A Typical Nightmare of Pregnancy

Many mothers-to-be happen to have nightmares, that is, dreams marked by feelings of anxiety and anguish, from which they wake up in a state of exhaustion, unease, and tiredness. They often recount them with surprise, unable to find any connection with the sense of wellbeing and serenity that otherwise accompanies their pregnancy. Exploring, on an individual level, the latent thoughts connected to the manifest content reduces the frequency of these dreams, which are quite draining, energetically, for the dreamer. Indeed, recounting the memories that the dream associatively brings to the surface makes it possible to dilute the underlying conflict, allowing it to discharge in a more physiological way through verbalization.

Let's see how Lara, starting from a nightmare about the birth of a sick baby, manages during a psychotherapy session to connect it associatively with certain desires from her childhood.

«Ever since I got pregnant I've often dreamed about my aunt. I don't remember the context well, but every time I woke up with the fear that something in my pregnancy wasn't going as it should, and that there might be problems with the baby's health. Last night too I woke up all sweaty, with my heart pounding, in a state of panic.

I dreamed that in my living room there was a woman speaking with the same foreign accent as my aunt; she was wearing a dress similar to one I remember my aunt wearing when she was pregnant. This person, whom I must have known well because she acted very familiar toward me, advised me to have an abortion because she had heard that my baby had an incurable illness. (This is the manifest content of the dream.)

Even though, once awake, I tried to calm myself by telling myself it was only a dream, it really did seem like a bad omen to have had it the night before my anatomy scan!

I arrived at the hospital extremely tense and, even though I tried not to think about the dream, I kept expecting a devastating diagnosis to be announced to me at any moment. Only the doctor's words (which I had him repeat twice!) and the images that he patiently showed me on the screen allowed me to distance myself from my dream, rooted not in reality but in the world of my childhood experiences, and to let myself sink into the tenderest, most serene fantasies about the baby.

When I think of my aunt, I remember that as a little girl I was very attached to her, a cheerful young Spanish woman, full of life, sunny. We lived on the same landing, so I often went to play at her house: she was more available than my mother, she made me laugh, and with her I felt like a princess, until… she got pregnant. From that moment she started paying less attention to me, because she often felt unwell or had less time for me. She couldn't even pick me up anymore… I, the favorite niece, pushed aside… I felt like I no longer counted for anything, all because of that cursed baby… who wasn't even born yet!

No matter how much she assured me that she would keep taking me on holiday with her even after the baby was born, I felt that she had already become distant, lost to me forever, so far away and strange that she once even put me in time-out for a «nasty thing» I had said! That I hoped her baby would be horrible, malformed, sick, or even that it would die, so that I would go back to being the favorite and wouldn't have to share her love with anyone!» (It's worth remembering that for a child, wishing death on someone simply means wishing the rival would get out of the way).

Exploring the dream through the thoughts of its latent content thus expresses Lara's desperate cry: she feels pushed aside (even though this is true only in her fantasy, not in reality). A little girl who hopes the other one (the rival) will get out of the way, will die, or will be so ugly, sick, or bad as to be incapable of competing with her, so that she can keep her position of primary affection undisturbed.