Dissociation In Dreams

[Deleted member 37343]

(forgot to add this in my other thread so I'll just write it here) Just curious.. has anyone ever dissociated or seen themselves dissociated in their dreams? For the past week I'll have multiple nightmares and most of the time there will be a period where I'll see myself dissociated.

 

[Friday]

I've had flashback dreams in spades... But only once have I ever disassociated that I know of. I'd been fighting to stay present for months, flashback dream, and woke up in the same no-emotions state that I existed in during the trauma.

 

[Arebas]

I've had dreams where I see someone and I know that's also me even though it looks nothing like me. They're very disturbing. I had a nightmare once where I saw myself from behind and I wanted to see my face but I was facing backwards all around. Scared the sh*t out of me.
And in most of my dreams I can see through my eyes, but also from behind my shoulder and sometimes like a third person watching myself do things. Those don't scare me cause they feel like my usual dissociation and I'm used to it. So I guess I dream dissociated? Weird. Never thought of that before.

 

[micky]

so if you do dissociate during the day and then at night and if you dream and you are watching yourself,thats dissociating in your dreams/nightmares?

 

[DogwoodTree]

I thought that was normal in dreams...to sometimes be watching yourself, or watching someone who seems to be you but really isn't. That describes about half of my dreams, and oftentimes I'll switch back and forth between being myself and watching myself in the same dream. So is that not normal, then?

 

[Sideways]

@DogwoodTree - it sounds pretty normal to me. Certainly the way people describe their dreams (like, "I dreamt I could fly"...) it sounds normal.

Sometimes I'm not actually part of what I'm dreaming about at all, other times I see through my own eyes, sometimes I'm watching myself from a distance. I think it's hard to define what a "normal" dream is like. Some people apparently don't even dream in colour.

What freaks me out is that no matter how real my dream seems to be, I can control the content of my dreams, and I can wake myself up quite easily, because ever since I was a kid, part of my brain remains aware that "I'm dreaming". The content of my dreams is more like nightmares and often gery disturbing, but they don't distress me the way other people describe because I know, regardless of how real it seems, that it's just a dream and I can wake up.

The only reason I added that is because a T once suggested to me that perhaps one of my parts wasn't active in the dream and was aware that the rest of me was in a dream state.

We know very little about what's going on with our brain when we're dreaming, so it's wide open for interpretation.

 

[Muttly]

I can have several versions of the same dream happening at once. I don't know how to explain it well, but basically the dream may start of as a single dream but then different parts of us take the dreams in different directions.

I've also experienced what @Ragdoll Circus described quite a bit although we do get distressed sometimes because it's memory dreams.

and sometimes I can actually here some of us discussing the dream and then changing the dream as it's going on.

 

[Sideways]

@Muttly - I tend to dream about the world ending or people getting butchered and stuff, rather than reexperiencing my trauma. I'm not sure what would happen if I did start to dream about my trauma. I don't think it would gonas far as my parts duscussing my dreams, because I'm not even sure if that T's theory about it being a part intervening in my dreams was correct.

More questions than answers really!

 

[Muttly]

@Ragdoll Circus I *think* when they are discussing the dream, it's because someone has woken us up part way, so we gain more awareness. I had something really amazing and healing happen in a dream a few days ago regarding this. I am not sure if this is the right place to write it out though. I don't want to dominate or take this post off topic.