*Mention of CSA**May Be Triggering

Is dream work completely pointless?

As a child I had this recurring dream that began at age 4 and still popped up in my early teens. It was more like a nightmare, actually. I had the nightmare frequently as a small child, went years without it, and then it came back.

I do believe dreams are relevant to one's experience with certain feelings or specific events or people. Unfortunately all of the major symbols in my dream represent sexual desires and feelings. I remember very specific abuse based on how traumatic those incidents were and some memories are due to flashbacks. I know I experienced CSA, perhaps by a few different people at different ages...but I cannot remember those events. I have somatic flashbacks and strong somatic reactions when seeing pictures or thinking of certain people, and I demonstrated most of the signs of sexual abuse as a child...my family was just so blind to it.

Maybe it sounds weird to not remember something so traumatic. I recall dissociating a lot, as if I had a twin sister experiencing the abuse as I watched. Sometimes my mind just went black.

Anyway to avoid getting too emotional I will go back to my main question and spare additional detail.

My therapist wants me to journal around this dream because she thinks it is important and will help us process things. She said what makes it important is that it was recurring and how I can remember every detail of it still; however she doesn't do dream work and is unable to properly interpret them.

I used an online therapy database and made a request for dream interpretation and got a few positive responses, validating the importance of dreams. But there is one Psych who responded and told me there is zero evidence dreams have anything to do with our waking life and even if it did, I should not "live my life around it" because it is not the only thing that made me the person I am today. WTF???? I felt horrible after reading that and so discouraged!

Is he right?? Is it pointless? I'm not wanting to use it to recover repressed memories or anything....I guess now I don't know what I want.

I don't even feel like going to therapy tomorrow because he made me feel it was pointless to talk about childhood abuse at all since it is only a small fraction of who I am and how I feel. I wish I could post word for word what he said. Maybe I will later.

Gosh thanks to anyone who makes it to the end of this novel. I feel so directionless.