‘’We suffer from dreams.
We heal with dreams.’’
Gaston Bachelard
The word ‘tumour’ evokes a certain that in the minds of all of us. Usually, they are war scenarios, made of struggle and resistance against the enemy: cancer. There is a strong fight for its annulment. Either us or him.
Although this type of narrative is still very present in the stories of cancer patients and their families, science and technology have changed the outcome and development of this battle.
Nowadays we know that survival from cancer is almost 50%, and the percentage rises to 80% for breast cancers. This enemy is becoming less and less powerful and, on some occasions, almost harmless (Prevention plays a fundamental role in this).
We are more often witnessing the phenomenon called ‘chronicisation of tumour pathology’. This means that more and more people are living with the condition for long years (reaching ten years and more in some cases more).
It does not matter how armed this enemy is. There are those who received the diagnosis in the prevention phase and after a small local operation had no other complications. There are those who have gone a long way and regularly visit their oncology department. It does not matter the statistics, the severity of the disease or whether it is a benign or malignant tumour.
Everyone finds himself/herself facing what the word ” tumour ” evokes. A battle against death in which the outcomes are, at best, uncertain.
This can induce a state of shock when the diagnosis is received. We are confronted with our limits and we realise that we are not immortal beings. We usually tend not to think about the possibility of one day being able to die. Receiving a diagnosis of this type puts us in front of this possibility.
One wonders about the meaning of one’s existence; discuss choices past and future and review priorities.
More and more often we are witnessing a change in the narrative, on the part of patients, regarding cancer.
An enemy to be destroyed.
An intrusive and unpleasant travel companion.
A roommate.
An opportunity.
A rebirth
This change of narrative and perspective corresponds to a therapeutic path aimed at better discovering oneself, one’s desires and one’s limits. A journey inside your own unconscious to rediscover the hidden or denied parts of yourself.
Dreams often make a great contribution in this regard.
For Adler, the dream “is a particular stance towards life” and its purpose is not so much its interpretation or the unveiling of the censored instances of our subconscious, but the feelings they leave within us.
More than its interpretation, therefore, the construction of meaning made by the dreamer is important. The construction of meaning can be done bought when the dreamer is “awake” and during the creative process when the dream is constituted.
Through this last perspective, in a clinical study by Bovero et al., it emerged that women with cancer have different dreams than other women who had never been confronted with this disease.
It emerged, for example, that women with breast cancer expressed negative emotional experiences related to the body self, body image and sexual identity in their dreams, as if “the mind no longer felt at home in the body”.
The positive emotional experiences of these women concerned the need for tenderness, care, beauty, and sexual desire. The positive emotional experiences, on the other hand, expressed by women with lung cancer mainly concerned a search for protection and a need for support.
Being able to make sense of our dreams, compare ourselves with them, admire their (and consequently our) creative force makes us remember and reaffirm our stance towards life, “a bridge built into the future” (Adler).
This process of awareness and construction of meaning strengthen the ability to deal with the disease, helping us, even through dreams, to affirm our stance towards life.
Therefore, through dreaming, the treatment process for fighting oncological disease can be consolidated.
To find out more, contact me.
Adaptation of an article I wrote for psycho-oncologists in 2016 (link no longer available)
Dr Vanessa Pozzali 