A Question To Help Me Get A Perspective On Things..

[wife of]

Ok so someone mentioned to us that lurid daydreaming from choice about good times is a form if dissociation. Is that right ? It confuses me because that is something I have always done. I guess it is some form of defence /coping mechenism..

I always thought that it was the type of thing people meant when they talk about finding a happy place for meditating.

This skill..if that is the right word has certainly enabled me to understand how hubs flashbacks can be so real,but I'm trying to figure out if the two things are related at all,if the chemical processes behind them are similar (I doubt that as my experiances leave me happy and serene) and wether it is possible to teach or even hypnotise someone into replacing one set of dissociations for another? ie training the mind to go to its happy memories as soon as it realises a bad flaahback is setting in.

Ptsd...each time I think I understand someone thriws in new infirmation/misinformation and muddies the water.

 

[Lucycat]

Hmmm. I'm not sure if you mean 'lurid'. Maybe I am misunderstanding, but I thought if something were lurid then it is not nice. That doesn't work with the idea of it being about the good times. Sorry maybe I'm wrong.

Anyway, IMHO a daydream is not dissociation. A daydream I can 'snap out of' at will. I can't do that when I dissociate. In those times I don't feel like I'm all there or in control. Sort of 'spaced out' and not at all pleasant. For me that is nothing like a daydream

As for changing the information about PTSD - yes I'm with you. I feel like I'm learning all the time. Holding onto the concept of PTSD is like trying to hold a handful of custard!!

 

[Taven Carlsen]

Hmmm. I'm not sure if you mean 'lurid'. Maybe I am misunderstanding, but I thought if something were lurid then it is not nice.

Think she means "colorful/intense"

 

[Meadowsweet]

I've always daydreamed, and in adulthood I've meditated and let my mind drift. It doesn't drift into recognisable memories, but into my imagination I guess. I don't know if it's dissociation, but if it is, I would say it is a healthy dissociation.

But when a memory comes back of trauma in the form of a flashback, it feels more like the dissociation is a direct reaction to the trauma reoccuring. I become sort of stuck there frozen in shock or confusion until I can get a grip on the present. I havn't switched off and let my mind drift like a daydream. Instead my mind is busy replaying all this information, and I'm reacting instinctively. I'm not sure I'm explaining this well.

But my therapist has got me to practise a safe place visualisation in my mind so that it becomes a familiar refuge. It doesn't replace trauma memories, but it can help in therapy to bring my anxiety down. When I feel like I am dissociating in therapy, I say so as soon as I feel myself going and my therapist asks me to visualise my safe place.

I'm not capable of the visualisation when my anxiety is that high. But because my therapist is telling me that I'm safe and not in the trauma place anymore, I'm able reasure myself with the feelings I relate to the safe place, and she can talk me back into the present.

 

[wife of]

I guess that is kind of what I have been doing all my life. It comes naturaly to me and is my safe haven in times of distress. I recognise I am blessed to have this ability and just wish it was teachable to others..it is a precious and valuable tool.

 

[bethinhfx]

I will tell you what lurid daydreaming looks like: Imagine for a minute what you would do if you won the lottery? Honestly, it will put you in a frenzy for about 10 minutes and then you have to deal with reality! I choose to face reality; it's easier. If you look at it like that....

I have also had the good fortune of having a sexual partner that wasn't really there, and sometimes it got lurid but gosh/ darn during some really tough times in the last 3 years I have managed to zone out/ disassociate/ practice very safe sex...and then try deal with reality again. Monogymy with a pilow- highly recommend it :laugh:.

Don't know if it would work for everyone but it really helped me. It helps to have a bridge to reality; particularly if reality is very painful....peace!

 

[wife of]

Hmm wasn't so much thinking of the realms of fantasy day dreaming.

My day dreams are usualy of past events where I feel safe and happy.....but extremely realistic to the extent that it takes people a little effort to secure my attention and force me out of them.

The kids now know not to ask me anything important unless they have my full attention as they would ask for things or to do things whilst I was off dreaming and I would quite frankly agree to anything but then not remember the conversation.

This strikes a big similarity to how my hubs behaves whilst dissociated...appearing to be fully functioning but not.

 

[Meadowsweet]

I guess that is kind of what I have been doing all my life. It comes naturaly to me and is my safe haven in times of distress. I recognise I am blessed to have this ability and just wish it was teachable to others..it is a precious and valuable tool.

It can be a valuable tool. But it can also be very harmful and dangerous in the long run.

People need to have the ability to run, fight or use their sense to get out of situations where they might be vulnerable. When dissociation is triggered by fear it can leave that person without the capacity to escape.

I think that's the differentiation I was trying to explain between daydreaming and dissociation triggered by trauma.

 

[wife of]

Yep that is very much the difference.
Mine is largely by choice and in times of emotional distress...

I have been in periods if real danger and nothing like that has ever happened to me.

Having pointed out the above it occured to me that none of hubs dissociative episodes or flashbacks bar one have ever been in dangerous situtions...not realy relevant...but another bit of the jigsaw..

 

[Meadowsweet]

I don't know if this is relevant or not, but I do dissociate during traumatic experience. So it seems to make sense that I would dissociate if I when those memories re-occur in my mind or if I percieve it is about to happen again.

Did your husband never dissociate during the traumatic events that led to ptsd?

 

[wife of]

No..combat related so training kicks in during events. Even now dissociation occurs during downtimes and safetimes..never when there is an issue or threat...bar one occasion when a firewodk went off right behind him.

 

[myvetswife]

We talked to a therapist about that not so long ago. She said it is a nice and good tool when you can keep control over it.