Pedophilia -or- Calling the RCMP
Holly, Age 31
I dreamt that a child led me on a bike to my childhood home, I was on a child’s bike.
I looked at the house and there were the new residents cars in the drive way. My old bedroom window had been broke, and someone had painted a Swastika in the window in burgundy nail polish. Two boys were sharing the room, they had balloons in there and lots of toys. Then night fell and I was looking for my cats but I could only find the new cats. One of them attacked me and the other purred when I touched it. Then I saw my stepfather walking in the dark. I went inside and poured a glass of wine.
My mother poured the same wine and said it tasted awful. She then began to scream at me and I asked her why she was doing that and she said because I do it to her all the time. I told her I was going to kill her and chased her up the stairs with a full wine bottle. When I got to the top of the stairs she hit me in the head with a wine bottle.
We fought and she bit me. I went into her bedroom and looked for something to write on that belonged to her, I found a pink envelope. I wrote on it a poem about her dying and told her to rest and die in the poem. I folded the paper and looked for a lighter to burn it with.
My mother came in and started to hit me again and I fought with her and we ended up on the bed. She said she was sorry and I let her go, then she attacked me again. Then I was having my picture taken by the newspapers and I saw a picture of myself smiling and one of my sister crying. I had been acquitted for my mother’s murder.
In waking life I consider my mother to be nothing less than pure evil. She is a pedophile and she and her husband molested me and many other children. She is an alcoholic drug addict and used to beat me and bite me when I was young, the last incident being when I was 21. I hate her and wouldn't shed a tear if she were killed, although I have no intention of doing it myself. I often have dreams that she is trying to rape me or kill me and I am really bothered by it.
Confidentiality –or- Calling the RCMP
I am ethically bound to confidentiality, there are only a few exceptions to this code of conduct . One exception is child abuse, I am ethically bound to disclose child abuse to the authorities. In this sense, as I understand it, I am unbound of my legal obligation to confidentiality. In the past, I have had disclosures in my private practice of child abuse on a number of occasions and have in such cases informed the Children’s Aid Society of the disclosure. Once, when doing a radio program where listeners were able to call in, the dream that one listener reported to me indicated that some form of child abuse had taken place. I carefully discussed the dream with the listener, and later I contacted the local police so they could investigate. In your case, I have contacted the RCMP, because all I have is your e-mail address and your nationality. It will then be up to the RCMP to deal with your disclosure and hopefully they do.
Children’s Nightmares and Children that Hate
The dream researcher Calvin Hall The Personality of a Child Molester: An Analysis of Dreams discussed at length the dreams of a convicted child abuser. In your case the abuse was perpetrated by your mother, which constitutes a form of incest. The work of Robert Stoller such as found in his books Perversion: The Erotic Form of Hatred and Observing the Erotic Imagination, provides insight and a perspective surrounding the psychodynamic processes of sexual arousal, thoughts and fantasies.
Your dream/nightmare begins with “I dreamt that a child led me on a bike to my childhood home, I was on a child’s bike.” The dream/nightmare indicates where the work of dealing with your hatred, needs to begin, namely with your “inner child” . There are many books that discuss the inner child, one that I have in my library is Charles L. Whitfield’s Healing The Child Within: Discovery and Recovery for Adult Children of Dysfunctional Families. There are other books as well, a list can be found at the end of this discussion of the inner child (click on link).
Pedophilia: Child Sexual Abuse and Child Pornography
Pedophilia is a specific form of the paraphilias and it is generally agreed that it constitutes a disorder of sexual arousal. The Diagnostic Statistical Manual (DSMIV) provides a diagnostic code for pedophilia, which is 302.2. In essence, we are speaking about sexual abuse of children. Evidently from news reports the World Wide Web is riddled with child pornographic websites and rings. Every so often, we hear in the news of websites and child porn rings being brought to justice. Recently in the news we heard that the Pope has been accused of covering up child molestation by members of the Catholic Church. Yet through your e-mail we see that pedophilia tragically goes on in dark places (as your dream points out) perhaps somewhere as we speak.
While the Public debate continues to rage about the harmful effects of pornography on behaviour, it is quite clear as a dream researcher (and therefore from a dream and dreaming perspective) that as early as 1970, studies have shown that pornography induces sexual dreams and dreaming. What the wikipedia article (follow link) about the 1970 Presidential Report of the Commission on Obscenity and Pornography does not tell you (the reader) is that the Commission did find the exposure to pornography increased the number of sexual dreams and sexual dreaming significantly.
President Richard Nixon (link to his statement) had this to say about the Presidential Report; “Pornography can corrupt a society and a civilization. The people's elected representatives have the right and obligation to prevent that corruption. The warped and brutal portrayal of sex in books, plays, magazines, and movies, if not halted and reversed, could poison the wellsprings of American and Western culture and civilization. The pollution of our culture, the pollution of our civilization with smut and filth is as serious a situation for the American people as the pollution of our once-pure air and water."
The Pornographic Industry: The Hidden Sexual Persuaders
I submit the argument to you (the reader), that pornography's influence of the unconscious and dream formation, in-itself constitutes a form of harm and victimization. Pornographies subliminal influence becomes just one more “hidden persuader” of the culture industries. The highly underrated sociologist Vance Packard The Hidden Persuaders already in 1957 showed how industry attempts to manipulate consumer perception and behaviour. Of course, the pornographic industry has a vested interest to manipulate and promote recurring sexual dreaming. Why? How else can they create an pornographically addicted consumer society?
To show you how far addicts will go, I am reminded of a man who had a cocaine and pornography addiction. He would take the cocaine and then watch a porn video. The effects of the cocaine on his perception would allow him “to get into and feel that he was taking part in the video”. In some ways this man’s behaviour while far pre-dating the popular TV series Californication it is in-itself a poor man’s stereotype of Charles Bukowski's life. Small wonder that David Duchovny (who plays the Californication’s character Hank Moody which is loosely based on Bukowsky’s life) was hospitalized for “sexual addiction” in 2008.
Poetics of Victimization: Hatred and the Pleasures of Death
In your dream you state that “I went into her bedroom and looked for something to write on that belonged to her, I found a pink envelope. I wrote on it a poem about her dying and told her to rest and die in the poem. I folded the paper and looked for a lighter to burn it with.”
While I know little about you and your life history and there are many questions that could be asked. Your dream provides credible evidence that you feel abused in some way. The dream poem you write in the privacy of your thoughts and feelings can be viewed as your “victim impact statement”. You find poetic gratification (pleasure) in your murderous rage and hatred (caused by your victimization), which is brought to the public’s attention by having your picture taken by the newspapers. You state that you are “smiling” and your sister is “crying” in the pictures. Begging the question of why is your sister is crying, while you are smiling? Some might view your attention seeking behaviour in public being motivated by sensationalism, while others may see it as providing a tragic human interest story. In your dream you have been the poetic author of retribution and schadenfreude towards your mother. In any event, in your mind, you have rationalized committing matricide. You have put your case infront of the public, and are acquitted of your mother’s death and therefore at least from your perspective, poetic justice has been served.
You have asked for help in understanding your dream.
I hope that these thoughts are of help to you.
Sincerely,
Mark H