Score: +2.5
My day began with the return of the ghost. This formless specter occasionally haunts my dreams, where it usually succeeds in killing me through suffocation. I often try to confront the ghost, but it is unimaginably powerful. It wins every time. In last night’s permutation, it was after my sister, which has not happened before. I woke up before things got out of hand, as the ghost was trying to carry my sister off into a closet. I have been consulting with Amanda about what this all means, but even the dream guide can’t make much sense of it. All I know for sure is that the ghost comes out when depression is near.
My anxiety has been rather constant, and it’s largely physical symptoms. My muscles are in a state of spasm and agitation, my thoughts are spinning around rapidly, I feel like a weight is pressing down on my chest. And I’ve done my cognitive homework on this one, so I’m not just thinking bad thoughts and allowing anxiety to carry them out of control. I have tried things to reduce anxiety, but they don’t get me out of the hole. So I called my doctor and she called back today and after some discussion we agreed to start me back up on Buspar. I will be taking an introductory dose until she can see me again on the 20th. She’s afraid I will get manic since I’m on a max dose of Welbutrin and the Buspar could push me over. But I told her that the only times I have been manic were when I went through a full unmediated cycle and then once when my first psychiatrist put me on 3 antidepressants at the same time. So it’s not something I think will happen. But if I start to get out of control, I can just stop the Buspar.
Anyway. I’m ok overall. The anxiety is irritating, but surmountable. Things in life are progressing. Amanda goes back to work in two weeks. I’m really not sure how that is going to go. She has so much hatred for that place.
I’m going to be ok. Hopefully I sleep soundly, without any dreams.
Neurochemically Challenged 
Just a thought, but have you considered that in your dreams your ghost is your mind giving an image to your Bipolar (your struggles with the ghost representing your struggles with it’s symptoms ) and in this most recent dream, given that Bipolar is genetic, perhaps your mind is playing out a hidden fear of your sister also developing it and being overwhelmed by it’s symptoms?
If so, maybe your unconscious mind has registered something in your sisters’ behavour recently which was so subtle that your conscious mind did not register or recognize the signficance of it at the time, thus this dream is your mind trying to alert you as to where you have encountered this behaviour before?
Maybe ask yourself – Do you you worry your sister may also suffer from bipolar? And if so, are you seeing subtle signs of depression or mania in her behaviour?
I have discussed the relationship between the ghost and my bipolar depression with my therapist on several occasions, so that is quote a keen observation you made there (and accurate, I believe). I to concur that when my symptoms are emerging, that I have ghost dreams representing the power and terror associated with my disability because they have so often taken over my life and ruined it. But this new nightmare puts a wrinkle in my classification. While I am diagnosed, my sister and father are not, and neither of them have ever demonstrated any mental instability. My sister is 29 and well past the time when she would be developing symptoms, but I do think I know why I dreamed about her. She recently moved from California to Washington DC as a part of her career, and I am scared for her making such a huge transition and doing it all on her own. So maybe that has something to do with it?