Dreams As A Trigger

[haltija]

Last night, I couldn't sleep and ended up going to bed later. I was fine before bed and then when I woke up from a nightmare, my boyfriend said I was a completely different person; angry, sketchy, and spacing out or looking out the window for no reason, not saying a word.

I ended up attacking him, emotionally, for absolutely no apparent reason. I hadn't thought about the dream the whole day until he asked what triggered me. I didn't even realize it was the dream that had caused my anger and disassociation, lack of ability to understand any of his feelings or literally hear anything that he was saying properly. I was attacking him for a lack of empathy, but I was unable to emotionally connect with anything from his side. I feel selfish.

It quite bothered me that this happened, since I hadn't even thought about the dream and had no control over the angry feelings I had... worse, no idea where they had come from and I ended up trying to fit pieces together that didn't make sense.

My PTSD comes from a history of sexual abuse and an abusive past marriage with a long episode, due to his own PTSD and drug use/Spice/K2, that eventually led to abandonment. Is it even possible for something as simple as a dream to lead on to some subconscious anger without my being aware of it? Has anyone experienced this?

 

[The Albatross]

Dreams/nightmares can and do disturb me on a pretty much regular basis... but whether I take the time to process it or not is up to me. I can and do choose not to let them color my days. I am responsible for what goes on in my waking time, but at the mercy of having to regulate what my subconscious throws at me.

Being reactive, emotionally to stuff like this was typical for me... but my job on waking is to manage it as best as I can without causing damage to my "real" life. Learning/acquiring some emotional regulation is really important.

 

[shimmerz]

Dreams are far from simple. I experience it as a profound sense of fear, not anger. I have spent the better part of 8 years determining where that fear resides inside of me. I would expect the process for anger would be the same. I wish you the very best of luck.

 

[Kintsugi]

I cope with this a lot. Sometimes I wake up and remember my dreams, sometimes I just know that they were terrible from how I feel in the morning. My partner has accepted that when I say "I didn't sleep well" or "Bad dreams last night" that I will not return to my normal self for sometimes hours, and I typically just need to be left alone to cope with my attitude.

Sometimes I'm angry, sometimes I'm extremely depressed "out of nowhere," and sometimes I am simply in a daze. It's something I am getting better at managing, as Alba talks about, through emotional self-regulation and committing to not letting it "color my day," as she said. Something you may find helpful is having a morning ritual that is grounding and cathartic, such as a short yoga routine, some stretching, a walk, journaling... something you can wake up and engage in immediately, regardless of whether you are being affected or not, which will reconnect you to your life and set up your potential and attitude for that day and not your feelings from something inside your head or past.

 

[haltija]

Thank you all. I expect that it will pass with time. It really helps to know that I'm not insane. I've planned on trying yoga again, so I'll take your advice and try that for a while. :) It's good to know that it's a normal human reaction and not something that just makes me "crazy."

 

[Kintsugi]

Remember, PTSD and all of its "crazy" is a normal reaction to a crazy situation.