGE by Iceberg Rose






HOW TO HELP THIS WEBSITE: Google rates pages posted on Facebook, Twitter and other social networking sites very highly. So if you have found this site useful please post it using the buttons below.

Try this dream guide to help you understand the symbols in your dreams. DREAM GUIDE

-------------------------------------------
DREAM INTERPRETATION PROGRAM: When you post a dream a list of symbols will appear here. They will help you work out what has caused your dream. The following dream symbols all appear in THIS DREAM.

WARS: Dreams can often represent your state of mind so what could war represent in your own emotions. Did you feel as if you were having to fight against overwhelming odds, overcoming prejudice and opposition yesterday (like you are battling against something)? Was yesterday an especially hard day with a gruelling work schedule?

For more information read here War dreams

DEATH: Death is often used in a quite abstract way in dreams. If you no longer see an ex boyfriend or girlfriend then if they die in a dream it may simply mean that you realise that you will never see them again(the relationship has DIED!). It may also symbolise a change in your life as are no longer able to do something (If you have a bad knee you can no longer play football so that part of you has died). Dreams are often like short plays and the emotions that they evoke could be feelings that you are experiencing right now. If a dear friend or loved one died then you would be devastated. That just may be your minds way of saying that you really value that person - you could not live without them.

For more information read here Death dreams

FIGHTING: Dreams represent your emotions so think of fighting as a sign that you have been in some emotional struggle. In practice fighting represents resentments as we fight against peoples perceptions of us. So ask yourself simple questions such as - Do you feel that someone does not recognise your achievements? Do you feel you have to work twice as hard as everyone else to be accepted?

For more information read here Fighting dreams

YELLING: Dreams are metaphors so what do you think yelling could symbiolize in your own emotions. If we speak in a brutal and honest way its almost the same as yelling. It shows we do not care about trying to hide unpleasant truths. Conversely yelling may show that you want to say something and be brutally honest but cannot because of rules or you are just trying to be gentle with people. Yelling can symbolise other frustrations - it could be a metaphor for your attempts to make something clear. You could have explained something a million times yet the message still did not get through. Dreams may not necessarily be about you and so a yelling dream may represent your attempts to understand someones strength of feeling. Understanding other people and being able to get along with them is a vital part of being a human being. Effective communication and the ability to emphasise is something that we need to think about.
For more information read here Shouting dreams

Patience in dreams

People in dreams

Pushed in dreams

Music in dreams

Dreams represent our deep thoughts and feelings. They are metaphors. They use symbols to compare real life to various memories from the past. We use our experience to make sense of the present.

Many dreams are specifically linked to the day before. They are not the only types of dream. Here is a full list.

•Distraction dreams
•Previous day dreams
•Creative dreams
•Personality dreams
•Emotional dreams
•Nightmares
•Health
•Relationship
•Life change dreams
•Reflective dreams
•Premonitions
•Rehearsing dreams
•Next day dreams
•Lots of dreams
•Depression dreams

Try using the following guide to help you find what has triggered your dream. •DREAM GUIDE

A-Z DREAM SYMBOLS
A : B : C : D : E : F : G : H : I : J : K : L : M : N : O : P : Q : R : S : T : U : V : W : X : Y : Z