I Keep Killing My Kids... What Does It Mean

[Virtues]

This is a reoccurring theme I have nearly all the time. The dream is never the same, but the theme always is. 1) I am always in combat 2) I always accidentally shoot my kids 3) I am always trying to render first aid when they die in my arms. This is when I wake up.

This wasn't a scenario I faced when I was deployed. I never accidentally shot a child nor did I accidentally shoot a friendly combatant. I have talked to 2 other people that were not deployed that have had this same dream about killing their kids (both with PTSD) so I don't think it's a military thing as much as it is a PTSD thing, and the military theme is just a shortcut my brain takes to get straight to the violence.

If this is a common dream I would really like to know what others have to say about it. Any insight would be appreciated. The waking up in cold sweats disoriented and afraid is getting really old.

 

[scout86]

I've never had that exact dream, but I don't have kids. I've never been in the military either but I have LOTS of dreams about war. I also have lots of dream about bad stuff happening, me trying to stop it, and failing. My T says this stuff is some deeper part of your brain trying to tell you something. But that it's not always something obvious. So, like in your case, it's highly unlikely you're having the dreams because you want to kill your actual kids. Chances are that's a symbol that represents something else. Like "the death of innocence"? It represents something that means something to YOU. Might not mean the same thing to someone else.

 

[The Albatross]

To me, though you never experienced it during deployment, there was a risk you were very acutely aware of that affected you emotionally. The attempts to save/render aid post event in the dream yet they die.... represents the struggle with the mission and the reality of combat?

 

[shimmerz]

Failing at a responsibility?

 

[Sandstone]

I've had similar dreams, and I took the children ti represent the inner young me, and the havoc that was wreaked in her. I suppose the first aid might be saying you can't heal this by yourself.

Dreams can be haunting, can't they?

 

[Virtues]

Indeed they can. My T tells me to pay attention to the emotions in the dream. I suppose I feel fear, self doubt, and loss. I guess maybe a bit of incompetence as well that I cant do my job as a first responder to keep them alive, but mainly loss.

 

[Chava]

Just trying to imagine this scenario... possibly a fear of not having control? Fear is the obvious part. I agree that the emotions are helpful clues. I had more nightmares about a strange little girl in a strange family (and I was watching from "outside", like through a window)...the content was always hundreds of times more horrible than anything I personally experienced...blood baths and murders. The little girl was usually murdered in quite gruesome ways. In one dream "I" was actually in it, being abused horribly but my attention was pulled to a man killing himself before he could be murdered (and I felt connected to him...I recognized that he felt very powerful to me in the dream, however twisted that was...it was all about power for me).

Once I was able to stay curious and not so afraid of the nightmares themselves, but willing to notice myself in them (in disguise), they changed and then stopped. My adult observing self in the dream actually stepped into the last nightmare and helped the little girl and took her to the ER.

You kill your kids by accident and you are trying to save them, but not successful (not sure if they represent your kids, which would seem obvious, or aspects of yourself, which is yet another possibility). There is an element of powerlessness in the dream. But that's all I would be able to pick out as fairly obvious. I think it's good you're curious. If you are able to view them differently while awake they might slowly morph on their own. Or if you can figure out what the primary feeling is, and how you might create more of what you need in your waking life (whether finding ways to feel like you have power, control, whatever it is that is represented as missing in the nightmares, if that makes sense...).

 

[Ronin]

Harmfulness to vulnerable people in general? Fears you're not doing enough no matter how fast you get there?

Or kids for 'innocents'? Moral dilemmas maybe? Wouldn't know, brainstorming here.

 

[Marianne]

I had several nightmares as well about killing my child or about a pregnant woman jumping of a cliff which killed her and the baby. To me it represented killing my inner child as well. This happened in a period that I was withdrawing from meds, which went really wrong and lead to great terror and anhedonia. I lost my feelings of happiness and love in this period and interestingly but unfortunately also the happy memories of my childhood. I lost my contact with who I really was. I took it as a warning dream and am trying to reconnect to my own self now.

 

[Virtues]

I had several nightmares as well about killing my child or about a pregnant woman jumping of a cliff which killed her...

It's interesting that you say this. I had a conversation with my T today about almost this very thing, about losing my feelings and a part of myself, and how my world has gotten so small because of it, and also about trying to rediscover myself. I'm sorry, I feel like this needs a little back ground in order to make sense...

When I deployed to Iraq it was high tempo from the very beginning. We took helicopters from TQ Air Base into Fallujah (where I would live for the next 7 months). Before the skids of the bird even touched the deck we were taking enemy RPG fire. I remember watching the crew chief light up the .50 cal on board, and rocked it until we touched down. From the time we hit the ground we were taking indirect mortar fire; the sounds of the mortars were only silenced by the sound of outgoing artillery fire and then the wail of the PA at the aid station asking for donations of certain blood types. Our first mission out of the wire took us past a HMMWV that had been struck by an IED. The vehicle was fully engulfed in flames and you could smell the bodies cooking inside. That first night out we got into our first direct fire fight, and this tempo proceeded throughout the deployment. It was TIC after TIC (troops in contact), IED after IED, until finally we came home.

Once I returned home I realized that nothing I did matched the adrenaline rush of combat. All I felt was numb. Everything I had once enjoyed seemed trivial and petty. The only thing I cared about was the fight.

I have seen so much violence; it's so hard to analyze what parts of this dream are symbolic and what parts are shortcuts my brain takes to get to the violence.

 

[Mafia_Science]

Killing people in dreams can represent bottled up (or not bottled up) resent at that person. Also, the kids can be representing some other resent you have, whether for yourself, certain aspects of yourself, coworkers, etc. Accidental killing can also mean a fear of messing up, fear of losing someone, or even fear of your children growing up. As always, dreams are very abstract and it could mean none of this. I hope this helps :)

 

[Ronin]

it's so hard to analyze what parts of this dream are symbolic and what parts are shortcuts my brain takes to get to the violence.

You could also take it as processing, that it's in a run being a good thing?

(Or cough, at least I do that with nightmares that are too close to real life for my comfort or literal parts of it, and too emotional bs to be simply dismissed as dreams. Telling myself it's my head chewing on things & getting rid of the crap, just in a way that's unsettling as f*ck, but doing my work for me, and letting it lie.)