AMNESIA

1- To suffer from amnesia in a dream indicates our attempts to blot out the disliked. It also indicates a fear of change. Losing one’s memory in real life can be traumatic, but in dreams it can be even more of a problem since we do not know how much we actually should remember. VVe do not know- how much is viable, and how- much is presented for the purposes of that dream onlv.

2- Psychologically we fear losing access to knowledge, of knowing how to behave. Often we wake up feeling we have dreamt, but cannot remember the dream. This can be because it is too painful to deal with the trauma that lies behind the images created. We are consciously able to forget until such times as we are courageous enough to deal with those images.

3- Amnesia in dreams can suggest death, either past or present. This may not be a physical death, but a time of great change in the dreamer’s life.

Example: ‘I am sleeping rough in a garden with a woman I do not love. I think I should try to make the best of the situation, but my feelings against it are too strong. Then I decide I don’t ever want to live like that again and tear up the mattress we slept on. As I do this I realise, as if waking from amnesia, that Pat lives just across the road. She has specially moved there because of our love. I realise with horror I had forgotten and may have lost her’ (David H).

The dream says only too clearly how we often forget things that are so impor­tant to us, and fall into old habits.

The woman David was sleeping with was someone from his past he was unhappy with.

A feeling or fear of losing whatever you lost in the dream due to amnesia, such as yourself or your identity.

Escaping from your life or something in it, such as responsibilities or challenges.

Forgetting or escaping something in your past.

See Forgetting