Frequent and chilling nightmares

I experience lots of nightmares, all related with my social anxiety. Every night I have these nightmares. They are all around my past bad experiences and my fears. I was wondering if it could be kind of PTSD since they are so repetitive, threatening and frequent.

Two points I consider needed to be mentioned are on one side, my medication has been reduced a lot and it’s not one that particularly has the effect to induce deep sleeping or nightmares. On another side, I’m retired from work now, due to my high level of anxiety so I kind of live in my comfort zone now. I feel very far from being forced to live these anxiety levels again.

You wrote you're retired from work now & "feel very far from being forced to live these anxiety levels." I haven't been actively employed for 20 years now. However I "ran on my nerves", so to speak, throughout my childhood as well as throughout my working years. Since then, similarly to you it sounds like, I still experience high levels of anxiety.

My body feels as though it's churning 24 / 7 even though I have virtually nothing to be anxious about. So I've come to the conclusion my body was wracked with anxiety for so many years it simply no longer knows how to function any other way regardless of whether there is anything to feel anxious about or not. Perhaps this is the way it is for you too?

Here are links to 2 articles, from PC's archives, on the subject of nightmares just in case you're not already familiar with them:

More Than a Dream: The Science Behind Nightmares | Change Your Mind, Change Your Life

How to Eliminate Recurring Nightmares

I havent worked in almost 20 years, and i still have nightmares about my job, or when i wake up, i believe i HAVE still been working, then i have to think hard about it to go over how i have spent my days these past years and realize i have NOT been commuting, etc!, ive been watching Rachel Ray or whatever! But i had started having nightmares during the last year of my job, and got fired most ingloriously, so that might have something to do with it. I took it pretty hard. I took it very hard. It broke me. YMMV.

I’m afraid my body and mind are way too used to produce high level of anxiety no matter what. You made a lot of sense.
Thanks for sharing the articles.
I’m very interested in all related to dreams.

I understand you. For me, it was also very hard. I enjoyed my job so it was hard to make the decision that I couldn’t deal with it anymore.
I guess I will have the same nightmares for a long time, only hope they lower the frequency because as you say, it’s like facing again and again to old ghosts.

This thread is welcome...for me---I too have bouts of nightmares, often work-related now that I am retired (sometimes older stuff)---I've decided that it may be happening because I am retired (...like somewhere I feel "safe" having these because I don't have to be there anymore...but it sucks)---[when I was very young I had nightmares, then I had lovely dreams for years, full of symbols and colors and...then I saw a T and immediately began having nightmares--and growing younger in said nightmares--I was in my 30's then. Now, 67, work...I think when I am living something I just run on fumes and react later...if that makes any sense

It has lots of sense that when you saw a T. you began to experience dreams and nightmares. I had the same experience. It seems as your mind kind of awake and it’s more open to work on what there is inside it.

I’m very curious about the world of dreams but these repetitive nightmares where my worst fears arise over and over again are pretty disturbing. I guess I will keep having them as long as my fears remain. That is, forever.

I can relate here. I used to have regular nightmares that took place in my childhood home. My dreams were always about an intruder in the house, or being stuck in the basement, or something horribly graphic taking place upstairs, etc.

My childhood was not a safe place so it made sense all nightmares took place in that home.

What helped me was understanding my childhood and the people in it. My fears came in through my dreams because there were a lot of unknowns until I was near 40years of age.

My anxieties also has to do with harbouring a lot of shame and guilt. I learned that's a big piece when being raised with a narcissist parent plus an alcoholic. Even though the alcoholic sobered by the time I was 8years of age, and parents separated, the patterns we adapted to remained. After that, and as an adult, every single error I made became a shameful replay.. and often a lot worse in my head than in reality.

So my tip, I guess, would be to address the trauma that's been stuffed deeply into your subconscious.

I also believe anxiety is biological in the sense that certain foods/beverages/substances and sensitivities can increase symptoms of anxieties.

First of all, I’m sorry for what you had to go through in your childhood.
I’m not strange that you had to do a whole process to kind of conciliate with these hard experiences.

Thank you for your advises. I’m gonna take in. Especially the one about trying to understand what happened and understand the people involved in the situation. I think it can help me.
Still I’m having over and over again nightmares. All very overwhelmed and similar among them.
Thank you.