NIGHTMARES OF A PREGNANT WOMAN

Patricia Maybrook in her book, PREGNANCY & DREAMS (Tarcher,1989), collected 1048 dreams from 67 pregnant women and concluded "forty percent of the total dreams collected from all subjects were nightmares reflecting emotions that ranged from fear to abject terror" [pg 2]. To properly evaluate this typically high percentage of anxiety dreams and place them in a balanced perspective, it is important to emphasize that when dreams from the third semester of 70 healthy women who were pregnant for the first time  were scored for the presence of anxiety by the researchers  [Winget and Kapp, 1972], the following conclusion was reached: "[Anxiety] was present in over 80 percent of the dream reports of those who subsequently delivered in less than 10 hours, but was scorable in only 25 percent of the dreams of the prolonged labor group (over 20 hours). The women who were intermediate in frequency of anxiety themes were also intermediate in length of labor." [VdC pg 403].

The two pictures below depict a sort of generic representation of the disturbing imagery which can appear in the dreams of pregnant women.  I created these montages by combining beach glass, washed up dolls, and remnants of conch shells from a long stretch of ocean beach in southern Puerto Rico. The dolls were loaned to me by Chris Owens, a beachcomber who had collected them over a period of several months. The photos were taken by Justine Owens.

In the first montage, a collection of 7 doll heads, 2 arms, a leg, 1 legless torso and 2 small sections of spinal column (conch shell) appear in a clear white setting against a folded pink cloth representing the uterine lining.

In the second montage, the picture now has deteriorated to take on a darker darker look and  discolored areas of infection occur represented by the green and dark blue pieces of glass. The uterine lining has turned brown and the number of threatening dismembered images has increased. There are now 8 doll heads, 3 arms, 1 legless torso, 1 headless and legless torso, 1 completely dismembered torso, a more prominent leg, and 5 segments of spinal cord.  In appropriate combinations of body parts are more apparent and dark eye sockets are also more obvious.

I hope these montages will serve to remind  women  that the presence of severe anxiety dreams or nightmares during pregnancy is not an unusual occurrence and should not be automatically interpreted as indicating that the woman views her pregnancy in a negative or ego alien way, or that some future mishap awaits her unborn child . Women wishing to understand more fully the complex world of dreams during pregnancy should check the references above or Eileen Stukane's book THE DREAM WORLDS OF PREGNANCY [William Morrow,1985].