The Curious World of Delusion Rubrics: “Sold His Bed” and the Inner Life of Nux Vomica

A little while ago I posted a "Rubric of the Week"

The rubric was:

MIND – DELUSION – SOLD HIS BED
A single-remedy rubric belonging to Nux vomica.

If you missed the post, here’s the low-down.
In repertory language,“bed” doesn’t simply mean furniture. It symbolizes rest, safety, security, and comfort.

So what does it mean when someone believes their bed has been sold?

It can be read symbolically as:

• A loss of security

• Feeling cheated, displaced, or wronged

• The sense that one’s rightful place has been taken

• A perception of losing what one has worked hard to earn

And suddenly, the rubric makes perfect sense for Nux vomica.

Think of the ambitious, driven, hard-working Nux type — a person who pushes, strives, and expects order and reward for their effort. The idea that someone has “sold their bed” fits that internal experience of being swindled out of rest, position, or status, and being deprived of something they feel is rightfully theirs.

This is the beauty of delusion rubrics:
They are rarely literal.
They reveal the inner landscape— the emotional perception, the symbolic meaning, the internal distortion through which a patient (or a remedy pattern) experiences the world.

It’s not about losing your furniture.
It’s about losing your place.
Your footing.
Your safety.
Your stability.
Your right to recover and rest after all your hard work.

Nux vomica

The Art (and Challenge) of Delusion Rubrics

Delusion rubrics are vast. They are some of the most intriguing — and sometimes confusing — areas of the repertory. I’m still studying them, still researching them, still learning what the old homeopaths meant.

Even when I think I understand a rubric, the real learning comes when I look at which remedies are listed and ask myself:

“But why? Why does this remedy belong here?”

Because this work is never finished. And that’s exactly why I created RubricWise — to explore these curiosities together, one rubric at a time.

And if you’re reading this, I know you love this stuff too.

Follow along at www.instagram.com/rubricwise