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Can A Nightmare Be A Flashback?

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Heather

MyPTSD Pro
Lastnight I had a horrible nightmare. and of course because it was a dream I was sleeping outside in a bed and I heard someone getting out of their car and coming up the stairs and the bed was on a deck. And they noticed me because I stirred in my sleep and then they got on top of me.......I also remember being very groggy in the dream and the terror, that same feeling I had when I had the flashback approx. 2 weeks ago.

I couldn't fight him off. He was holding me down and when I woke up this morning I felt awful....shaky and yucky inside....i pulled the covers over my head. I just wanted to crawl into a hole and shrivel away.

Can anyone else relate to this? And how do you know if this is just a dream or is it part of a flashback? How do you know the difference? I'm so confused.
 
Heather, ugh nightmares are never fun. Maybe it was kind of both a dream and sort of a flash back. Nightmare's are usually our minds way of trying to deal with our fears, real or imagined, in a safe environment. I think it's sort of a misunderstood form of protection, the mind is trying to prepare you for this fear and figure out the best way to handle it, should it ever happen or happen again. I know that nightmare's can be scary in content, but if you try and look at the purpose behind the nightmare and understand that your mind is trying to help you deal with your fears and not torture you, it may help you to not feel as bad about them.
 
The more I think about this the more I think that this is related to the flashback I had....the more i'm convinced it was my father raping me......i feel sick....everytime i think about it i start to cry...i can't say the words out loud. I can only think it silently.
 
i have nightmares every night for the past 2 weeks. even when i was just takeing naps. but my nightmares are not with the guy that molested me or the guys that raped me. they are a varitey of men in every dream and never the same person in one dream.. i get about 4 hours of sleep a night and i stay up during the day now cause im terrified of closeing my eyes! :(
 
I do think dreams can be flashbacks. That is how my first "memories" of being raped at 7 came back to me. I think Curiouser is right on..My primary T does dream analysis. It really helps me to figure out what my subconscious is trying to tell me.

I got on this thread today because of horrible nightmares I had last night. Some of what I dreamed is pretty obvious. Like feeling I am dirty, not protecting the little girl I was from the man hurting her etc. I had one part that is eerily similar to yours in a way. Even when I was dreaming about the man I was terrified of I couldn't see anything, just the glass globe I had recently photographed as if thru a telescope. It was more feelings of terror and "knowing" who was there. Later where I was switched to my parents bed. I was aware of where I was, but seeing the same globe thru the telescope. Behind the globe was something malevolent, evil. I couldn't see it, just knew I was in my parents bed and I was terrified. It feels like a flashback, similar to when I first dreamed of what happened when I was 7. Like you, the implications of this dream terrify me, they make me sick to my stomach.

Yet, I want to know/remember the things that happened to me so I can deal with them and move on.

((((HUGS)))) Heather. I wish it was easier for you, for all of us.
 
I had to be really careful when I tried to put my dreams into a "past experience perspective". Early on, I found myself trying so hard to find my repressed memories (up to age 7) that my dreams drove me crazy. Literally, I started disassociating and losing time. Everything was confusing and I couldn't make time lines work. I started questioning my reality and in return, my dreams became more vivid and weird. I kept a dream journal and this didn't even help.

It's really weird, the dreams that made no sense and had things like dinosaurs and other odd things were the ones that eventually had at least one section that was a partial memory. I could never tell what dream I could interpret and which were just "food eaten late".

It seems when you have a long history of abuse starting from early childhood, at least in my experience, you have so many different ways of cataloging your memories, ie..smell, touch, audible, visual...some are just a body memory from your baby days. I had stop stressing on what my dreams "might" mean or how they applied to my past. When I did this, I found that in treatment, things came out when the were ready to surface. I didn't have to push or worry.
Sending Peace and Calm
suzie q
 
I NEED A BREAK FROM ALL OF THIS SH*T!! CALGON TAKE ME AWAY.
mad.png
 
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