I have had horrific nightmares my entire life, ever since I was quite young. I have non-combat-related PTSD and have been given a med to help me sleep (clonidine), but I take it PRN and try not to take it often. I really should have taken it last night. I had a terrible nightmare last night and it's so bad I'm scared to even talk to anyone about it...so I'm here instead.




TRIGGER WARNING FOR UPSETTING ANIMAL DEATH IN A DREAM








I dreamed that I swallowed a live kitten whole. A tiny white kitten with a black spot on its left ear. It was so small and fragile and helpless, and I don't know how or why I swallowed it but in the dream I was horrified beyond belief. I was trying to make myself vomit to bring it back up but it wouldn't work. The poor thing was inside me dying and I wanted to take a knife and cut myself open to get it out.

I kept thinking about the poor thing suffocating or being dissolved alive by my stomach acid. Knowing it was so vulnerable and tiny and suffering, why did this happen?

I was then surrounded by the other kittens in the litter. They were all precious and adorable little kittens, barely with their eyes open. I kept looking for the one I swallowed, hoping to find it somehow among them, but it wasn't there.

I love cats, I have a much-beloved 16-year-old gray tabby who is my heart. I would never hurt a cat. I would never hurt any animal. I am beyond horrified at this dream. I want these images out of my head and these feelings of helpless horror out of my heart. It makes me hate myself. Even in the dream I was aware enough to be traumatized by it.

My nightmares are more typically about the violent accidental death of people I love, and the end of the world, and about being harmed by others. I don't know why this is happening. I've never had a nightmare like this before where I'm the one doing something unspeakable. I just started Prozac a week ago, maybe it's a reaction to/side effect of the drug?

I'm taking the clonidine tonight, I don't want to dream anymore. I don't want to dream ever again. My dreams are always nightmares. I hate this. What is wrong with me. Why have I always been like this.

(Not that I think anybody here can answer any of this or whether I even want you to try, I just really needed to vent my absolute horror over this. I keep feeling pressure in my stomach and nauseous today from the memory.)