Dream Case #6

I had a dream the other night which engages me on several levels.  In the dream I am at a medical facility.  There is a group of 6 or 8 doctor types gathered around me.  They are telling me that they need to do some kind of highly invasive procedure that will be quite painful.  They tell me that there is no guarantee that they will be able to gather any useful information but they MIGHT get some answers to some questions they have.  They want me to sign the paper so they can go ahead with this.  I very calmly look at them and tell them no.  No, I don't want that procedure.  What?  They are aghast!  What do you mean no?  This is what we have to do in order to attempt to fix you.  You will have to submit to this procedure or we can not help you any more.  You might die.  Okay then, I say calmly.  So be it.

Perhaps there is a theme here as I had this dream about a month ago:

I am in a medical waiting room—there is some need to run some kind of diagnostic test.  There is an easy screening tool of some kind but, for some reason unknown to me, it is determined that that is not the best tool to use for me.  So they want to do something that is more complicated, that calls for more expertise.  I have to wait all day and into the next day.  I watch other people come and go from the waiting room.

Finally, without my awareness of any diagnostic testing, it is determined that I have some kind of liver issue.  tumor? cancer? disease?  unknown—but they know I am going to die relatively soon.   I accept that news rather nonchalantly.  Okay.  now what?

What you have here, in both dreams, are [medical] experts trying to tell you what to do. From the tone of both dreams, I gather these doctors are not advising or guiding so much as forcing their opinions on you. Yet in the earlier dream you are resigned and in the later, more recent dream you fight back.

So what has changed between last month and this one?

Doctors in dreams signify healing. This could mean physical (your subconscious could actually be trying to signal to you an underlying health problem), emotional, mental. Only you know enough about your life to determine which is the most likely scenario. But look at what has changed in your life in the past month and you'll likely have your answer. A relationship you were ready and willing to give up on, but now you realize you want to save it would be one possible example. A project you pushed aside but deep down you want to finish it. Even something about yourself, something you felt ready to give up or let go of (maybe in order to fit in with a group, or else because so many people had made you feel like it was something you should stop doing) you now no longer feel so willing to sacrifice.

The waiting room in the first dream is quite interesting, as it suggests a kind of limbo, an interim space. You are going through some kind of transition, and again: at one point you didn't much care where you ended up, but now you do desire to have some control over the end result of this personal evolution. There may have been an easier passage (the easier diagnostic test in the first dream), but for some reason you will benefit more from the more rigorous one. Your subconscious is preparing you for this. However, based on the later dream, you may now be resisting this transformation.

The fact that in the first dream you are diagnosed with something terminal, yet in the second you are fighting a procedure may also indicate that there is something in your life that is "killing" you, and you are fine with that because you do not want to give this particular thing up. So when in the second dream you refuse the medical treatment, this again suggests that you would rather live with this "fatal disease" than submit to having this thing (or person, or situation) cut out of your life.

The bottom line in these two dreams is to determine: (a) what the "disease" is, (b) who the doctors represent (friends, family, pressure from coworkers, your own consciousness), (c) and whether the cure is worse than the disease or are these doctors really working in your best interest. Then you may continue your personal journey and transformation armed with all the information you need to get wherever you're going to.