First post from newbie! Hummingbird dream

[HopeforGoodDrea]

Hey all! I'm so glad I found this forum...I've been having a ton of weird dreams lately, and I've been sporadically writing them down, but I think I should make more of an effort to journal every time I wake up so that I can better remember these dreams. Anyhow, in the dream I'm standing outside on this really perfect day, and I see this hummingbird and it lands in my hands. I'm looking down at this little bird and I'm so happy and I have these feelings of love and joy, and I'm feeling so lucky that this little bird has landed in my hands. It was pretty awesome. Then, I see my mom, and I say something like, hey mom, look at how amazing this is, this bird landed in my hands! [NOTE: I should mention here that as a kid, she always used to put hummingbird feeders out in the yard and I liked watching them come and go. I think she also really liked hummingbirds, too.] So my mom doesn't say anything but she totally smacks the bird's head, and it flies away. And when she smacked it, I totally felt it in my head, I felt the pain, the the horror, sadness--but I don't think I felt any anger. I said something like, how could you do this to this little bird? Why would you do something like that? And it was weird that I don't remember getting mad in the dream, I was just sad. So I walked past her to the tree where the hummingbird landed and I started talking to it, and I opened up my hands and I said, come down little bird, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'll protect you, it's OK now. And the bird wouldn't come down at first, but after reassuring it for a little bit of time, it came down and landed on my finger, and then I made a little nest by cupping my hands, and I told it that everything was OK and I would take care of it. And that's it. It seems like an awesome dream, but it really triggered me this morning. I have depression/anxiety, and waking up from something like that hit me pretty hard.

[JoannaB]

For interpreting dreams like this it really helps to know a bit about the dreamer. For example, how is your relationship with your mother? How did she treat you when you were little? Did she ever smack you? Did she cause you to have trust issues or not feel free as a bird? Do you think your history with your mother has any relation to your depression? If not, then what are some issues on your mind? Also are you a parent now yourself? Sometimes when I dream about my mother, the dream is actually about myself in the role of mother. If this were the case then this could be a dream about you blaming yourself for something, feeling sad for something you think you did wrong. The bird could also represent yourself, a part of yourself that wants to fly, but has issues with trust maybe? A part of you that got hurt? A part of you that had so much potential for beauty. I struggle with depression myself as well. I think in part it is genetic on my mother's side of the family (my mother and maternal grandmother), but in part it may be due to my father being too strict and spanking me a lot when I was a kid and such. I am actually on this forum because I have an idea that I can overcome my periodic depression with lucid dreaming practice by increasing my self awareness to a point where I can stop it before it gets out of hand. Btw, I like that your dream ends on a positive note, that is very reassuring. I think that means that no matter what went wrong, you think it can be fixed through nurturing it. Maybe that's like my belief that I can overcome depression, do you have such a belief too? Edit: Btw, the smacking can of course be emotional not literal smacking. I think when my dad would get angry and shout at me it at times hurt more than the spanking. Also my wings got clipped when he persuaded me that my childhood dream of becoming a novelist was not a good idea for making a living, although I ultimately think he was probably right, and yet I cannot help but wonder what would have happened if I had felt free to follow my dreams. So do you have anything like that?

[HopeforGoodDrea]

Thanks, JoannaB! My relationship with my mom is pretty rocky. She was physically and mentally abusive, and as an adult, I harbor some resentment toward her but I am working through that in therapy. She is hard to trust, but I do recognize that lately, within the past year or so, she's been working on herself and has been diving fully into Buddhism. So she is working on that, which makes me happy. I definitely think that my relationship with her is a big part of my depression. My mom was definitely overprotective, but I found ways around that whenever she was at work. There are a bunch of other unresolved issues in my life that have surfaced, though (including mom stuff), so the depression I think has a lot to do with the therapy I've been in, because I'm trying to work through a lot of it. I'm actually not a mother myself. But maybe one day I will be. I wonder if you may be right about blaming myself for something I did wrong...I do blame myself for my unhappiness, and the fact that I feel like I'm backsliding into depression again after feeling pretty good for a bit. But you could also be right about myself being the bird...I absolutely feel like I stand in my own way in relationships and my work life. I always end up sabotaging myself, but I have definitely been hurt in the past by other people (like all of us have). Specifically, right now I'm in the middle of a weird situation with the man I love. We had been dating for over a year, and I broke it off with him the day after my birthday because I had been making myself paranoid that I didn't deserve how happy he made me. My therapist calls this Masochistic Equilibrium, where when you are happier than you are used to from your childhood, it makes you uncomfortable and you find ways to sabotage it. So I did that with my relationship. We've been talking every day, and I see him all the time, but things aren't the same, we aren't together even though I'd like to be, but he says that he can't trust me right now, to get back together, because he feels that I am emotional and might break up with him again. So we've been doing this dance and I'm very sad that we can't seem to work it out right now, but I really hope that one day we can. That's interesting what you say about overcoming depression with lucid dreaming...is that almost like hypnotizing yourself to change your brain's thinking patterns? I'm intrigued by this idea. I do believe we can overcome depression--we just have to really, really want it. Changing yourself and your thought patterns is so hard, but it's doable. I've met people who have done it, and I belong to a depression forum where people have said that they've been able to. I believe it may be a lifelong thing, to be mindful of your thoughts, and certain triggers may send you backsliding (like I am right now, it seems), but I firmly believe that self-awareness is one of the key aspects to fighting depression. One of the other tactics is actually facing your issues head-on. Even though I am currently not on medication, I am an advocate of it. It definitely helps a lot of people, but I think where many people go wrong is using it as a crutch rather than a tool to help them work through the underlying issues. BUT, I understand that there are certain types of depression that require lifelong medication, so this all depends on the person. Anyhow, long answer, but yes, I do believe there is hope for us. Note to your edit: I understand this, too. I do think it might be more of an emotional smacking. At least physical wounds can heal, but mental ones are harder to tackle. My mom definitely used to say similar things to me to clip my wings.

[JoannaB]

I don't mean overcoming depression through self hypnosis, it's all about increasing self awareness, intent and expectations, becoming aware of what goes on in one's own mind, and taking control of it, changing it for the better in an empowering way. Lucid dreaming is a hobby that requires a lot of preparation for most practitioners - some are lucky to be able to do without that, but I am not one of those. The preparation involves improving self awareness, mindfulness, short term memory, strengthening intensions and expectations, and learning to question reality - looking out for the weird. The intension behind doing that in preparation for lucid dreams is so that one learns to become aware that one is dreaming when one is dreaming, but from what you said I think you will recognize that lucid dream preparation can be effective for depression combat. Then once one is successful: lucid dreaming allows one to face one's fears and issues in dreams face to face, it allows one to question one's subconscious more directly, to analyze dreams while they are going on instead of after the fact - and ask questions of dream characters such as "why?" - now the dream characters may of course choose not to answer or give an unhelpful answer, but there is at least a chance that one will get some better answers. Furthermore lucid dreaming is very empowering at times, releases a lot of adrenaline into one's system, and makes one often wake up happy and stay happy all day after. My first lucid dream ever, I remember the day after I was like I was on some kind of happy drug - on top of the world. Now my subsequent lucid dreams were never as good as that first one for the aftermath strangely enough but I always feel better after them. Alas I have only succeeded in having 5 lucid dreams thus far since returning to the hobby in Feruary, and my last LD thus far was in July. Since then I did revert back into depression because I lost self awareness, but once I figured out what had happened, I was able to pull myself back out of depression much faster than ever before, only about two weeks from the time when I realized I was depressed to the time I knew I was ok and stabilized again. Part of why it took me so much less time is that when I came back to the lucid dream hobby in February I was depressed, and so before I could successfully lucid dream, I had to pull myself out of that. I increased my self awareness, and put together an anti-depression toolkit: a bunch of self improvement practices that help me pull myself out of depression. I came up with them back then, and now I knew what worked the last time, and was able to apply the same toolkit.

[HopeforGoodDrea]

I would absolutely LOVE to be able to ask questions in my dreams...I feel like as a kid, I was able to do this occasionally, like if I had dreams where I was flying I knew this couldn't happen in real life, so I knew I was dreaming, and I flew to some pretty awesome places. I haven't tried in awhile, but it would totally be worth a shot. I had a dream last night that I was being shot at by some guys with guns...and I would have loved to ask them why they were shooting at me. Being able to be happy right when you wake up would be wonderful, too. Awhile ago, I was waking up with anxiety every single day. It was ridiculous: I'd have maybe 30 seconds or so after I woke up, where everything seemed normal and I was at peace, and then all of a sudden the stomach knots would start and I was back where I started. it made it so that I never wanted to get out of bed and I just wanted to sleep all day. It is very easy to lose self-awareness, especially if you follow the spiral of ruminating or negative thoughts! I have fallen victim lately, but I pulled myself up today and hopefully I can keep reminding myself that I need to be responsible and get better. Two weeks is a great track record for stabilizing!

[HopeforGoodDrea]

I feel the need to update this thread because I had yet another dream about hummingbirds last night. In this dream, I'm with my friends and we're in some living room, and off by a wall is a shelf or table with a hummingbird's nest on it. And in the nest are two adorably cute, brown and red hummingbirds, sitting in the nest. I had thought there were three, but the third bird actually either morphed into a cute furry squirrel-like animal, or was always that furry animal, I can't recall. Also in the dream, my mom was off to the side, feeding the birds. So, I'm trying to figure out what it means in relation to the last one I had. It seems like a good dream, for sure.

[JoannaB]

I think a best is a safe intimate space, where one can be vulnerable and yet remain safe. The fact that you had different species peacefully coexisting in such a space, could for example be about different ideas or different beliefs or contradictions coexisting, perhaps in a live and let live sort of way. Since you and your mother and friend are there, this could be about your relations with your mother and your friend, or you attitude toward them / perception of them, or about diverse elements of your own personality which you acquired through your mom and your friendship perhaps? The two dreams are clearly part of a series in your mind. The first one was perhaps about betrayal of trust and difficulty in trusting after that, whereas the second perhaps shows that despite differences, coexistence is possible - perhaps a reestablishmeny of a measure of trust, despite the betrayal in earlier dream.