Understanding Apis mel.

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

Let’s figure out a very common scene: Someone walking barefooted in a road covered here and there with mud and other unpleasant places to step. And that peculiar road is hot, extremely hot. Due to the increasing heat below someone’s bare feet, he must hurry, he must free away from there. But how can he run, only to step in the mud?  The ground under his feet is getting warmer and warmer. And he must hurry up! He must run away or he will get his feet burned. But there’s no hiding place, no safe road, no sound grounds, not a single clean and fresh path for him to follow. This dream embodies the existential drama in which Apis mel. lives his whole life through.

Dreams of a great, hot stove; was obliged to walk over a hot floor; also, on dirty, wet roads for a very long distance; them he came to a dinner-table where many people were assembled.

There’s no rest, not a single moment of peace in the life of the Apis patient. He is restless, awkward, changing grounds and occupations all the time. There’s something inside him obliging him to move, to change, to seek for, all the time.

Nervous restlessness at night, cannot remain in one place. 

Uneasiness; physical and mental. 

Has not the least enjoyment from sleep, it seems to him as if his brain had no rest at all, either day or night, 

Kent: "Very busy, restless, changing kind of work, with awkwardness."

The Apis patient dreams with wings, journeys, he dreams that “he is flying through the air like a bird”.

It’s a subconscious compensation of this feeling that the floor is muddy and hot. The only safe escape should be flying. 

Flying means motion, freedom, not being attached to anyone or anything. We wait anxiously for the time to take the plane and fly away to our holidays. Flying means freedom, to land were one’s wanted for. But we must not forget that, wherever place Apis will land, it will be ever muddy and hot.

Sensation as of movement from place to place, mostly travelling by railroad, 

Dreams mostly of journeys,; long distances, 

Often dreams of flying far through the air, 

Dream that he made journeys in great leaps through the air, like a bird, 

Feels like a bird in the air; takes great leaps in his dreams, 

Plagues* himself in dreams all night, with a flying apparatus; tries to arrange the wings, which, however, will not work, 

Let’s now try to understand Apis relationship with his friends, loving ones, mates and wife or husband. If the floor is burning hot and he can’t stand in any place, how can he be with someone else, even if only for a small period, during a certain time? He needs to enjoy the most out of it, but he knows it will be for a short time. He knows he has to move on, that all his relationships are not made to last. He will date one girl after the other, and due to the fact that he knows, deep inside, that nothing lasts in his life forever, he must rely upon the affection of his girlfriend. So there comes jealousy and suspicion. It’s not because he didn’t feel loved, it’s because it will not last. He can’t trust his own feelings of love. He needs to move on, to flee, travel…

Later he will turn himself into someone violent, jealous, restless and hard.

Jealousy (in women). 

All her ideas turn around jealousy, very talkative, sometimes disgusting salacitas*.

θ Mania. 

*indecency, lasciviousness, lewdness

Dreams of many people who are quarrelling; one among them, who becomes nearly beside himself, he leads from the room by the arm, whereby he is calmed (humble-bee),

Ailments from fright, rage, vexation, jealousy, or hearing bad news. 

Heat (and its subsequent congestion) will be present amongst all Apis clinical symptoms and are probably responsible for that actual increased sexual desire, more present in women than men. Congestion of the sexual parts will be present in the sexual thrive to a point of a non-ending desire.

Sexual desire increased. 

Very much increased sexual desire, in a hysterical woman, 

Insanity, particularly nymphomania and apathy depending on or alternating with sore throat, indigestion or bladder affections. 

After leaving a life of restless movements, travels, parties and so different occupations, Apis is exhausted. Many symptoms present in our Materia Medica can show us how Apis is feeling at the end. The tiredness in Apis is present in the chronic patient. That’s the result of many and many years of non-stop restless activities.

Great debility as if he had worked hard; he is obliged to lie down. 

Amazing weariness. 

Tired, as if bruised in every limb. 

Weariness, with debility in Spring, after least effort, with paroxysm of vertigo, paleness and chilliness.