I was born with 9 toes, 5 on the right foot and 4 on the other. Upon being informed of this, my father immediately called in a specialist to forsee any problems, and was informed that usually the four-toed leg and foot grew more slowly than the normal, five-toed one. That was the case for me. By the time I was 11 years old I had a 10-11 centimeter difference and -according to my grandmother- walked with a slight hop-skip-and-jump. My parents were conscientious care-givers and I was sent (from Mexico where we lived) to New York for the necessary operation: the doctors would slightly stunt the growth in the right leg and by the time I reached my complete height, my legs would have more or less evened out (yes, it was successful: today I am 18mm off balance needing a slight lift in my left shoe, but that is all). The operation went well, I was returned to my parents in Mexico on crutches, and soon resumed my normal life.

Nevertheless, it was after this operation that the nightmare began. I would dream that I awoke from a deep sleep and found myself on a a cold, metal operating table. At the foot of the operating table, a group of men (I presumed doctors) were talking in loud, anxious voices. I could hear them clearly but, for some reason, couldn’t understand what they were saying. I knew immediately, however, that they were discussing something important that had to do with me and terror would grip my heart… and pull me out of the nightmare. I would awake terror-stricken without knowing why.

During adolescence, the nightmare repeated quite often and always left me weak and trembling upon pulling myself out of it. I was sure that the cause of said suffering was the operation I had just previous to its onset. As I matured, got married and had my own children the nightmare became less and less frequent until eventually it ceased altogether. By the time I was in my thirties it had stopped happening all together.

Life went on children grew and married, I divorced and fell in love again, and it was one day -living with my new husband- that I had the horrid nightmare again. I was fifty years old at the time. To say the least, I was very surprised. The next morning I was doing my exercise on the treadmill and thinking about the dream when the truth hit me: !!!It was not a dream about my operation at 11 years old, but rather I was dreaming about my birth!!!! Immediately I knew this was true and that was the reason I couldn’t understand what the group of men at the foot of the operating table were talking about…. ¡I couldn’t talk yet!

Of course, the moment you understand the meaning of a nightmare, it can rest … its job is done. It has not repeated since and that was over 30 years ago.

The nightmare was about my birth experience. I was born cesarean -popped like a pea from the shell of my mother- so there was no effort or preparation; I must have been placed upon a surface or in a basin (to be washed off) while the doctors informed my father of the missing toe, and my father -Spaniard that he was- must have begun yelling: “¡Bring me a specialist! ¡Check her thoroughly to see if anything else is missing!” and heaven knows what else, and the doctors were explaining the possible problems… and I was terrified...

Two things became immediately clear: the “me” consciousness that already exists in the new-born so, undoubtedly, even before, and the fact that an un-explained (and therefore, not understood) trauma can repeat in the dream-mind for 50 or more years until it is explained. After the realization about where its content came from, I have not had that particular nightmare ever again.