ABSTRACT
This commentary continues to explore the theme of killers in dreams, including ways we react to feeling emotionally wounded or murdered. Paired conjunctions of life and death tendencies play off one another in emotional life. We die physically only once, but mentally and emotionally we “die” many times. Emotional injury is inescapable in life. We resort to defenses to cope with emotional pain. When defenses become too rigid, engrained, or overused, they result in obstructing and murdering our embryonic nature causing psychic and emotional flow to stop. Although the author recognizes it is sometimes necessary to take refuge from emotional impacts, he suggests learning a kind of surrender to the fact of suffering, becoming familar with destructive forces within us, and dreaming our experiences, even destructive ones, by imaginatively engaging them. Good enough early life nurturing helps us maintain flexibility and ability to grow from rhythms of being murdered and then feeling alright again.
