[Feelsforgotten101]

I am 16 years old. Since I was eight years old I would have this nightmare, always started the same but the older I got the more the ending would change. It started out just me, all by myself, in the pitch black in absolutely nothing. It was like I was the only one in existance. I would stand there and look around for several minutes before I began to run. I don't know why I was running, or why I never stopped. There was just no end to the darkness, which ever direction I went nothing was ever there except for me. As I got older it started to change, I would find walls but they would be so dark it still felt like they were non-existant. Just recently the nightmare ending was vastly different, I fell, I don't know where or how but I fell, and I wasn't even in the dream anymore it was only the darkness. Just before I wake up no matter what I always hear a child's laughter. I've never quite understood it, I looked up so many things but they all come up with different answers. So since I can't solve the problem, I either don't sleep or I have the nightmare, leaving me very tired. Anyways just wanted to see if anyone had any insight on it.

~FeelsForgotten101

[Perna]

Hi, Feelsforgotten101, welcome to PsychCentral (PC).

Thank you for sharing your recurring dream, that does sound upsetting! I have had a similar dream where I'm falling and "out of control" that I hate.

Most dreams I think one wants to concentrate on the feelings to see if one can figure out what they mean to one's self. If your dream were mine, I know I would feel afraid. I would be trying to get away from the blackness and find something or someone. I would feel a little encouraged that as one gets older, there are walls, even if they are indistinct and not very separate from the darkness.

I would look at my life and see if I could figure out what changed for me when I was eight that I got this dream at that time. I would try to remember what happened in school, at home with my family, whether I moved or my parents divorced or there was an accident or other frightening occurrence. Maybe you read a book that reminds you of elements of the dream.

Darkness to me means ignorance and I think of the idea of being "kept in the dark." That phrase makes me think of betrayal. Is there something you wish you knew more about? When we're children we often don't understand things that go on in the adult world and don't have anyone who thinks to explain it to us but still we have to try to figure it out for ourselves.

I don't know how you felt this last time falling. I get the idea that the dream is a nightmare so very upsetting, probably frightening. Is the child's laughter at the end comforting to hear or chilling? Do you feel the child is "crazy" and laughing at you or is it somewhere else and enjoying itself. Can you tell the child's sex or age by their laugh?

Everything in a dream is created by the dreamer so only the dreamer really has the answer to what the dream means. Dreams are usually trying to help us and when we get recurring dreams, it just means we haven't quite gotten the message we're trying to give ourselves. I like that the dream has changed a bit over the years, to me it means you are in there trying to understand, trying to help yourself even though you don't understand (putting in walls, for example; even though you can't see them it's a little better than there being nothing at all, it's more "containing" of the darkness.)

If I heard a child's laughter at the end of a dream that started when I was a child, I'd be encouraged that who I was/am as a child had hope and "carefreeness" enough in my abilities that I would eventually figure out the dream and the problems it poses for me.

One thing I use to do when I was in therapy and would have really bad dreams was to realize that they were clues to me and that I would not give them to myself if I could not handle them, could not learn form them. From then on I got much more comfortable with all dreams I had because I knew they were just dreams, and just messages from my subconscious to myself to help me figure out my conscious life and problems.

Maybe you should "play" with the dream, try to will a light in there or another object besides walls? Before you go to sleep, try to picture a table with a lamp on it and a comfortable chair sitting next to it? Or a fireplace ready to be lit? Think of something to help you while you are in the dream or to help you "sit" in the dream (slow down and/or not "run" and think about and understand it?

What does darkness mean to you and are you trying to run to or from something? I'm sure you know you can't keep running away from scary stuff in dreams, the only way to get them to go away is to turn and face them? I would think about and concentrate on the dream, try to change it enough to help me with whatever the "task" is I feel the dream has given me?

What's your favorite color? Maybe try to make a wall that color and stop and put your back against it (so nothing can sneak up behind you?) I don't know either if the walls are to impede your progress and like a maze or if they're more reassuring to find.

I often have trouble because I "don't want to know" what a dream may be trying to tell me. Your darkness could have something to do with that. Before you go to sleep, "tell" your dream you are ready to listen to what it has to say and it might make things less intense for you because you are willing to not run from it or need to be in the dark.