Dementia and Other Dimensions
By Leah Light, © 2004
There are labels for mom's condition: senility, Alzheimer's, dementia. There are informal labels, too, more often whispered in days past: she's losing her mind, off her rocker, or is a few bricks shy of a full load. They all describe one whose physical existence has outlasted mental faculties. Lights are on, but nobody's home.
It's uncomfortable seeing a person in Mom's condition. That's why it's easier to stay away from nursing homes like the one where my mother now lives. It's a reminder that this same fate could befall us; we are forced to face our own human frailty, and ultimately, our mortality.
Mom's frailty has increased very gradually over the past decade or more. Five of those years she lived with me before going into the home. During that time, on the whole, her mind was intact and she functioned well for her advanced age. Then came the times she heard music in her head or insects buzzing under her bed, sounds that no one else could hear. For months she heard a male voice singing the same song over and over again. She said it sounded like chanting and he was just far away enough that she couldn't catch the words. She found him very irritating and wished he would stop. I wondered if this meant that the “veil” was thinning and she was getting a bleed-through from the next world. Could that male voice have been a spirit guide? If so, like many of us, she was actively resisting his message.
As her vision decreased, she also saw things that weren't there. Her eye doctor explained that when a person loses part of their vision, the brain will make up things to fill the empty space. Or, from my metaphysical perspective, the empty space might represent a hole in this dimension, through which it was possible to see and hear other realities.
Then there were the mini-strokes, or TIA's that would disable Mom for a few hours at a time, after which she would bounce back to normal. One of these rendered her temporarily unable to speak; her words came out in a gutteral, German kind of sound. English is her only language, at least this time.
I remember one evening when Mom took an interest in a TV special on Egypt. Afterward she excitedly called me into her room. She wanted to know if I could see hieroglyphics written in grease pencil on her bedroom walls, which of course to my eyes were not there. Quite possibly the scenes of ancient Egypt had triggered memories for her of past-life experiences in that region.
Past-life memories may likewise have been triggered for Mom about 30 years ago when my parents made a trip to England. While there, Mom became sick with pneumonia. The lungs, located at the heart chakra, are very much connected with emotions. Thus I've always suspected that some Anglo Saxon tragic memory was triggered. My mom has never embraced reincarnation. Yet she has said that inexplicably, whenever she hears bagpipes, her heart swells with pride. Heart chakra again. Incidentally, she is not from the British Isles, again not this time anyway, nor was she raised in that culture, though she does have some English and Welsh in her bloodline. Perhaps cellular/genetic memory is also coming into play.
Towards the end of the time she lived with me, her mind was slipping intermittently. It was as if she had a loose wire. At times she'd be very lucid and we'd have a normal, intelligent conversation. Then a few minutes later she'd call to me from the hallway outside her bedroom, “Can you tell me which way to the bathroom?” And this occurred in the house where she had lived for more than 50 years. One day when my fiancé came over for a visit, she wanted to know who the other two men with him were. He was alone. I wondered if she was perhaps seeing his guides or spirit friends. On another occasion, my friend Laurie looked after Mom while I was out one evening. Afterward Mom told me about the delightful evening she'd had with the “group of women” who had come to visit. Laurie is a healer and rather animated person, so I wouldn't be surprised if she had an entire entourage of spirit friends and helpers surrounding her at any given time.
Mom is in the Alzheimers/Dementia unit at the home now, where many of the residents are childlike. I've watched a lady with chubby cheeks and bright eyes sing potty songs. Obviously, she's stuck at about age two. Mom also slips into her second childhood at times. She repeats old stories from 75 years or more ago as if they are going on this minute. She sometimes wanders the halls at night, not unlike a toddler in search of her parents' bed. Once the nursing staff told me they'd found her on the floor in the middle of the night. She was unhurt; in fact, she was giggling. She and her brother were being chased by chickens, she had said.
Some of the residents are stuck in an emotion or will relive an event that they re-tell over and over. On the other hand, it appears to me that Mom is in the process of becoming “unstuck.” A bright woman, she always had a mental grasp on everything, including uncomfortable emotions. I'm convinced Mom is way behind on feeling her feelings, partly due to her generation's mindset: buck up, no whining or self-pity; just do your duty. Also, an analytical Virgo, Mom was most comfortable living in her head and thereby avoiding what she perceived as dangerous emotional territory. The backlog has caught up to her now and she laughs and sometimes weeps hysterically. She's out of control, and it's probably healthy. Her soul is seeking balance, finding it's way out of the stiff corset of willpower and self-control in which she lived most of her life. She's returning to a pure childlike state when we are real in the moment. We yell when we're angry, cry when we're sad, and laugh hysterically, without control or restraint.
On the surface, Mom may appear to be just a confused or crazy old lady. But if you look just beyond the illusion, you will see a soul who is processing a lifetime of experiences in preparation to return Home for some long-awaited R&R.
There are labels for mom's condition: senility, Alzheimer's, dementia. There are informal labels, too, more often whispered in days past: she's losing her mind, off her rocker, or is a few bricks shy of a full load. They all describe one whose physical existence has outlasted mental faculties. Lights are on, but nobody's home.
It's uncomfortable seeing a person in Mom's condition. That's why it's easier to stay away from nursing homes like the one where my mother now lives. It's a reminder that this same fate could befall us; we are forced to face our own human frailty, and ultimately, our mortality.
Mom's frailty has increased very gradually over the past decade or more. Five of those years she lived with me before going into the home. During that time, on the whole, her mind was intact and she functioned well for her advanced age. Then came the times she heard music in her head or insects buzzing under her bed, sounds that no one else could hear. For months she heard a male voice singing the same song over and over again. She said it sounded like chanting and he was just far away enough that she couldn't catch the words. She found him very irritating and wished he would stop. I wondered if this meant that the “veil” was thinning and she was getting a bleed-through from the next world. Could that male voice have been a spirit guide? If so, like many of us, she was actively resisting his message.
As her vision decreased, she also saw things that weren't there. Her eye doctor explained that when a person loses part of their vision, the brain will make up things to fill the empty space. Or, from my metaphysical perspective, the empty space might represent a hole in this dimension, through which it was possible to see and hear other realities.
Then there were the mini-strokes, or TIA's that would disable Mom for a few hours at a time, after which she would bounce back to normal. One of these rendered her temporarily unable to speak; her words came out in a gutteral, German kind of sound. English is her only language, at least this time.
I remember one evening when Mom took an interest in a TV special on Egypt. Afterward she excitedly called me into her room. She wanted to know if I could see hieroglyphics written in grease pencil on her bedroom walls, which of course to my eyes were not there. Quite possibly the scenes of ancient Egypt had triggered memories for her of past-life experiences in that region.
Past-life memories may likewise have been triggered for Mom about 30 years ago when my parents made a trip to England. While there, Mom became sick with pneumonia. The lungs, located at the heart chakra, are very much connected with emotions. Thus I've always suspected that some Anglo Saxon tragic memory was triggered. My mom has never embraced reincarnation. Yet she has said that inexplicably, whenever she hears bagpipes, her heart swells with pride. Heart chakra again. Incidentally, she is not from the British Isles, again not this time anyway, nor was she raised in that culture, though she does have some English and Welsh in her bloodline. Perhaps cellular/genetic memory is also coming into play.
Towards the end of the time she lived with me, her mind was slipping intermittently. It was as if she had a loose wire. At times she'd be very lucid and we'd have a normal, intelligent conversation. Then a few minutes later she'd call to me from the hallway outside her bedroom, “Can you tell me which way to the bathroom?” And this occurred in the house where she had lived for more than 50 years. One day when my fiancé came over for a visit, she wanted to know who the other two men with him were. He was alone. I wondered if she was perhaps seeing his guides or spirit friends. On another occasion, my friend Laurie looked after Mom while I was out one evening. Afterward Mom told me about the delightful evening she'd had with the “group of women” who had come to visit. Laurie is a healer and rather animated person, so I wouldn't be surprised if she had an entire entourage of spirit friends and helpers surrounding her at any given time.
Mom is in the Alzheimers/Dementia unit at the home now, where many of the residents are childlike. I've watched a lady with chubby cheeks and bright eyes sing potty songs. Obviously, she's stuck at about age two. Mom also slips into her second childhood at times. She repeats old stories from 75 years or more ago as if they are going on this minute. She sometimes wanders the halls at night, not unlike a toddler in search of her parents' bed. Once the nursing staff told me they'd found her on the floor in the middle of the night. She was unhurt; in fact, she was giggling. She and her brother were being chased by chickens, she had said.
Some of the residents are stuck in an emotion or will relive an event that they re-tell over and over. On the other hand, it appears to me that Mom is in the process of becoming “unstuck.” A bright woman, she always had a mental grasp on everything, including uncomfortable emotions. I'm convinced Mom is way behind on feeling her feelings, partly due to her generation's mindset: buck up, no whining or self-pity; just do your duty. Also, an analytical Virgo, Mom was most comfortable living in her head and thereby avoiding what she perceived as dangerous emotional territory. The backlog has caught up to her now and she laughs and sometimes weeps hysterically. She's out of control, and it's probably healthy. Her soul is seeking balance, finding it's way out of the stiff corset of willpower and self-control in which she lived most of her life. She's returning to a pure childlike state when we are real in the moment. We yell when we're angry, cry when we're sad, and laugh hysterically, without control or restraint.
On the surface, Mom may appear to be just a confused or crazy old lady. But if you look just beyond the illusion, you will see a soul who is processing a lifetime of experiences in preparation to return Home for some long-awaited R&R.
