Confused With Experience Following Nightmares

[Meadowsweet]

Usually when I have nightmares, I wake up and for a time I might think that what happened in the nightmare is real. But the fear is related to the nightmare itself.

But recently Ive had the nightmare and woken up from it and recognised that it is a nightmare.

But then I get overwhelmed by the feeling of horror that something really has happened.Or that my fear of something happening isn't just a fear, it already has happened.

What I don't understand is that I'm still aware of the reality that I've woken up from a nightmare. But the horror feeling isnt related directly to the nightmare, it feels real in the here and now.

I know there are things that have happened that I don't connect to very well as real, although intellectually I know they happened, and a couple of long forgotton childhood memories that feel so far away they don't seem real.

So I'm wondering if this might be the sudden realisation of the reality of my traumas. Or a flashback triggered by the dream?

It terrifies me to think that I felt this terrified at time of trauma and this is what I'm not connecting to. I'm scared that this feeling will come out in therapy.

What do others here think?

 

[Deleted member 12723]

I am no authority. I have had so many nightmares that were so real they haunted me during the next day, Now I am on Risperdone so that if I have nightmares I do not remember them. I love this. I had so many nightmares I used to call them my night life, I think you are having very vivid nightmares but I do not know if they are connected to memories.

I thought if you had them about memories they would be the same over and over. What does your therapist have to say about this? I would not worry about them too much unless your therapist says something is there. I am guessing this is very traumatic for you. It would be for me too. You have to tell your therapist about this. Good luck and I am wishing you the best with this. I hated my nightmares so much. It was terrible.

 

[maddog]

I think I know what you mean MS. I too have many nightmares, often many times a night. I will often wake confused as to what is real or not as you say, and at that time will often be experiencing the terror, horror, revulsion or whatever emotion seems compatible with what I have been reliving.

But even once I have regained my orientation and am aware that the nightmare was just that, those feelings often do not abate, or will sort of transform to take on a generalised form, whereby I will continue to experience nameless undefined dread, fear etc, without really being able to attribute it to anything (given that I am by that time aware that what I have recently relived is in the past and can no longer hurt me).

Standard grounding techniques do not seem to help in these instances, nor does distraction, because the issue isn't that I'm not fully grounded in the present - it's just that somehow the present is holding all of the dread and horror that have come into it from the past. Maybe you're right. Maybe it's all about coming to experience and to recognize the emotions that belonged to those trauma memories but had no expression at the time. Maybe it's emotional displacement, or something along those lines.

Whatever it is, it's intensely distressing, and so far, is beyond what I am having much luck at combatting.

Just wanted you to know that I relate, if I have interpreted your post correctly that is. Coming to terms with the past isn't just about recognizing and integrating the memories, in some ways that's just the beginning. Coming to terms with all of the feelings, emotions and psychological experiences that go along with those memories is sometimes the hardest part for me.

Maddog

 

[Meadowsweet]

Thankyou for the responses.

Gizmo, my nightmares are related to trauma, but they're not direct memories of my trauma. An example, I was walking with a group of people and they cut this murdered this woman and buried her. I saw imagery of her murder (I wont go into details) and her body was just covered in earth, but I could see its shape. And in the dream I had to keep it secret otherwise they would do the same to me.

That's not my trauma, but the weapons involved, the feeling of ever present threat and fear of someone finding out are feelings I associate with my trauma.

My therapist has been away and in the meantime I get a phone call of the psychiatrist once a week to check how I'm doing. So I tried to ask her about the sudden horror coming seperate from the nightmare. I'm not sure if she understood and she just said these things were to expected, and checked that I was using methods of coming back to the present.

Maddog, I think you describe what is happening with me very well and it is a comfort to know that it isn't just me.

When the psychiatrist asked if I was able to bring myself back, I explained that I was eventually. But at first I am frozen with that fear or shock that something terrible has happened. So I'm unable to get up to put the light on. Then after I eventually got as far as the light, I jump back into bed because I feel if I leave the room the reality will be there.

It's like I know something terrible has happened and I'm in that feeling and believe it, but I'm also in the present and I can't recall what has happened. So my present self starts trying to work out what it could be.

So with the light on, I can see there is no one in my room and nothing has happened to me. So then I start thinking something terrible must have happened outside the room, to my children or something. Or that it is just about to happen and I must have heard something.

Eventually the fear becomes so bad that it seems a lesser fear to leave the room and face what's out there.

Once I've checked and still nothing there I start coming back to the fact that I have PTSD and it does strange things. Then I will read a magazine for a bit to bring my anxiety down.

But I can't find a way of bringing myself out of it until I've been through it all.

 

[Deleted member 14359]

So I'm wondering if this might be the sudden realisation of the reality of my traumas

MS, I am no expert in the field so I am left with own experiences to draw in support.

In answer to your question: I used to frequently have nightmares relating to my childhood, and beating and rape (two different traumas). Some were very real and freaked me out to the point they would affect me the following day. But as my counselling has kicked in around my childhood I have fewer nightmares associated with it. My counsellor says this is because I have been processing my feelings and emotions and I am starting to accept what happened to me. Just got to work on the rest to deplete them too.

I am sorry your T is away for a time, I hope you continue soon and get back on track and eventually get those nightmares sorted out.:)

 

[Deleted member 12723]

Meadowsweet, I am so sad that you have to deal with such fear. It really sounds like an ordeal. I am hoping that you will get some help with this and it will fade away from you. i did not understand and for that I am sorry.

I am glad you have some help as you go through this experience. I hate ptsd and what it does to people. You do not deserve to be going through this at all. Oh how I wish I had a magic wand and could wave it and take this ugliness far away from you. I think it would be so nice to wake up and just start the day without all of the fear and trauma. Big hugs.

 

[Meadowsweet]

Ja9w, my therapist is back next week and this is something I will bring up, because I do find it very distressing.

Gizmo, I have trouble explaning things sometimes and the original post is very badly written. So really really no need for sorry's. Thankyou for your comments, you are always an inspiration.

 

[Deleted member 14359]

Meadowsweet...may I give you an example that for once is not trauma related but explains a little clearer and may make some sense to us all.

When I was at university as a mature student in 2008 I was taking my final exams. I put so much into that degree alongside caring for my autistic son, working full time and taking care of the house and hubby.

I did a criminology and sociology degree, one of the exams relied on a lot of work based on the theorist Parsons. I was so stressed by it all, I was working on little in the tank with little than a few hours sleep a night, I worked so hard that it was encompassing my life beyond belief but, I was determined to remember all the detail to ensure I did the best I could and achieve the score I was looking for. I also adored what I was studying.

I allowed myself one full night of sleep on a Saturday but, it was frequently disturbed by a nightmare similar to you explain. I would see a silhouette of an old mans face with grey fuzzy hair, he was very ugly and stern and appeared very scary. The space behind him was dark yet I could see every part of his face because there was a light beneath his face. He was called Parsons!

I would wake up stiff, panicking and sweating. Everything I had seen felt so real. I was frightened to get out of bed because he was in my house. I would eventually pluck up the courage and get out of bed to the light and turn it on. Then reality would dawn when hubby woke up and told me I was ok and it was a dream!

It used to take me a good 30 minutes to accept that was all it was because the fear was so real at the time.

Those nightmares stopped when I finished my exams. I had finished processing so much information at a time when I was so tired yet determined to do well.

Sound familiar??? Hope it helps.

 

[Meadowsweet]

I think what I'm finding confusing is the seperation between nightmare and this feeling.

I've had nightmares quite regularly and understand that the feelings created in the dream can go on after the visual part of the dream has ended.

I am struggling to describe what happens, so bear with me. I wake up from the nightmare and bring myself back to the present. This has worked in the past and it feels like I've done that and I'm just at the stage when I would get up, use the toilet and go back to bed or read for a bit.

It's at this point that this feeling comes over me like a wave of realisation that something real has happened. My mind doesn't relate the feeling directly to the events of the nightmare. I'm aware that I'm in my house, sat up in bed and no longer in the dream.

It must be triggered by having the nightmare, but it's the seperation from the nightmare that feels confusing. So it is like another event, rather than the continuation of the nightmare, if that makes sense.

It is a symptom that I hope will lessen with more processing work. But it's something I'd like to understand better, because I think the confusion about what's happening adds to it. Sometimes once I understand something I can use that understanding to talk myself back.