Can A Nightmare Be A Flashback?

[Kim500]

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.

I'm glad you wrote this! I used to think that my mind was torturing me, especially with nightmares, but now I firmly believe that our mind is our friend and is trying to help us. Maybe it is also trying to find a way to process things and deal with the trauma itself. Why I'm talking about the brain as if it's a separate being from myself I have no clue, but it's just the way I feel. Gosh that sounds strange! Maybe I'm losing it.:confused:

 

[Emmie Boyce]

You are not losing your mind. Our minds definetly protect and help us. I think most people never learn this, but I am thankful for having a human mind.

 

[Shellbell]

I don't think nightmares are flashbacks, as often mine will be about trauma, but will include things that didn't actually happen and I don't rely on them for accurate recall of missing memory. I am aware they are distorted from the truth.

While awake, I have a lot of intrusive thoughts about trauma and memory recall, but they are not flashbacks. They are upsetting and distressing, but I'm aware I'm here now as I am at 41 and it's a memory in my mind. And they can be distressing enough that I dissociate too.

I've had flashbacks and literally thought it was happening right then and feeling the horror, pain and sensation of the event as the age I was when it happened, which is much worse. But they have been far fewer than intrusive thoughts.

I think the term flashback is used too often and what is really happening is intrusive thoughts, or memory recall.

 

[Abstract]

A car backfires, the soldier immediately goes to ground / tackles their loved one to the ground, begins calling those around them names of their squad / section, begins calling in fire support, contact, starts firing and moving. That is a flashback.

A car backfires, the solider freezes, has immediate recollection of a traumatic event when a shot rang out. Not a flashback, a dissociative state.

A car backfires, the soldier freezes, has completely zoned out and in their brain, all they see is the war zone around them, feel it, smell it... imaginery people appear to them.

Hi Anthony,
If you feel inclined I would like to check a few things.

I have always understood that a vivid photograph of something from the past that intrudes randomly is an intrusive image/memory. Even when it feels like one is being knocked over by it. I think this type of occurrence is often loosely termed a flashback but isn't. I don;t understand where dissociation comes into it though. I would have thought that dissociating as a result of the memories is other than the point.

I also think I understand that anything one experiences as if it is happening now and not in the past is a flashback.

So if the soldier hears the car backfire and then smells smells from the past (gunsmoke for example) that he could not possibly smell now then although he is not 100 % in the past he is still experiencing a flashback. He looks around to see where it is coming from as he truly smells it. Is that correct? The way I understand it is that flashbacks can be 100 % or 90 % or 80 % in the past for example.

So if the person in front of me becomes someone from the past and the rest of the room goes black but they are sitting in the chair from the present then what is that?

Lets say 3 of the 5 senses are involved then what is that?

I know sometimes it is absolutely 100% back in the past with one inside the experience and that is a flashback but what about when one is inside the experience but not all senses are involved?

Thanks.

 

[Kim500]

You are not losing your mind. Our minds definetly protect and help us. I think most people never learn this, but I am thankful for having a human mind.

Thank you Emmie!!! I am thankful for having a human mind too! :)

 

[Fia]

Not at all. That's how I see it. I believe the mind can cure itself if allowed to. But its just so hard to understand what its telling you what to do, or not to do. And yes I'm the same. I talk of it as something separate.

Gosh that sounds strange! Maybe I'm losing it.

 

[Kim500]

Thank you for sharing that dear Fia!!! :) About speaking of the brain as something "separate", here is what I think! I realize that my "self", my very "soul" is not my brain. After all, the brain is only needed in a physical body on earth, not in the afterlife! And I'm all about the afterlife! :D

 

[Shellbell]

Yes our minds and brains have excellent coping methods and are very resilient. I viewed dissociation as a really negative problem, until I realised how well it has protected me during abuse. I'm glad I dissociated, it helped me cope. Now I try not to be so annoyed by my minds current need to dissociate often, due to the PTSD and therapy.

People here on the forum have confirmed the nightmares, flashbacks and dissociation have reduced with therapy and time, showing the brain/mind can heal to a large degree from the PTSD symptoms.

 

[Kim500]

That's a great post Shellbell!

 

[GreenFrog2]

I get dreams that are identical to my flashbacks. Sometimes these occur within moments of falling asleep.

I was terrified to sleep for several months earlier in the year due to constant nightmares about my trauma, that were the same as my awake flashbacks. I now get to sleep fairly easily, which I think is because my nightmares must have dissipated. I still have them, but maybe they are not so bad.

I think that bad dreams / nightmares help us to process the things that scare us, and that we block out during the day. But I now wake up early - it's like the nightmares wake me up and as I wake I am having serious anxiety and sometimes panic attacks. Makes it pretty hard to get sound sleep, but I keep telling myself that I am processing the crap and eventually the night terrors will stop.

 

[ddgrgrl]

Wow this has helped me a lot. Thank you. I have nightmares every night. Most nights I'm only getting a few hours sleep if I'm lucky. Lately I wake up and see my ex husband at the foot of my bed. I don't know why this is happening now after all these years but it terrifies me and I don't go back to sleep. My biggest thing is I'm told I'm making this happen. Is that possible?? Is there a way to stop it?

 

[xlivingdeadgirl]

I honestly think that dreams can totally be flashbacks. My vet takes ambien to help him sleep all night. I started recording him talking one night and let him hear some of the audio the next day. He actually had me stop it in the middle because he was speaking as if he was back in Iraq. Some of the things he said, I could just tell in his eyes that he was re-living a moment in time. It was crazy. He even mentioned one of his army brothers names.