Horrible Nightmare

[angymac1986]

If you have any triggers to do with combat or severe body damage then please be aware that this is a nightmare that could potentially trigger you.

I often have nightmares in which I am a soldier although I never have been one in real life. Most of these nightmares don't bother me too much...I am used to them by now...its more a struggle in them than horror. This last one was a bit strong though.

In this one I am a soldier in Afghanistan...and I see this about 10 year old Afghan boy standing on this plywood board. He need help because underneath the board is a pit and a bomb in it. If he gets off the board the pressure being released will set the bomb off. I step onto the board so the kid can get off...while another soldier collects rocks to put onto the board.

The board slips a bit...but its ok...the other soldier sees a gap between the pit and the board to get at the device. He pulls out a wire and says its safe now. I get off the board and start walking away....i walk a bit then hear the explosion and turn round and see the head coming off the soldier and blood pissing out like a fountain....and the kid is in half and he is still walking. :( Probably the most f-ed up dream in a while.

 

[angymac1986]

Had another nightmare last night. In this one a dog is snarling and chasing me and biting my heels. I try running away from it for a bit. It keeps chasing me so I turn round and boot it in its face...then I take a chair and smack the dog with it. It cowers and whimpers. I feel guilty, so I pet the dog...stroking it...but I could feel it trembling under my hand.

 

[janej32]

Wow those dreams sound pretty disturbing, I'm sorry to hear you keep having them. :( I also have no war related trauma but I had a pretty scary dream last night where me and some friends were in a war zone where a bomb had gone off. There were a group of men walking around shooting any survivors, so we were hiding behind pieces of broken cars, buildings etc. The entire dream we were just hiding from these men, it was quite distressing.

 

[Meadowsweet]

I find it useful to write dreams like these down, as you have done. Sometimes I can find meaning in them, and it helps to process or at least become aware of fears and emotions that we have.

 

[Srain]

I agree with MeadowSweet. I have some gruesome dreams, always have, none war related. I've had them since I was a child and they seemed to get worse after I had children or had contact with children.

I don't dream in black and white, it's colour and sometimes they are night terrors, which are extremely vivid and horrifying. Nightmares like what you described can stay with you throughout the day but it seems the very act of writing them out, talking them out, purging them, can help to rid our subconscious of them to some degree.

I tend to be someone that insist on finding a meaning behind them - obviously not everyone feels this way or believes in this, my husband for one - but it brings me some sense of peace. I understand some dreams mean nothing, a combination of what I see and experience throughout my day. Others, maybe night terrors, which are something entirely different. I won't go into that as I am no expert on any of this. Then there are those nightmares that I have in which I SEEM to be playing out my deepest feelings, fears, pain, and whatnot.

Child are a very sensitive vessel for me and dream meanings are subjective so writing them out and looking at them as either memories or feelings or nonsense of the day might a way of helping you to address these. I have also learned to work repetitive dreams by addressing them, again, I'm no expert just simply identifying with you.

I'm sorry you are going through this. If you have a therapist I might write these down and discuss them with them. In the meantime, yes, keep writing them out.

Take good care,
Peace and healing,
Rain

 

[Helliepig]

My T says dreams often represent different parts of yourself - for instance if there's someone coming at you with anger it represents an a part of you that youself that you are frightened of, or angry with ...and there's a lot of symbolism too in dreams too. I once had a nightmare where we constructed a series of clear pipe - like one of those fancy straws. The stuff flowing through it was nice and pleasant until the pipes passed in through a man's head - in one ear, out the other - and the stuff became rancid and terrifying. When we worked on it with EMDR it turned out I feared that when something went through a man's head it became warped and spoilt - AKA my abusers.

I have frequently dreamt of a body barely buried in the ground that I am trying to hide - my true self that wants to come out but I have killed it and afraid to let it be seen...

The most amazing dream abreaction I had was after months of terrfying nightmares which I wrote about in my thread, (I've put it in small font so you can skip it if you're bored plus reference to specific abuse incident so trigger warning!)

"... Night after awful night.

Then one night - at last - a visual component to the dream. I dreamt I was looking at a small bit of film strip - one segment, to the left, was all black. The one to the right was grey and fuzzy and it was disappearing, left to right, into a slot. Only a small bit of it remained. In my dream, I had, with all my being, to stop the film strip being dragged into that slot, the grey strip disappearing forever. I woke up with the feeling of huge huge effort and managing to hold that film strip still against those unseen forces.

Fortunately I was seeing T that day and with some trepidation, we started EMDRing the dream.
Things were obviously ripe for plucking...... as i moved my eyes back and forth following the lights, suddenly I rembered a gathering at home, probably a wake I think, for my mum's friend who died. From where I sat in the room I could see a thin strip of people to the right, with daylight around them, but in front of me and to the left, was a big black shadow that blocked out all the light. With a shock I realised it was the same layout as the filmstrip in my dream.

The symbolism and ingenuity of the brain and how EMDR gets the patterns out of it never cease to amaze me, but this was so clear, so instant, so breath taking. More eye movements, and we made out that this shape was a man. I felt my terror rising and blocks kicking in, so T told me to think of touch - his dark black trenchcoat - and smell - the lemon biscuits at the wake. Was it my father? No. Who was it? Suddenly the scene in front of me changed to sitting in the same chair but this time with the doctor in his big black trenchcoat, his bulk blocking out the light, examining me. ( I had measles - I think I was less that 3 at the time???) and a sudden clear, shocking, definite aboslutely felt, cold hard sensation of his fingers where they had no right to be for a measles exam"


I guess what I'm trying to say is the brain is pretty clever at encoding its trauma and dreaming is one way where you get to see what it's up to, but it doesn't always make sense on a logical level

 

[Girl3]

Ugh. So sorry for your nightmares but so glad you are able to work through them. It turns my stomach though.

 

[angymac1986]

Cheers for your replies...pretty much numb to the nightmares now when I wake up...but that first one freaked me out a bit. My nightmares aren't usually full of gore.

 

[Martin Taylor]

I get attacked by cute cartoon characters, cuddly penquins, etc. the I think I wake up but I'm actually still dreaming. etc