i have always been a vivid dreamer, sleep walker/talker. It has had special moments for sure When i was a kid i had a lot of trouble with it and as i got older i realised that i had "memories" that were really dreams, as much as i had believed in them as a child. They seemed so real. But seriously, i am pretty certain a monster did not pop out of my clothes closet and grab me. (Now i do not question trauma experiences i had, i have plenty of real world things to back them up.)

But.. i am seriously disturbed when hit with these dreams. i get them real bad with medication changes, like now. i don't just "see" or remember a dream, i can see the whole dream experience.. the changes between dreams as one blends into another and so on. It's draining and it takes up a lot of processing. i don't know what to think of subject matter and dream theories. i mean, a LOT of people believe in their significance... i just don't know, so much seems completely random, weird and non-referential.

Last night i had one of what i call "movie nights," the full feature dream experience... dreams which are complete films almost, beginning, middle and end with a plot and everything. Like watching a movie... i also had the dreams blending into the next and the weird-***** dreams. SO complicated.

i dreamt i was dating and in love with a younger guy.. still in dating range but definitely younger than me. i dreamt about stuff we did together, conversations.. it was like watching a segment of someone's life and very hard to imagine that this was ONE dream among several.. it seems so long. Anyway, his mother hated me. At some point she overheard us talking sort of intimately (ok, very intimately) and used it as a reason to try and split us up. We'd argue... i tried to reason with her, but she hated me. His father adored me. No one understood it.

I'd drive her places, do things to try and warm her up to me but to no avail. She decided to kill me. She first decided to stab me but decided for some reason to slash me instead. She used a razor blade and broken glass and tried to attack me. But she was in her 50's and had obviously never attacked someone this way before. i was easily able to avoid being too seriously hurt and disarm her. She did manage to cut me several times. i could even look down and see the slash marks and even though they were not deep i could feel them. (disturbing) She cried and was very distressed, wanting me dead or gone somehow.

She then decided to poison me by mixing something into my food for a big dinner she was hosting. i argued with her because somehow i knew. i told a friend of hers who dropped by, and her husband as he came through the door. EVeryone was upset about it. i was worried she would push my boyfriend away and talked to him about it. It was clear that he was crazy about me. He held me and danced with me.

There was a trial too... my boyfriend was accused of some sort of crime in partnership with his friends. His mother was being prosecuted for attacking me... the trial portion of the dream never finished, it blended into another dream.. after his father had deceived the court by lying about his identity to sit on the jury.

i know... long and complex.. and i didn't include the intricate detail. i mean seriously, like being there, not even as vague as a movie. i could smell the grass in the yard... it's so hard to even express.

There is a lot of potential symbolism in that one... the film ones often are...

i dreamt about being out with my friends and having a spur of the moment group therapy session with my T... whom i had never met at that point.. i was amused by knowing that was the first way i had met him and he didn't seem to notice that fact. We just seemed to think it was a fun thing to do after eating out. We witnessed a truck try to drive over a car.. my friends ditched me to go watch movies.. i didn't know how to get home and it was a bad neighbourhood. i took the wrong bus. i walked and ran through bad areas of the city... with hookers so deteriorated and abused they were like the walking dead. i was afraid, very afraid. i snuck through yards. i took back streets that someone recommended. She warned me about every other direction but this one was horrific...even though the "safest." i saw a woman being raped and ran.. i was so afraid the men were going to attack or turn me out as a prostitute myself. i had gone up the "bad" street just once and i was terrified. i couldn't walk fast enough. i was crying in my sleep. The hookers were to be feared as well... it frightens me to remember the dream even.

this sort of thing happens all the time... terrifying dreams that seem like i am there... detailed, so awful. i can't describe the fear and physicality of it.

i woke up off and on all night.

what do i even begin to make of this sort of thing? If i tried to process with T it would be all we did and we'd never get through even half of them... one dream would be several sessions at least, never mind the ideas behind it, and i have sometimes several a night!

[Perna]

MzJello, thanks for sharing your interesting dreams; I love dreams but prefer them not constantly difficult, I can take energy draining ones but hate it when they're several nights in a row.

I was struck at the very beginning that his mother hated you but his father really liked you and she was trying to "split" you up -- like they were split? Are you split about something now; we've been talking about the whole love/hate thing in therapy. Multiple ways the mother is deciding to do you in too. Can't make up her mind how to murder you. And you all keep arguing with her, trying to get her not to split you up, not to poison you. That's kind of like T to me, trying to get T to understand something and do it one's own way, etc.