In my practice of the psychologist I work with problems related to dreams. I am consulting with people who want to interpret especially frightening and puzzling their dreams. I want to share one clinical case where the person began to disturb the nightmares, when he thought about his death. For me it was a great honor to meet him. I'll call him Ivan.

a friend of mine asked me to meet his 94-year-old father, whom he described as a man of strong body and still having a bright mind. The problem was connected with his heart. He lived alone in his house. The old man was loved by family and friends. Led a fairly active lifestyle and had a lively character. Ivan was a brave and very kind person. Had leadership qualities and all around was to die in peace. But, unfortunately, he was stuck. The old man was determined not to die. This exalted determination was compounded by nightmares.

the old Man told me about his dream in which he felt alive in a dead body. In my dream, the client was sitting on the fence and at the same time could depart. It was a threshold beyond which was death. In the end, his body began to react. Then Ivan said, "Damn it all – I will not die!" The old man described a vivid archetypal dream where he had fled to the top of the mountain. Then he was in the prison building, the door of which was locked by the person calling, which was a huge angry dog. The client in this moment I thought: "My father taught me to always fight with their difficulties. Then I headed for the door. I said to the man with a huge dog: "the Power that is in me, greater your power." Instead of attacking me, the dog began to whine and ran over a man who opened doors for me that I immediately went in. Then Ivan was standing before another door, guarded by another person calling type. At the feet of the guard was lying a lion. The old man headed in their direction. Leo got up on his feet and ran away. I said to the man: "the Power in me, more power that's in you. The man moved aside, I opened the door and went outside, sun-drenched, and went home."

Even the mighty guards of the underworld is not able to intimidate my client. Similar mythopoetic images surfaced from the deep space of the psyche, named by Carl Jung collective unconscious. This space is especially available in the transitions from life to death, from which come the mystical characters, endowed with power and strength, which are irrelevant to the personal experience of the person, but directly related to the subject of mythology.

a Client told me that he was the youngest child in the family consisting of eight children, and he had problems with the sense of self-confidence. The problem lasted as long as his father taught Boxing. Then Ivan cultivate relationships with bullies. He then became an instructor in Boxing, teaching others to protect themselves. The dominant mental setting Ivan was a formula be strong, and the client was not prepared to refuse to follow it.

the state of mind of my client was complicated by constant nightmares. Came to him in dreams, was attended by several apocalyptic scenarios – the old man was walking along a long and steep cliff, holding the hand of his little daughter. Suddenly the rock crumbled, and the travelers fell into an avalanche of falling stone. In another dream he was walking on the ice edge of a huge river. At some point the ice broke, and the dying man was barely able to reach the shore. The client can begin to understand that we are talking about his health, which is "to dislocate". But, nevertheless, he refused to accept the reality of their own death in her 94 years. Then I remembered one of my elderly client, who once told me that he is in the waiting room. Why is Ivan so denied the possibility of death?

Ivan was also other dreadful dreams that he could not understand. I have the impression that they are related to the early stage of his life. In one of these dreams, the client saw a group of children who knocked at his door. The street was a windy storm and the kids wanted to take refuge in his house. The old man and his wife were happy to take the little Wanderers. Such assistance it has provided to the people in his real life. In this dream, a small child sat on the lap of Ivan, tightly clutching his dry old man's knee. In the eyes of a child was written apneusis horror. What he saw Ivan was moved to tears. At all desire the man as tried, couldn't see the huge eyes of the baby. Following your intuition in one of our conversations I asked Ivan what he was so scared when he was a little boy. Then the client recalled the story associated with his birth mother. His mother suffered from asthmatic attacks. The child had to watch as she gasps. Child weighed down by terrible thoughts that at one point his mother might die and then forever leave him alone.

the story of the suffocating from asthma mother became his way of death, lost in the early memories and surfaced out 90 years later, when people began to approach his own death.

Conclusion

Now my friend knows how to behave with his old father. He spends time with him, quietly talking on the topic of the possibility of death, surrounded by his family. Thus, my client had the opportunity to take another look at the prospect of death and in the end to accept its inevitability.