EMDR memories and person turning into a crocodile

[Malita]

Hi,
I’ve started EMDR for anxiety and during the treatment I had a memory of “sexual abuse”, it was like a photo type of image, very explicit. Initially I thought I was lying and my brain created this as I do not remember anything. I hAve now “accepted” that there is some true in these memories. In today’s session my memories were really bizarre, I saw two people in my room and one of them turned into a crocodile and attacked me, later I saw myself like a doll in my bed and someone abusing, my body was rotating 360 degrees while my doll like face wasn’t moving. Has anyone else had any similar experience.

 

[Ronin]

I can think of a lot of explanations for something like that, ranging from stuffie crocodiles nearby and remembered, being drugged, having lived or thought of crocodiles / close locations at the time, the adults who hurt you having talked of crocodiles (or being dressed in anything that would lead you to think of those, or move in the fashion you associate(d) with the animal), to them literally being dressed as ones (costumes, concrete clothes, patterns), just happened to be or deliberately to intimidate...

... Or being purely symbolic, though vivid, representation of the danger & helplessness.

Not bizarre, every case.

 

[user27357]

I have dreams in which fish I have caught turn into snakes, some cobras. I have never seen a fish turn into a snake, or heard of such a thing so I am pretty sure that it never happened to me. Most likely the first time I dreamed it i was pretty young and scared by it and all th e recurring dreams of it are just manifestations of the level of fear and freak out the first dream caused.
I know it is a false dream, but the feeling of memory is strong and the dreams are still enough to wake me up. When I am asleep I am not in possession of my full ability to reason or it would be easily cast off as a fantasy that had no danger associated with it.
is it possible you are in similar territory? recalling memories of a traumatic dream but not a reality? In EMDR and thus more open to past memories and feelings no matter where they originated?
But....I have also pulled up stuff I know happened but I didn't recall fully until in EMDR. Hard to know.

 

[Friday]

What Ronin said.

 

[Malita]

Many thanks for the reply.
I felt very silly telling my T about these images/memories although she was not bothered about it and told me to continue focusing in the images that were showing.
Now that I am exploring these sexual Abuse images I have many doubts about the truth of these memories as I do not remember them. I feel very disconnected from them.
I feel sometimes in the memories that I was handled like a toy not as a baby or child. As if the person/people who did this had not connection with me and they used me and throw me away.

 

[InsertCoinsHere]

Imagination and fantasy can also play a part in EMDR. They can arise out of repressed emotions. The mind does it best to fill in gaps and provide symbolic imagery. EMDR is a great tool, I would simply ‘go with it’ and remain open yet notice what occurs, healing is the key not recovery of memories (though they can help form a narrative). Dissociation does make this difficult but with time it may lessen.

 

[Malita]

Imagination and fantasy can also play a part in EMDR. They can arise out of repressed emotions. The mind does it best to fill in gaps and provide symbolic imagery. EMDR is a great tool, I would simply ‘go with it’ and remain open yet notice what occurs, healing is the key not recovery of memories (though they can help form a narrative). Dissociation does make this difficult but with time it may lessen.

I agree with you. I think my abuse happened at a pre verbal age so I wonder if this is how my brain interpreted the abuse.
I have decided to go along with the EMDR and to accept the memories regardless if they feel real or not. The most important thing is to heal and if I managed to make sense of what happened that would be a bonus. At the moment I just need to focus in healing.

 

[Wendell_R]

I have decided to go along with the EMDR and to accept the memories regardless if they feel real or not.

I have sensations of being so physically harmed that if those things actually happened to me, I would be dead. I think of them as "emotional memories" and not something that actually corresponds to objective fact outside my brain. But if that is what is inside my brain, that is what I need to heal.