I had decided, as is my custom, to try to lose weight – yet again. I’ve tried this many times over the years, mostly to fail, but occasionally I’ve succeeded for a while. Until I fell off the wagon again.

I lay in bed one night (I wish I’d marked the precise date on my calendar), wondering what I could do this time to stay on the wagon. To overcome the food cravings that have plagued from my youth.

I believe I prayed about it. I’m confident I did.

The next morning, I woke from a dream. It was a dream I’ve had a number of times over the years. I’m in an apartment – one which I understand to be mine, though it’s not familiar. I open doors in the wall, and find rooms – or whole sections of the house – I never knew existed.

I now had the idea, somehow, that this dream had some relation to the problem I’d been thinking about – how to control my appetite.

And I noticed an odd thing. When I thought about that “Dream Apartment” (not a dream apartment in the ordinary sense – it’s pretty shabby and furnished with thrift store castoffs) a great sense of peace came over me. And I did not feel like overeating.

As I went on with my day, I thought about the Dream Apartment whenever I wanted to break my diet. And the peace came back. In fact, I noticed something more. The same effect kicked in whenever I had an intrusive thought. The Dream Apartment seemed to be a sanctuary – a mental space to run to, where I had protection from shame.

As the days have passed, the effect seems to be persisting, and even improving. I seem to be going (in my mind) to the Dream Apartment automatically. I don’t have to think about it most of the time (particularly bad memories do require conscious effort. But that effort doesn’t involve anything more than just thinking about the apartment. I can even think about the outside of the building, of which I also have a mental image).

How does this work? I have a theory.

I think there’s a region of the brain whose function is to deal with memories that need suppressing, for the sake of mental health. This brain region does not grant one amnesia; instead it allows one to handle the memory, as it were, at arm’s length. A place where stuff you don’t want to look at directly can be put behind your back, to be recalled only when absolutely needed. I call it the “Forgettery.”

And I think I lost access to that brain region long ago, when I was a child, under circumstances I’ll keep to myself (somewhere in my Forgettery).

Over the years, when I’ve had that old recurring dream, it was actually my brain, trying to heal itself. It was telling me, “We have a function for dealing with your intrusive thoughts. You just need to remember that it’s there.”

Remembering the Dream Apartment created a new bridge to that brain region – a way to close the synapse gap. Now that I’ve found the way, my brain seems to be getting accustomed to the path. And I’m more at peace than I’ve been since I was 9 years old.

I’m calmer. I’m happier. Binge-eating and other compulsive behaviors have fallen away without effort. I’m looking people in the eye and speaking cheerfully, if not actually smiling. I feel, as I said, as if I’m going sane at last.

Maybe I’m fooling myself. Maybe my inner demons will find a work-around. We are all mysteries to ourselves.

But maybe this can help someone else. If you have a problem with intrusive thoughts, and if you’ve had the recurring dream of a space with doors that open to unknown places, maybe that’s your path to your Forgettery.

I share this in the hope that that’s true.