There are fears that press so close they feel like walls—narrowing spaces, tunnels without exits, tombs that the body and mind cannot bear. Claustrophobia is one of these, and for many who suffer from it, the panic can seem like a cruel, unspiritual interruption of the path. Yet what if the very terror of enclosure is not a detour, but a hidden passage? What if the soul uses even this fear to teach us where freedom truly begins?
Q: I have long suffered from claustrophobia, which I sometimes sense may be a remnant of a past incarnation—a fear of being buried alive, or trapped without escape. Recently, I dreamed of descending stairways painted yellow, level after level, down into shadowed depths. With each step, claustrophobia tightened its hold. Panic overtook me, for I could not find a way out. I searched desperately for the light, for any glimpse of freedom beyond the walls. What does such a dream mean?
A: Your dream is more than a personal echo—it is an initiation.
The stairways descending are the ancient path into the underworld, where one must confront not only the unconscious but also the karmic imprints of the soul. The yellow walls are ambiguous: yellow is both the hue of illumination and of warning. You are walking the fine line where terror and revelation meet.
At the personal level, this dream mirrors the panic of enclosure, the body’s instinctive cry against being trapped. Yet at the mythic level, it is the image of the seeker on the threshold of transformation. Many traditions teach that the soul must descend into the darkness before it can recover its own light. Your panic is the threshold moment—it is where the gate opens, if you can endure the passage long enough to discover that the light is not beyond the walls but rising from within them.
Q: When I awoke, the fear was still raging in me. Not long ago, I had to undergo an MRI and discovered that I could not bear the narrow tunnel without panic. I had to request an open MRI instead. Does this limitation affect my spiritual practice? Does it prevent me from advancing further along the path of awakening?
A: No. It does not prevent awakening.
Spiritual progress is not measured by endurance of terror. It is measured by presence—the ability to remain with whatever arises without abandoning oneself. Your claustrophobia is not a block but a teacher, a fierce guardian of a gate you must approach with reverence.
Each time panic swells, you are given a chance to distinguish between the body’s cry of “I am trapped” and the soul’s whisper of “I am still here, untouched.” If even for a breath you can rest in the witness rather than the storm, you have entered the very heart of spiritual practice.
To request an open MRI is not weakness. It is compassion toward your own body, and compassion is not separate from awakening—it is awakening in action. The path is not about conquering every fear, but about realizing that the boundless self has never been confined by fear at all.
Q: Then what is the deeper significance of this fear? How can I carry my claustrophobia, not as a hindrance, but as part of the unfolding of my soul?
A: Claustrophobia is not your obstacle—it is your initiation.
The walls that seem to close in are the tomb, yes, but they are also the womb. Every descent into darkness is a rehearsal of rebirth. Inanna entered the underworld stripped of all her power; Christ lay in the sealed tomb; shamans sought the cave and the coffin to awaken the vision of eternity. What you meet as panic is, in truth, the sacred drama of incarnation itself: the infinite soul bound in the tight enclosure of flesh, yearning for release.
To bear this fear with awareness is to play out the soul’s deepest story in microcosm. And to transform it is to discover what the mystics discovered: that no prison can contain the essence of light. The more the space closes in, the more luminous the witness becomes. The claustrophobic panic that once threatened to crush you becomes the very force that presses the soul into awakening.
Addendum
Fear is the uncut stone of the soul’s altar. What the mind recoils from, the spirit can transmute into gold. Claustrophobia, in its rawness, may appear only as the tightening of walls. Yet in truth it is the stage upon which your inner radiance learns to expand. When no exit can be found, and no door will open, the soul remembers its oldest secret: light does not come from without—it is born within.
May every wall that closes in reveal itself as the threshold of your own light, and may the narrowest spaces open into boundless sky within you.
Numinous Waves 