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DREAM PROPHESY

Many people believe that dreams contain some message for the dreamer, often foretelling the future. One of the most famous dreams was that of the Pharaoh of Egypt, interpreted by Joseph and recorded in the Old Testament of the Bible (Genesis, chapter 4IX Joseph was sold to an Egyptian courtier as a slave. Because he was very handsome, his master's wife wanted to have an affair with him, but he refused. She became terribly upset and she told the master that Joseph had made love to her. The master put Joseph in prison.
Whilst in prison, he became well known for his ability to predict the future through dream interpretation.
One night the Pharaoh had a dream in which he was standing by the River Nile. He saw seven fat cows feeding on the grass, but then seven thin cows came up and ate the seven fat cows. In his next dream there were seven ears of good healthy corn and seven ears of withered corn blighted by the east wind; the seven thin ears swallowed up the seven good ears.
No one in the palace could interpret the dream. Joseph was called from the prison to interpret the Pharaoh's dream. Joseph explained that Egypt would have seven years of plenty followed by seven years of famine. The Pharaoh was very pleased with Joseph and made Joseph the Governor of Egypt. Joseph began stockpiling grain, and was able to do this for seven years. But the next seven years were ones of severe world-wide famine. Joseph had lots of grain, and became the most powerful man of his time, for soon the whole world was coming to Egypt to buy grain.
This is one of the many stories of dream prophecy, illustrating the fact that some people can dream what is going to happen in the future. It is believed that such people possess psychic power. But dreams are in fact a reflection of our inner feelings and unconscious thinking. Perhaps dreams represent a sixth sense—the ability of seeing into the future.
The psychiatrist Carl Jung had his own theory of the interpretation of dreams. Jung saw the mind as being divided into two main compartments, the conscious and the unconscious. Deep in the unconscious portion there is a part that is common to all mankind and he called this the 'collective unconscious'. The collective unconscious is the common denominator of our personalities irrespective of culture, race, and time. Jung thought there were two kinds of dream, the personal and the collective.
The collective dream obtains its source from the collective unconscious and is significant both to the individual and to society. Primitive people described the personal dream as the 'little' dream and the collective dream as the 'big' dream. The dream of the Pharaoh of Egypt was a big dream. It was of supreme importance to the people and, at that time, dreams were believed to be sent by God. At the time of the Pharaoh, cows and ears of corn both had tremendous meaning to the Egyptians, conveying symbolic meaning. Food and its accumulation meant power and stability. The Egyptians worshipped a god of corn, and they had sacred bulls. These were the symbols in the collective unconscious of the Egyptian mind.
But how Joseph was able to predict seven years of famine through a dream remains unanswered. Perhaps he was doing what the present day economists are doing all the time—predicting when our next recession will be.
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EPILEPSY AND PREGNANCY

Women with epilepsy are quite often concerned about getting pregnant. There appear to be five reasons for this concern. They wish to know:
if they are likely to hand their epilepsy on to their children;
whether their fits will get worse during pregnancy;
whether it is safe for the baby that the mother should take anticonvulsants drugs during pregnancy;
if there will be any problems in the newborn baby from these drugs;
if they can safely breast feed the baby.
With regard to handing on epilepsy to one’s children – as mentioned earlier, if one parent has epilepsy, the chances of one of the children having epilepsy are no greater than in the population at large. If both parents have epilepsy, it would appear that the risk of a child having epilepsy is about 10 per cent. So in fact the chance of a child inheriting epilepsy, particularly idiopathic epilepsy, is negligible.
As far as seizures during pregnancy are concerned, the situation is not as clear as it might be. There is evidence that for some women, seizure control may deteriorate, while for others there may in fact be no change or even an improvement. A patient told me recently that “she would like to remain pregnant forever” as she had not had a single fit during her pregnancy, compared with six fits in the preceding nine months!
As a general working rule, it is suggested that people who have more than one grand mal fit a month are those who are most likely to have a deterioration in seizure control during pregnancy. The deterioration, if it occurs, is most likely during the first three months of pregnancy. There are a number of theories why this may happen, but none has been proved. It may be of value to check the blood anticonvulsant levels during pregnancy, especially if there is a deterioration in seizure control. The blood levels may fall, necessitating an increase in dosage during the pregnancy.
The main concern for parents is whether the anticonvulsants can harm the unborn baby (foetus). It is known by most people with epilepsy that this is a potential hazard. The effects include physical abnormalities in the baby, a process known as teratogenesis. Abnormalities have been reported in the offspring of mothers on all the commonly used anticonvulsants with the exception of carbamazepine. This is particularly applicable to phenytoin, barbiturates and sodium valproate. Babies born to mothers who have been on carbamazepine have not been shown to have any physical abnormalities, but have a smaller head size than other babies. This has not been shown to be any handicap to the babies who have been followed up for five years.
The risk of abnormalities in the baby is difficult to assess, but it seems to be most common in mothers on polytherapy (receiving numerous drugs), especially if they are on three or more anticonvulsants. The risk in mothers on phenytoin, with or without other medications, appears to be about a 10% chance of the baby showing features of the ‘foetal hydantoin’ syndrome. This syndrome consists of cleft palate, abnormalities of the fingers, possible heart abnormalities and mild mental retardation. Thus, at present, if it is possible, it would seem wise to try to change patients over to carbamazepine before conception. This may not be possible in all patients and, of course, many women will first visit their doctor when already pregnant, at which time there is no purpose in making the change.
Anticonvulsants taken by the mother during pregnancy may have some effects on the baby immediately after birth, as they are transmitted to the baby across the placenta. These include the possibility of a mild bleeding tendency and some drowsiness. In mothers who have been taking barbiturates, the infant may occasionally show features of a withdrawal reaction with irritability, jitteriness and poor sucking. None of these features is [...]

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