Dreams

[vtap]

Hi

I sometimes get dreams with aspects of the traumatic events e.g: audio, images, feelings mixed in with other events randomly generated by my mind. What does this mean exactly and how common is this? I'm not exactly waking up in the middle of the night due to these but it's something I've noticed once I've woken up in the morning. It can be really vivid and intense.

Thanks

 

[franciemarnie]

I think our minds are always trying to process the trauma awake and asleep.

I have for sure dreamed about the trauma literally and metaphorically for decades. Night terrors in my 40's were the worst. Now dreams are mild on the whole.

But if I dream any manifestation of the trauma, I definitely feel it the next day. Drained and sad or angry or depressed.

I appreciate on the whole that my unconscious is always trying to work thru it and get me well. Not that it's very pleasant!

 

[Hashi]

I think it's impossible to answer the question unless you have some sort of overall approach to dream interpretation. What you're asking about can't really be asked a general question, you'd have to look at each dream, it's symbolism, it's nuances, what it's representing to you and so on.

When you ask what does it mean, the question needs to be taking one dream at a time and looking at what that means, ideally with a therapist trained in dream interpretation or at least from your own reading/learning about dream interpretation.

A dream about an aspect of trauma might be due to subconscious/somatic processing and working through what happened, it might be trying to bring something to your conscious attention to work on, it might be using what happened to symbolise something (eg helplessness) to mirror to you that you're manifesting helplessness in a current, completely different situation.... it could be many things.

Sorry, but I don't think there's any simple answer for your question. What I would say is that I no longer believe anything in dreams is randomly generated by the mind. I used to think this. I imagined it like my subconscious flicking through what happened today, yesterday, 10 years ago, 17 years ago and than randomly stopping at something and putting that in my dream. The question is, what does that seeming nonsense/random thing have to say to me now?

Now - having worked with dreams for years - I see them as astonishingly sophisticated and attuned. It's not that my subconscious randomly picked something that happened 17 years ago, but that it very carefully selected something that happened 17 years ago because that's the perfect thing that will reflect to me something I need to think about today.

 

[Red4287.]

There is a medication for vivid dreaming. It is called Prasonin It is actually aa blood pressure medication and is also used for dreaming. It has helped me.

 

[vtap]

When you ask what does it mean, the question needs to be taking one dream at a time and looking at what that means, ideally with a therapist trained in dream interpretation or at least from your own reading/learning about dream interpretation.

I see. Recently I've tried to write down exactly what I could remember each time I had one of those dreams. It doesn't quite make sense once I read out what I've written. It's like a story with gaps missing. However, certain images/feelings/audio do stand out. So I've written out the beliefs that are attached to those and that's all I've done. Perhaps targeting the associated trauma with EMDR would be a good next step.

Now - having worked with dreams for years - I see them as astonishingly sophisticated and attuned. It's not that my subconscious randomly picked something that happened 17 years ago, but that it very carefully selected something that happened 17 years ago because that's the perfect thing that will reflect to me something I need to think about today.

Interesting stuff Hashi. Yeah I think this makes sense especially if there is a recurrence of dreams that all relate to the same traumatic incident. However, what if the traumatic event that my dreams keep pointing to is something that has already been processed via EMDR say? I guess we can conclude that the EMDR wasn't effective.

 

[tired of the fight]

vtap,

I get those same kinds of dreams, jumbled trauma. Especially in the morning, can be very upsetting and shakes me. I wonder why this happens. It seems like I get them more when I'm under more pressure

 

[Hashi]

However, what if the traumatic event that my dreams keep pointing to is something that has already been processed via EMDR say? I guess we can conclude that the EMDR wasn't effective.

It depends partly on what you see as processing.

I don't have EMDR for a number of reasons, but from discussions with people here I've got the impression that what EMDR can help you achieve is what I'd call "deactivation" of the trauma, ie the event is real for you, but it gets reassigned into the past and is no longer traumatising you in the present. I get this from the way I do talk therapy and other things, The first question would be whether the EMDR was effective in achieving that, given that you're still dreaming about the trauma. I can't comment on that either way, because I don't relate to EMDR. If you posted about it in a new thread for that particular topic I'm sure people who have EMDR could give a view.

Apart from that question, I think there's also the question of what you need to process. For me, "deactivating" the trauma is only part of it. I need to also process the meaning it had for me at the time, what effect that had on me, how that affected my life from that point forward, and what all of that means for me now. I don't know how much EMDR therapists in general work on that too, and I don't know how much you worked on it with your particular therapist. If I hadn't worked through that yet, it would make sense to me to still be having dreams relating to meaning and effect, even if I no longer felt currently traumatised by what happened. There would still be things to be processed.

 

[Britt.f7]

Sometimes a dream is just a dream. Nothing more. It can be from the past, or things you are working on now. I had a dream once where I jumped up to go wait on a table(I was working a lot at the time). I have disrupting dreams from time to time that leave me exhausted or apprehensive the next day. In particular are ones where my mother and sister, almost always the pair, are fighting with me and being verbally vicious. I hate those dreams. My mother died, so she is not around to talk to. My sister and I have been getting along well, but I know I am afraid that it will turn like it has in the past.

Some people think you can pick your dreams by what you think before you go to bed. I don't know. I've tried, but, maybe not well enough. I'm not good at meditation either, so that could be the problem.

Sorry, I am absolutely no help.