[perpetuallysad]

I have terrible, horrible nightmares. The kind where you wake up sweating and your heart is pounding really hard. I am really tired of it. This is something that has happened to me since I was at least 5 years old (I had a recurring dream them of an ambulance coming and taking my mom away). Up to the present day, where any number of realistic or completely unrealistic, but nonetheless real feeling, things happen to me the whole night while I'm sleeping. Its, quite frankly, very exhausting. I never feel like I've gotten real sleep.

Sorry this is just a rant after a particularly bad set of dreams last night...thanks for listening.

[shezbut]

(((perpetuallysad)))

I'm sorry that you're often having such horrible nightmares! Are you working with a T at all? If so, are you discussing emotional issues? Have you talked with any doc's about your nightmares, and what might be done to help you?

It's worth mentioning if you are frequently having nightmares. Some medicines actually cause frequent horrible nightmares.

Hope I've given you ideas to think about and get help with. Best wishes to you!

[perpetuallysad]

Thanks Shez. I have mentioned my nightmares to my pdoc before, and he asks what they are about (mostly about me being horribly killed or continuously tortured in any number of ways, but often with my mother as the culprit). I've had nightmares my entire life, I mean BAD nightmares. Sometimes I'll even wake up crying or in actual pain. He contributes them to the constant and unrelenting fear I have of my mother. Its unbelievable what a malicious parent can do to a person and how long those things will bother them. I don't know if I will ever get past the abuse I received from her.

As for meds making them worse, its seems impossible, but I know you're right. Not impossible that they can cause nightmares, but just impossible they could make mine much worse.

I just hate the days that the nightmare hangs over me all day long. Oh those are awful!

Thanks for listening.

[shezbut]

I am sorry that you've had such horrific nightmares regularly.

Very sorry that these nightmares are recurrent despite therapy. Hopefully, the dreams will become less intense and less often as therapy progresses.

Gentle hugs to you!

[PhotoFreak123]

I am so sorry to hear that.
I used to get pretty frequent BAD nightmares, but luckily those are rare for me anymore.

I understand the feeling of the nightmares hanging all day. They're terrible. Even if you are having a good day, you have a horrible feeling throughout the entire day! (Well at least I do.)

I hope you find some help, and my ear is always here to listen.

[WePow]

Nightmares related to early trauma can disturb a person's life for sure. Sorry you are having such a hard time with them! Dealing with the actual trauma issues may help, but it sounds like perhaps you might also want to look into seeing a sleep expert.

There are things they can look at for you such as the length of your REM dream cycle, brain chemistry (which can make very bad nighmare problems if off), and testing to see if you are properly entering deep stage sleep (where cellular repair is highest and we do not dream at all).

Until that time, you may try these things to see if they help any:

1) Do NOT eat anything 2 hours before bed. The body chemistry from eating just before bed can increase the intensity of nightmares.

2) Drink plenty of water during the day. Sounds goofy - but seriously, the brain that is improperly hydrated can cause headaches and nightmares and depression.

3) Do not use any nicotine products. If you do, do not use them 4 hours before sleep. Nicotine is a POWERFUL drug which can cause very intense nightmares. People who are trying to stop smoking and accidently leave the patch on overnight can tell you about this.

4) Journal every dream when you wake up. Even if it is just code words to yourself so you are not triggered any more than need be, the act of journaling tells the brain you are "listening" to what it has said. Many nightmares are the subconscious YELLING at the person. It will often continue to yell until it actually believes it has been heard. Just saying "I know about this stuff in the dream already!" is not enough. That is why journaling can be a great tool in this case. The act of physical motion to record the dream sends signals to the brain that are very solid.

5) Dream Power. Start working on reclaiming your dream "space." This is a skill that takes a while to perfect. It can lead to "Astral travel" and "Lucid Dreaming" if you work at it. The best thing is that you are able to take a nightmare and wake your conscious mind up inside the dream and then logically work your way through the events. You can know it is a dream or dream memory and actually take charge of the situation and change what happens in that dream. This skill is wonderful for empowerment of those who have been chronically abused as children. Dreams are primative mechanisms which rehearse events which were often life or death situations. As an evolutionary mechanism, changing the outcome of the dream through conscious effort within the dream can lead a person to a place of empowerment. To get you started in this direction, before you go to bed - think about what you WANT to dream. Another tool is to practice trying to "see" your hands inside the dream state.

Hope this helps in some way. Peace.

[perpetuallysad]

Wow, wpowers, those are really great tips. Thanks so much for taking so much time to talk to me about my dreaming. I am going to especially work on the ability to control my dreams. There are certain dreams where I do know I am dreaming, but in those, I am more of an outside observer to upsetting things.

I am pretty sure most of my dreams are a result of the years of abuses I suffered under my mother. She is a very hurtful person and she has done unthinkable things to me. In fact, I do not think about them much, which I believe is why they are often so present in my dream life. She has hurt me so badly and so deeply that to this moment I am utterly terrified of her. The physical and mental abuses I suffered from her are something that I am working on in therapy, but I only get to see my pdoc/t once a month, so even after 4 years of working on it, it is slow going.

Last night I dreamt of monster like things living in my walls. I have a lot of recurring themes and even some dreams that will be the same thing over and over and over. One particularly seemingly benign, but nonetheless very disturbing dream I have is that I have my eyes open and I can only see someone's fingers covering my eyes. In these dreams I am incapacitated and I can do nothing but look through the fingers. All I see is the sort of red, pink color you see if you were to put your hands over your eyes and look at the sun or a bright light. I have repressed much of my life's events because they were so painful and I think this dream in particular is me trying desperately to remember something. The thing is that I can remember having this dream very young, say 5 or 6 years old. So it may be something that happened even before then.

Wow, sorry to blather on like that. My dreams are a significant problem in my life and I rarely have the opportunity to talk about them.

Thank you for listening and responding. I do appreciate it very much.

[WePow]

Sad... wow. You have indeed fought a hard and long battle. I don't get much time to read forums - thankfully work had some down time yesterday :-) But if you post the dreams that are most troubling, maybe I can see them and offer whatever I can for you to consider. Anytime a dream is repeating itself, the subconscious is trying to relay information that it does not think you are getting. Usually, once you "get" the true meaning of the dream and bring it forward, the dream will almost totally stop. Mission accomplished.

For example, over the past 20 yrs I would have nightmares that I killed someone as a child and somehow the evidence was hidden under my bed or in my room or I had written details of it in a journal and burried it but then someone finds it and I am terrified of going to jail for the crime. This dream wore me out and happened at least once every few weeks for years. uggg.

Finally this year in therapy I was able to uncover the truth about a CSA event where I was a witness to the crime but dissociated and when the police asked me about it, I honestly had no idea that I witnessed the crime. !!! I have a dx of DID but didn't know it at the time ( I was only 17) . As you can see, the dream symbols were showing me that my subconscious had a secret that it was afraid of someone finding out about. Consciously, I was totally confused as to what that dream ment. And for a while, I actually thought maybe I did kill somoene and just didn't know I did it!! UGGG !!! After I uncovered the hidden secret, the dream made perfect sense. And that nightmare has not returned. T and I think it will not come back now. Case closed.

The dream of the figers over your eyes actually gives me a sense of your attempts to protect yourself from what you saw. Because it looks like bars in a way, you may think the bars are keeping you locked inside... but remember a jail can serve two purposes. One purpose is to keep someone inside from escaping. But the other purpose is to keep those on the outside from comming inside.

Reds in a dream are colors of anger and action. Pink is female energy. So the mom on the outside makes sense. To me, it sounds like your subconscious is appolozing in a way saying "I tried to keep her out and keep you safe, but my hands were too small. You saw through the fingers."

Just stuff to think about :-)

[perpetuallysad]

Oh my god, you totally just made me cry. YOu are very astute. Thank you.