[lizardlady]

I'm not sure where to post this. I happened in a dream, but involves DID.

Anyway, hmmm, this is harder to explain than I anticipated.....

During a recent dream in which something stressful was happening (can't remember what it was) the "me" in the dream started to slip into one of my alters (my Little One who was one terrified little girl). I've been integrated for ages. I woke myself from the dream when I realized what was happening. Anyone ever heard of such a thing? Anyone ever experience such a thing? Anyone have any idea what the heck it might mean?

Originally Posted by lizardlady

I'm not sure where to post this. I happened in a dream, but involves DID.

Anyway, hmmm, this is harder to explain than I anticipated.....

During a recent dream in which something stressful was happening (can't remember what it was) the "me" in the dream started to slip into one of my alters (my Little One who was one terrified little girl). I've been integrated for ages. I woke myself from the dream when I realized what was happening. Anyone ever heard of such a thing? Anyone ever experience such a thing? Anyone have any idea what the heck it might mean?

I have had something like that.

For me, it usually has to do with a trauma I suffered when I was a teenager. Thus I think it's related to PTSD.

I was traumatized decades ago, but I'm still haunted.

[lizardlady]

Maybe the dream was about something from my past or similar to something that happened.

It freaked me out that I would switch while dreaming.

We switch while dreaming almost every night

[-jimi-]

Maybe it is a sign of something, maybe it is "just" a dream of the past. I have tons of dreams of the past, nothing like this but I dream I am back in highschool. It feels quite real.

[lizardlady]

I don't know why, but it scared me when this happened. Maybe I need to think about why it scared me.

[amandalouise]

Originally Posted by lizardlady

I don't know why, but it scared me when this happened. Maybe I need to think about why it scared me.

i would go through this each time I discovered an alter had integrated with me. I used to be so afraid the dream and feelings with it meant i was splitting into alters again. my treatment providers explained to me dreams are a mixture of our emotions, experiences, fears, hopes, wishes and even have elements of unreality.
In my situation dreaming something so triggering that in the dream I was dissociating\switching into alters was a mixture of my happiness that i was one whole person again, my fears of living life as a non DID person now, my brain knowing what my dissociation symptoms are and knowing who some of my alters were.

my psychiatrist told me to do something for him. for a week right before bed think about how it would feel to run my finger nails on a chalk board (something I remember fondly doing as a child) remember and think about it from the perspective of all my senses, as if I was doing it right now.

the result i was totally amazed. I dreamed I was in a classroom running my fingernails on a chalk board. I woke up in total shock that it felt so real as if I was really doing it.

so then I tried it with winning the lottery. lol amazingly i woke up and was totally shocked that there wasnt a million bucks in my bank account. thats how real that dream felt.

when I told my psychiatrist about this he smiled then said now i will remind you of something. with DID reality testing remains intact. the fact that i could not tell if it was real or not said to my treatment provider it wasnt mental disorder related and just normal. boy did i sigh with relief.

since then i have done this with many different things \ topics. treatment providers in my location call this the therapy technique called lucid dreaming (knowing you are dreaming and reshaping \ guiding ones dreaming based on desired outcome, and powers of suggestion to combat nightmares and anxiety)

the brain is an amazing thing. it can bring our emotions, experiences, fears, hopes and wishes to the point of feeling so real that its hard to tell reality from fiction.

[handheart]

The dreams are not something unimportant .The dreams are mesages from subconstient mind and it want to tell you something .Try to decode the mesage of subconstient

[lizardlady]

Originally Posted by handheart

The dreams are not something unimportant .The dreams are mesages from subconstient mind and it want to tell you something .Try to decode the mesage of subconstient

That's just it. I can't decode the message. That's why I posted here. I know the best person to interpret a dream is the dreamer, but I don't understand this one.

I see my pdoc Monday. I'm going to talk to him about it.

[Open Eyes]

It could be that you read something that reminded you of a past experience.

I have had dreams like you describe, I have had flashbacks like that too and I even experienced where I would be having an interaction here at PC and doing what I call a cris cross where I am remembering something from my past as if it's in the now which is something I never experienced before until I developed PTSD. I am "me", it's just that for some reason I am reliving an old experience with words from the present that I did not have at the time. I find that when I write it out like that and get to review it and acknowledge it, it goes away. If you remember the dream, you may have been finally putting words to an old experience you had not properly filed away "yet" with words from a more grown up "now".

[lizardlady]

posted by Open Eyes

I am "me",

This helped me realize why I was frightened by switching in the dream. For me it would be a regression. I worked very hard to become the "me" I am today. I do NOT want to go back to being that scared rabbit I was back then. Please don't think I'm criticizing who I was back then. I was doing the best I could to cope with the circumstances I was living in at the time.

There was time in my recovery that I told my pdoc I was afraid I would lose the ability to dissociate. It had helped me through some very day days. I didn't want to have to lose it in order to be "better." He told me he didn't think I'd lose it, but wouldn't need to use it anymore. He was right. The ability is there. I just don't have to use it to survive.

Back to my reaction to the dream. I think my fear of switching in the dream was fear that I was going backward or a fear that something is going on that would make me switch.

Still going to talk to my pdoc about it Monday.

[lizardlady]

I had a wonderful discussion about this with my pdoc today. I've been freaked out thinking it might mean I was slipping backward. He had a whole different perspective. He focused on the fact that I woke myself up when I started to shift in the dream. He saw that as a sign of good mental health, that I recognized it would be a step back and didn't let it happen.

It could be that my subconscious picked the idea of me slipping into the Little One to help me process some stuff that's been going on in my life. My Little One is a terrified 4 or 5 year old. She would come out when I was feeling overwhelmed in life. Perhaps I chose her to represent the fact I've been feeling overwhelmed in life lately BUT I also recognized that I now have the tools to take care of myself.

I'm not sure I'm explaining this very well. Bottom line is that I feel better after talking to him.