My dad passed away 25 years ago, and prior to his passing I had only seen him once in 10 years. My father died when he was 57.

I have dreams where my dad is pulling all of my teeth out with tools in his tool box. Then I have had dreams where my dad is sitting in his chair that remember seeing him in when I was a child. He is just sitting there holding my hands telling me that things are going to be okay. Telling me he loves me. How proud he is of me.

You need to know that over the past 18 months I have been diagnosed with several health issues. Many of the same health issues as my father. Heart, lungs, thyroid,arthritis, bone issues and vitamin defiencies.

Sometimes I wonder if it is dreams, or if my dad is actually there with me telling me that everthing is going to okay.

But in all these dreams towards the end something happens that is a reinactment of an incident that actually happened when I was a child. My mother started accusing my dad of cheating on her. My dad denied it. My mom stripped me down naked. She started beating me, and every time my dad denied it she just hit me more and harder. My dad kept trying to stop her. She was crazy. My dad finally said yes she was right. My mom stopped hitting me.

It was two weeks later that my dad left. To this day I don't think my dad was cheating on my mom.

Why does this real life event keep coming back in my dreams.

Age & Gender & Location {Required}: 49 Alabama

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Cheryl,
The dreams most likely keep recurring because those conflicts from childhood or aspects of that period still remain unresolved. Consciously we may believe we have put them in order but unconsciously they remain because there are issues still in conflict. A reason for those remaining conflicts is they may have bearing on your life, your personality, your actions and how you act in the presence. We all know we inherit certain traits from our parents. But we also reattain traits parents possess from the experiences we witness as children, even from our youngest years {I Am Your Child Foundation started by Rob and Michelle Reiner}. We often unconsciously imitate actions learned from those earliest years in adulthood and until they are resolved they will remain within the psyche.

You mention you are having health problems similar to those your father had. The psyche {Greek for soul} is an amazing thing able to pick up physical attributes that sometimes can be seen in our dreams. It could be these similar health problems are being addressed in your dreams because of the relationship to your father. It is not a common event in dreams but it does happen. Dreams are tuned into the body {Jung's psyche is the entire self; body, mind and spirit} and sometimes if there is an illness the dream will know long before it is evident to the waking self. It is a bit of a stretch but there may be a link.
And of course knowing your father had these same health issues and you having some of the same would be the more likely reason you see him in your dreams and relate to the shared illnesses.

But the experiences from childhood, the abuse by your mother and your father leaving and letting the abuse occur {"My dad finally said yes she was right"} could be a reason you had the dream. "My mom stopped hitting me" could be addressing a need to confront those unresolved issues, which are made less important because of your health issues, may have some bearing on such dream language.

Dreams for the most part speak in a language and metaphor. Cheating could be symbolic of abandonment. The cheating in your dream would not be an actual cheating but a reference to being abandoned.

So if you look at these dreams and use symbolic metaphor instead of the literal language they begin to make sense. Jung discovered this working with his patients, interpreting thousands of dreams and recognizing patterns of behavior that are reflected in the dreams and their symbolic language. As I have stated previously there are recognizable recurring patterns in many of the dreams posted at the MDS Dream Forum. One such pattern is when a child is seem in a dream it is more often addressing some past childhood experience of the dreamer, as in your dream.

How to stop these dreams? If they are so unbearable they cause waking emotional conflicts then seeing a psychologist may be the need. I personally purged my 'demons' using Jung's Individuation Process, a self psychology and therapy. But that is along drawn out process requiring many years of discipline and desire.

If the problem is not a draining psychological problem and the health issues you are having to confront are then it may best to focus on those. If you can do both the psychological remedies of resolving these internal conflicts from childhood could be of great help with your physical ailments. Because the body and mind are entwined one aspect needing help could affect the other. We know how stress can cause physical illness, removing such stresses can also help heal other physical illnesses.

Your faith in God can be a powerful tool. But understanding how the psyche functions, especially the dream, can be just as powerful. Keeping a positive attitude is most important. I am not a religious person but I am a very spiritual person. Being spiritual in my everyday life, my actions toward others have consequences that can be either good or bad. I may have given up on religion but abiding by WWJD, my actions, provide positive results in whatever I do in life. Be that spiritual self in every turn in life and the helping hands, angels, will provide whatever you need to live a balanced life of harmony and good will. A principle I live by, and one I try to pattern after the example of Jesus is 'judge me by what I do'. I tend not to worry about faith as long as I imitate Jesus.

One last comment about spirituality. Jung, a scientist, discovered that one of the permanent aspects within all human psyche is a spiritual aspect. Just as we all have a masculine/feminine aspect {anima/animus, and a shadow aspect {Shadow}, those rejected aspects, we also all possess a spiritual aspect, that higher Self that encompasses the traits of Jesus or the Buddha, or the saints such as Mother Teresa or Gandhi who gave up the material life to serve mankind. That is powerful stuff. And healing when used as the guide in our everyday lives.

God be with you in your time of need with those health issues.

Jerry

Age & Gender & Location {Required}: 59 Murfreesboro, Tn

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