An Introduction to Your Dreams

Dreaming for Two: The Hidden Emotional Life of Expectant Mothers
by Sindy Greenberg, Elyse Kroll, Hillary Grill, M.S.W.

The first book to comprehensively explore the emotional life of expectant mothers.

The brainchild of three women-a journalist, an editor, and a psychotherapist-Dreaming for Two explores the dreams of expectant mothers and what they reveal about the complex emotions that accompany pregnancy. Filled with a wide-ranging collection of real-life dreams, this one-of-a-kind book analyzes the unconscious thoughts and feelings behind the vivid, frequently intense visions experienced by expectant mothers. From their changing sense of identity to their evolving relationships with family, friends, and their unborn child, Dreaming for Two helps pregnant women understand what dreams tell them about their deepest hopes and fears about their imminent motherhood.

The enormous transformations that take place during pregnancy-psychological, emotional, and physical-often cause women to dream more intensely. During this time of heightened sensitivity and widely varied emotions, these images can provide an important key to an expectant mother's state of mind and innermost feelings. Dreaming for Two helps the expectant mother develop the tools to examine her dreams, discover new ways to cope with the vast changes pregnancy brings, and confront concerns about everything from her career, to her sexuality, to giving birth, and whether or not she will be an effective mother.

Dreaming for Two is a fascinating, accessible book that belongs on every expectant mother's bookshelf.

If dreams are, as Freud claimed, the royal road to the unconscious, then for expectant mothers, dreams are a high-speed expressway. If you're pregnant, your dream life has probably changed. Your dreams may have become richer, more vivid, and deeply entangled with the new life growing within you. Like dreaming, venturing into motherhood can seem like a journey to a faraway, mysterious, and sometimes frightening place. While doctors and scientists have charted the physical road we travel during pregnancy, the psychological and emotional changes that confront us on this journey are still shrouded in mystery.

Since the end of the nineteenth century, when Freud published The Interpretation of Dreams, psychotherapists of diverse schools of thought have acknowledged the connection between our dream lives and our conscious, emotional lives. When we sleep, our usual psychological and emotional defenses weaken, as do our inhibitions. This relaxing of the mind allows our dreams to depict a more honest version of our conflicts and of ourselves than we may be willing to acknowledge in our waking hours. But what exactly are dreams?

Dreams occur during the periods of sleep characterized by rapid eye movement, known as REM sleep, which begins about ninety minutes after falling asleep and occurs at regular intervals about four times a night. During REM sleep, the brain blocks out external stimuli (with the occasional exception of a ringing phone or alarm clock, which can find its way into a dream) and relates wildly disparate events, emotions, and images that wouldn't necessarily be associated with one another. Recalled in the light of day, these often bizarre and surreal nocturnal visions can provide access to the deepest recesses of the psyche. It's worth noting that we appear in nearly all our dreams and we almost always play the starring role.

Dreams are thought to represent an amalgam of unconscious conflicts, usually old, unresolved issues; conscious conflicts, generally current issues; and what Freud called the "day residue," events and images from the day. By allowing ourselves to review our conflicts while we sleep, we're attempting to work through and cope with the issues that trouble us. During pregnancy, this means our dream lives can help ease our transition to motherhood.

Each night we have an average of four to five dreams, one during each cycle of REM sleep. If you're expecting, it may seem like you're dreaming more frequently, but actually, you're just remembering more of your dreams. There are physical and psychological reasons for this. During pregnancy, we're often light sleepers. This can simply be the result of frequent trips to the bathroom, as well as the difficulty of finding a comfortable position in which to sleep. But it can also be caused by the new issues and concerns facing us-issues that are channeled into our dreams because we may be unable to confront them at any other time. The more our sleep is interrupted, the more likely we are to awaken during or close to an REM cycle, which makes it easier for us to remember our dreams.

Our dream lives during pregnancy can reveal the deep issues and concerns facing us. It can make us question everything about ourselves, including our suitability for motherhood. For example, a woman dreams she's with her baby at the supermarket, but when she looks for the baby in her shopping cart, she realizes she's left it somewhere else. Panicked, she begins ripping boxes of diapers off the shelves, looking for her baby in the spaces left behind them. The imagery of this dream-a lost or misplaced baby-can be read as feeling unprepared for motherhood. This is a common theme in the dreams of expectant mothers, so if you've dreamt similarly, rest assured that you have company and that you can be a good mother.

As you read the following dreams, you'll find they range from hilarious to frightening to surreal. You'll also become familiar with the idea of associating thoughts and feelings to dreams, looking for their signals, and cracking the codes they contain. Hopefully, this will encourage you to explore your own dreams with a sense of freedom and fun as you enter this dramatically new and exciting time of your life. You may also be surprised to discover that no matter how far your imagination takes you, you're not alone-even in your dreams.

From Dreaming for Two by Sindy Greenberg, Elyse Kroll, and Hillary Grill, M.S.W. by permission of Dutton, a member of Penguin Putnam Inc. Copyright © Sindy Greenberg, Elyse Kroll, and Hillary Grill, 2002. All rights reserved. This excerpt, or any parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission.

About the Author

Sindy Greenberg is a journalist who has written for The New York Times, The New York Observer, and Gourmet, among other publications. She lives in New York City.

Elyse Kroll is a New York City-based style writer, and was most recently a senior editor with Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia. She lives with her husband and son in New York City.

Hillary Grill, M.S.W., is a psychotherapist in private practice. She has been on-staff at the Mount Sinai Medical Center. Her practice is in New York City, where she lives with her husband and two daughters.