Undertanding Natrum carbonicum

Dr Claudio C. Araujo M.D., F.F.Hom. (Lon.) et al.

This dream, brought up during the proving, gives us a starting picture of who the Nat-c. patient will present himself to us. 

His desires and pleasures, so to say his way of living, are connected to the possibility of have, first: “two women”.

Increased sexual desire; priapism. 

Nocturnal erections and pollutions, or emissions without erections. 

A kind of priapismus towards morning, followed by an emission without any sexual desire, with tensive pain and cutting in the penis; this pain lasted as long as the erection, over an hour; even on leaving the bed he still felt a very disagreeable tension in the penis (seventh day), [8]. 

Great desire for an emission after dinner, and also in the evening, without real sexual desire; after dinner, this desire returned while the legs were crossed, but disappeared on walking about, it returned in the evening, while lying down (ninth and fourteenth days), [8]. 

Sexual desire, in the morning after drinking beer, followed by a flat, sweetish taste in the mouth (twenty-fifth day), [8]. 

Excessive sexual desire on even touching a girl (tenth day), [8]. 

Confused, voluptuous dreams, during a restless sleep, with violent erections and emissions, [1].

Also: of attending parties, walks, entertainments, and excursions on horseback

Lively, sociable mood, [1]. 

Excessively lively all day, with great joyous talkativeness, [4]. 

Great inclination to sing, and singing to himself half aloud, for several days (after twenty-four hours), [1]. 

Much more hunger and appetite for breakfast than usual (first day), [8]. 

Hunger for breakfast, but he had scarcely satisfied himself, when there was a pressure in the stomach, and he became ill-humored (twenty-sixth day), [8]

He became hungry towards noon, contrary to habit, though he had eaten a good breakfast; was obliged to eat a piece of bread and butter, when the weak sensation disappeared (third and fourth days), [8]. 

Very ill-humored after supper, especially after copious drinking, with pressure in the pit of the stomach, right and left hypochondrium (twentieth day), [8]. 

But after having sex with more than one woman and enjoying himself from eating and drinking, Natrum carb. is subject to punishment. He has vexatious dreams, with murders and have his ears cut off. (Cropping was a form of punishment used since the Babylonian years, only to be ended in 1839).

*Cropping is the removal of a person's ears as an act of physical punishment.[1] It was performed along with the pillorying or immobilisation in the stocks,[2][3] and sometimes alongside punishments such as branding or fines.[2]

Cropping sometimes occurred as a standalone punishment (such as in the case of William Prynne for seditious libel),[5] where criminals' ears would be cut off with a blade. Cropping was also a secondary punishment to having criminals' ears nailed to the pillory (with the intention that their body movements would tear them off).[5] In the case of Thomas Barrie(1538), he spent a whole day with his ears nailed to the pillory in Newbury, England, before having them cut off to release him.[6] 

Cropping is mentioned in ancient Assyrian law and the Babylonian Code of Hammurabi.

Cropping was quite rare in England, but more common in Guernsey.[7] Notable cases of cropping in England include Thomas Barrie in 1538, who reputedly died from shock following his cropping,[6] and John Bastwick, William Prynne, and Henry Burton in 1637.[8] In the 16th century, Henry VIII amended the laws on vagrancy to decree that first offences would be punished with three days in the stocks, second offences with cropping, and third offences with hanging.[9]

Records show that cropping took place in the United States in the late 18th century, particularly in states such as Pennsylvania[2] and Tennessee.[3] In Rhode Island, cropping was a punishment for crimes such as counterfeiting money, perjury, and "burning houses, barns, and outbuildings" (but not amounting to arson).[10] Cropping (along with the pillory and stocks) was abolished in Tennessee in 1829, with abolition further afield starting from approximately 1839.

Source: Wikipedia

The last part of the dream above is that he had a sensation of useless efforts. Of going nowhere, he had to come back from a travel or he is impeded to proceed.

His travel becomes a frustration, as he can’t go further, he had to return at “the first station”.

Dream of a journey, though she could not take it, because something seemed to hold her back; a kind of nightmare (seventh day), [7].

A kind of nightmare, at night, at the full moon, he could not move on waking (after eighteen days), [1]. 

…he would take a journey and could not get away from the place, and when he had reached the first station was obliged to turn back, on account of something he had forgotten, etc., [8].

If we combined those three faces of this dream, we could probably ascertain the very external picture of Nat-c., the person that will come in in our praxis:

He will be someone who wanted to live partying, drinking and eating.

Probably he came due to digestive ailments, after a long line of parties, food abuse and debauch.

He is in a very bad mood and he will complaining that his gloomy mood is related to digestion.

Very ill-humored after supper, especially after copious drinking, with pressure in the pit of the stomach, right and left hypochondrium (twentieth day), [8]. 

Fretful, peevish, and ill-humored, after eating; towards evening he was livelier (fourth day), [8].

Very fretful for several days after dinner, and still more after supper, [8]. 

Very fretful, peevish, and restless after dinner; he is uncomfortable everywhere; the room seems too small for him, and even in the open air he walks about without anything seeming right to him; it diminished towards evening (first and fourth days), [8]. 

 He feels as his complaints were a sort of punishment and he will hate humanity, his fellow beings, for that. He will be described as a “bilious subject”.

Inclined to anger, [1]. 

Easily provoked to anger; with a lively mood, [1]. 

She becomes vexed and angry about trifles, [8]. 

He is angry, and inclined to fight and strike, and cannot tolerate contradiction, in the forenoon (eleventh day), [7]. 

Aversion to mankind and society; estrangement from individuals and society, even from her husband and family. 

He shuns mankind, [4]. 

Very fretful and discontented with the whole world; he constantly felt as though he could beat himself, his whole life angered him, and he preferred to have no existence at all; he was solicitous about the future, and inclined to despair, all day (second day),

Depressed and exceedingly irritable, particularly after dinner; hypochondriasis; > as food passes out of stomach into duodenum and down into bowels; averse to society, even to his own family; indigestion, < after vegetable diet, particularly starchy foods; sour eructation; waterbrash; retching in morning ; spasmodic contraction of œsophagus and stomach, with little or nothing coming to mouth; copious salivation; abdomen hard and swollen, especially after eating; accumulation of flatus, fetid when passed; griping colic just after a meal; stool difficult to expel, though not hard. θ Indigestion.

Dream of a quarrel, in which he stabbed his antagonist in the chest with a large knife (fifth night), [7]. 

He could be someone not successful in his business if he has something like that.

Nat-c. is averse to work and study. We believe that his inclination to party and sex is closed related his lack of desire to work and study. Like the symptom who says:

He has no desire to do anything, and can keep at nothing long, [1]. 

Dislike for business; he goes about idly, but when once at work, it goes on as usual (after three days), [8].

Mood sluggish, phlegmatic, indolent (fifth day), [1]. 

A psychotic Nat-c. may have a sexual crave for children, or to say, pedophilia:

Excessive sexual desire on even touching a girl (tenth day), [8]. 

So, why? Why has he got himself into that kind of living? Why he is so alone, so averse to company, why he has no friends and even hates mankind? Why he is into so much eating, drinking and partying?

Nat-c. has this feeling inside: everything will go wrong with him. 

Anxiety and restlessness; he thought he could do nothing properly, [4]. 

His fancy is mostly busy with apprehensions of the future; he often makes plans for half an hour at a time, as if it would go wrong with him, wherewith he seeks to be alone, for several days together (after twelve days), [8]. 

She does not know what to do, on account of apprehensiveness and ennui, and thinks that she is quite lonely and forsaken, all day (sixth day), [7]. 

Ennui; he is absorbed in himself, and does not even know how he is, in the morning (fourth day), [15]. 

Is this impression inside himself from the very beginning? 

Is through this lenses of being “forsaken and nor even know how he is” that he looked into the world? 

That’s our hypothesis. That this is his first understanding of himself and of people around him. He can make no plans and he has no hope. 

He hates the sun; he hates the music and he is averse to his mother’s milk. 

Do those generals have something in common?

 Mother’s milk, our first nourishment, our first bond to someone; 

The sun, the one who provides all the energy that sustains nature and our civilization. 

Music, the human way to express happiness, to communicate and to celebrate.

Nat-c. don’t know who he is, don’t know what to do with his own life. He is lost in this planet, in this reality, without any means to survive, to establish contact with the others. Any small undertaking comes altogether with the sensation that he will fail. Everything he tries will fail.

He is lonely and forsaken.

He can’t move, is paralyzed.

He don’t know who he is.

Probably partying, eating in excess and the strong sexual activity comes into his life as a palliative, a strategy to survive. There’s nothing left to him but a life of compensation and misjudgment of others. And then comes all the trouble…

Groups in Natrum carbonicum

Symptoms from Hering, Allen, Hahnemann & Kent

Dr. Claudio C. Araujo M.D., F.F.Hom. (Lon.)

Humor

Lively

Lively, sociable mood, [1]. 

Excessively lively all day, with great joyous talkativeness, [4]. 

Great inclination to sing, and singing to himself half aloud, for several days (after twenty-four hours), [1]. 

Alternately sad and joyous, [7]. 

Anxiety

Anxiety; trembling and sweat during pains. 

Anxiety in the evening, after a footbath of three or four minutes, so that she could not fall asleep for an hour and a half, [1]. 

Anxiety, with tremulous beating of the whole body, [1].

Anxiety and hasty restlessness all day; he could not keep the limbs still, especially the arms; obliged to stretch them; it seemed as though they would be torn asunder, [7]. 

Daily attacks of anxiety, with perspiration on the face, several times a day, lasting a quarter of an hour, without pain, [1]. [20.] 

The weather causes less anxiety than usual (curative action), [8]. 

Sadness and melancholy

Sadness; depression of spirits; hypochondriacal mood.

Intolerable melancholy and apprehension; she is wholly occupied with sad thoughts. 

Disinclination to talk (sixth day), [7]. 

Joylessness, [1]. 

Lachrymose, for several days, [1]. 

Sad, depressed (twenty-ninth day), [1]. [10.] 

Sad, melancholy, tremulous, and inclined to weep, with constant sighing, and physical prostration (fourth day), [7]. 

Intolerable melancholy and apprehension; she was wholly occupied with sad thoughts (second day), [7]. 

Sorrowful mood (after six days), [1]. 

Depressed, extremely despondent mood, [1]. 

Weary of life, in the morning on waking (eighteenth day), [1]. 

Ill-humored, fretful and peevish

Ill-humored and solicitous, [1].

Ill-humor, discontented and almost inconsolable, [4]. 

Very ill-humored after supper, especially after copious drinking, with pressure in the pit of the stomach, right and left hypochondrium (twentieth day), [8]. 

Fretful mood, almost constantly till the thirtieth day, [8]. 

Fretfulness without cause, [1]. 

Fretfulness, in the evening (after ten hours), [1]. 

Fretful, though with a desire to work, [4]. 

Fretful and peevish; one can do nothing right (fifth day), [7]. 

Fretful, peevish, and ill-humored, after eating; towards evening he was more lively (fourth day), [8]. [40.] 

Very fretful for several days after dinner, and still more after supper, [8]. 

Very fretful, peevish, and restless after dinner; he is uncomfortable everywhere; the room seems too small for him, and even in the open air he walks about without anything seeming right to him; it diminished towards evening (first and fourth days), [8]. 

Peevish (after twenty-four hours), [1]. 

Peevish, irritable mood, [1]. 

Irritable, excitable mood.

Anger

Inclined to anger, [1]. 

Easily provoked to anger; with a lively mood, [1]. 

She becomes vexed and angry about trifles, [8]. 

He is angry, and inclined to fight and strike, and cannot tolerate contradiction, in the forenoon (eleventh day), [7]. 

Very sensitive, in the forenoon, as after a vexation (after two days), [1]. [50.] 

Indifference (after ten days), [1].

Mood sluggish, phlegmatic, indolent (fifth day), [1]. 

Indifference.

Internal restlessness, [1]. 

Restlessness, with attacks of anxiety, especially during a thunderstorm; < from music. 

With Oneself

Resolute, persevering, self-possessed, courageous, [4]. 

Sensation of loss of will power, in the morning on waking, [1]. 

Anxiety and restlessness; he thought he could do nothing properly, [4]. 

Constant fear and forebodings. 

His fancy is mostly busy with apprehensions of the future; he often makes plans for half an hour at a time, as if it would go wrong with him, wherewith he seeks to be alone, for several days together (after twelve days), [8]. 

She does not know what to do, on account of apprehensiveness and ennui, and thinks that she is quite lonely and forsaken, all day (sixth day), [7]. 

Feeling of apprehension in the head (after three days), [1]. 

Great apprehensiveness after dinner, lasting till evening (twenty-first day), [7]. 

Anxious, solicitous about himself, [4]. 

Great timidity, [1]. 

He is very timid, and starts at the slightest noise (twelfth day), [8].

Ennui; he is absorbed in himself, and does not even know how he is, in the morning (fourth day), [15]. 

Hungry

Much more hunger and appetite for breakfast than usual (first day), [8]. 

Hunger for breakfast, but he had scarcely satisfied himself, when there was a pressure in the stomach, and he became ill-humored (twenty-sixth day), [8]

He became hungry towards noon, contrary to habit, though he had eaten a good breakfast; was obliged to eat a piece of bread and butter, when the weak sensation disappeared (third and fourth days), [8]. 

Milk

Aversion to milk, ordinarily her favorite diet (first

After eating: hypochondriacal; weak digestion; pressure in stomach; eructations; distress and tenderness, with palpitation (may also follow abuse of soda crackers).

With the Others

Aversion to mankind

Aversion to mankind and society; estrangement from individuals and society, even from her husband and family. 

Anthropophobia and fearfulness (second day), [1].

He shuns mankind, [4]. 

Very fretful and discontented with the whole world; he constantly felt as though he could beat himself, his whole life angered him, and he preferred to have no existence at all; he was solicitous about the future, and inclined to despair, all day (second day), [8]. 

Depressed and exceedingly irritable, particularly after dinner; hypochondriasis ; > as food passes out of stomach into duodenum and down into bowels; averse to society, even to his own family; indigestion, < after vegetable diet, particularly starchy foods ; sour eructation; waterbrash; retching in morning ; spasmodic contraction of esophagus and stomach, with little or nothing coming to mouth ; copious salivation ; abdomen hard and swollen, especially after eating ; accumulation of flatus, fetid when passed ; griping colic just after a meal ; stool difficult to expel, though not hard. θ Indigestion. 

Avarice; maliciousness.

Dream of robbers, thieves, etc., all night (after fourteen days), [7]. 

Anxious, vivid, frightful dreams of thieves, from which he started up with a loud cry, and when awake could scarcely realize that his fears were groundless (after six hours), [1]. 

Dream of a quarrel, in which he stabbed his antagonist in the chest with a large knife (fifth night), [7]. 

Very vivid dreams of the features of a corpse, [4]. 

Dream that she saw a corpse, at which she woke in fright, when it seemed as though a dead acquaintance stood before her, which made her scream aloud, afterwards she fell asleep again (third night), [7]. 

Illusions of fantasy, in the evening, while half asleep; she sees figures, visions of soldiers marching in the air; she frequently rouses herself, but the images immediately appear again, and only entirely disappear when she stands up and walks about (first day), [7].

With the Environment

Affected by playing on piano a short time, with painful anxiety of chest, trembling of body and weariness; must lie down. 

Every event makes a strong impression upon her; a wavy trembling in the nerves, with a sensation of faintness, [1]. 

So much excited by the slightest cause, that he continued to talk with passionate vehemence, until exhausted, [1]. 

Dread of the open air; she is averse to it, [1]. 

Dread of taking cold (second day), [1].

Dream of a journey, though she could

 not take it, because something seemed to hold her back; a kind of nightmare (seventh day), [7]. 

Dream of a flood, and threatening danger (third night), [7]. 

Work

Inability to think or to perform any mental labor; head feels stupefied if he tries to exert himself. 

Memory gradually failing; inaptitude for meditation or hard work; difficulty of conception or combining ideas when listening or reading; figures and diagrams were void of expression to him and seemed enveloped in mist. θ Effects of overstudy. 

In evening restlessness of body, unless he exerts himself mentally. 

Dislike for business; he goes about idly, but when once at work, it goes on as usual (after three days), [8].

He has no desire to do anything, and can keep at nothing long, [1]. 

Male Sexuality

Insufficient stool, with tenesmus, followed by burning in eyes and urethra; great sexual excitement. θ Constipation.

Increased sexual desire ; priapism. 

Nocturnal erections and pollutions, or emissions without erections.

 Frequent erections, during the day (seventh day), [7]. 

Erections nearly every morning, though without sexual desire, for three weeks together, [8].

Erections three times, the last time painful, in the morning (fifth day), [7]. 

Violent persistent erections, in the morning on waking (after eight days), [1]. 

Almost painful erections, lasting ten minutes, in morning in bed (fourth day), [7]. 

A kind of priapismus towards morning, followed by an emission without any sexual desire, with tensive pain and cutting in the penis; this pain lasted as long as the erection, over an hour; even on leaving the bed he still felt a very disagreeable tension in the penis (seventh day), [8]. 

Great desire for an emission after dinner, and also in the evening, without real sexual desire; after dinner, this desire returned while the legs were crossed, but disappeared on walking about, it returned in the evening, while lying down (ninth and fourteenth days), [8]. 

Sexual desire, in the morning after drinking beer, followed by a flat, sweetish taste in the mouth (twenty-fifth day), [8]. 

Excessive sexual desire on even touching a girl (tenth day), [8]. 

Erections ceased in the latter part of the proving, and did not return, [7]. 

Great sexual excitement while in a warm bath, and on leaving it, burning in the palms of the hands (seventeenth day), [8]. 

Emission without lascivious dream, [4]. 

Emissions without erections, [1]. 

Emission at night, with pain, though the sleep was so sound that he could not entirely wake; all next day he was extremely fretful and ill-humored, discontented, and out of sorts with everything, and persisting at nothing; he had scarcely commenced anything, when he wished to leave it (after eighteen days), [8]. 

Frequent emissions, in an old man (nineteenth, twenty-second, twenty-ninth, and thirty-seventh days), [1].

Voluptuous dreams (thirteenth night), [7]. 

Voluptuous dreams all night, in which he had an emission, without waking; later, he was awakened by a storm, but was not quite aroused from sleep, only felt very great sexual desire, that almost induced onanism (first day), [8]. 

Confused, voluptuous dreams, during a restless sleep, with violent erections and emissions, [1]. 

During sleep: starts, twitches; vivid dreams, violent erections and sexual excitement; restless, with ebullitions, palpitation and nightmare.

Incomplete coition, transient erection, and speedy emission (second day), [1]. 

Weak erections (fifth day), [1]. 

Female Sexuality

Bearing down as if everything would come out; melancholy; oversensitive to music; backache; heaviness, < sitting, > moving; bruised pain over back at night, tension, boring from tip of left scapula through; skin dry, rough. 

Passive congestion of uterus, causing pulsation there during and after coitus, due to extra influx of blood caused by sexual erethism. 

Sterility, a constitutional state in a woman where she is unable to conceive; she is nervous, cold to the knees and elbows; cold body in winter, hot head in summer; always tired; relaxation of the sphincter vaginae causing the seminal fluid to gush out as soon as ejaculated by the male, thus causing sterility.

Intellectual

He cannot think easily; the power of concentration fails him, [1]. 

Distraction of mind, in the morning (sixteenth day), [8]. 

Completely inattentive, [1]. 

Dullness of sense; he stares without thought, as if stunned by a blow, [1]. 

Very forgetful; he is obliged to think a long time before anything comes to him (third and thirteenth days), [8]. 

He easily makes mistakes in writing (after fourteen days), [8]. 

Stupefaction, in the morning on waking, that only gradually passes away, [1]. 

Almost unconscious of external objects; he reels while walking, [1].

Difficulty in grasping and connecting thoughts when reading or listening. 

Dreams

Dreams: anxious; confused; pleasant; amorous. 

She lies in a dreamy condition, at night, [1]. 

Many dreams and chilliness, in sleep, [1]. 

Sleep full of dreams, at night, [1].

Many very vivid dreams (after ten days), [1]. 

Every night was full of vivid dreams, frequently about past events, but still oftener about things he had heard spoken of in the evening; the first twenty days he was conscious of the dreams immediately on waking, but afterwards was obliged to think for some time in bed before he could recall them, [8]. 

For the first twenty days the dreams were mostly agreeable and anxious; of marrying two women, of parties, walks, entertainments, and excursions on horseback; afterwards they were frequently anxious, of going astray, of murders, having his ears cut off; also vexatious dreams; he would take a journey and could not get away from the place, and when he had reached the first station was obliged to turn back, on account of something he had forgotten, etc., [8]. 

Restless dreams, at night, and frequent waking, [1]. 

Many troubled dreams, at night, [1]. 

Anxious confused dreams, immediately after falling asleep, from which he woke in an hour, with distressed abdomen and dry tongue, [1]. 

Very anxious dreams, during the first sleep, [1].

A kind of nightmare, at night, at the full moon, he could not move on waking (after eighteen days), [1].