Incest Nightmares...wtf?

[oasis2003]

Oh I dream some weird dreams / nightmares they really unsettle me but try and figure that they are processing something. After a bad one I feel really hyper vigilant and wired so for me probably flash back induced .

 

[aut555]

Went to therapy, years and years later, released stories of a certain type of abuse by family member. Went home and had the most vivid intense abuse dreams that l just explained to therapist. And l woke up feeling sooooo bad, yucky, shaken, wacked out. So l feel your dream could mean something, it's just trying to decipher who and what.

 

[Sideways]

@aut555 - Yeah, I saw my T on Tuesday, told her about the dreams and then promptly announced "That's not what we're talking about today because it could mean absolutely anything..."

She gave me "that" look, and I'm fairly confident that she's gonna bring it up with me again some time whether I like it or not!

 

[Missycat]

@Ragdoll Circus , sorry that you are having the nightmares, its horrible and i understand exactly how you feel.
I was abused by my brother for 7 years and the nightmares came after the abuse began and they still happen. My sister was also abused but hasnt had any nightmares. In some nightmares its not my brothers face its just a face of someone i dont know. This freaked me out because i wasnt sure if this was other abuse. I was told by a therapist that this was because i had some unresolved trauma or issues that i hadnt processed , it could also have been that i was feeling vunerable or victimized in other ways. I have been doing emdr therapy and whilst i still have horrific nightmares they are not as often and the 'unknown face' has gone.
Whilst you may not want to talk to your T, it might be a good idea to.
All the best and :hug:s if accepted.

 

[Sideways]

@Missycat - I actually had (yet another) dream last night where I got raped in a way that has happened before, but it was a stranger instead of the actual perp.

I woke up and did my usual, "Yuk...meh! Bygones!" No more problem.

The dreams with my brother though? I can't get that shite outta my stomach. It's just sitting there in my gut as a whole big pile of yuck that won't go away.

I don't know what that means, or why it's happening. But at some point, if they don't stop and the yuck doesn't shift, yeah, we're gonna have to spend some therapy time on it.

Not happy about it. But the pdoc will win in the end, she always does.

 

[katz]

Don't usually put a lot of stock into trying to interpret my dreams and nightmares. Usually the...

I try to write down any dreams that I have. It usually takes me a few days to figure them out--if they mean anything. I've looked back a few days later and been able to better understand what they symbolized. If I just forgot them, they were probably just dreams.

I do have a one that happened a few weeks ago. I can't seem to forget it, so I'm still trying to figure it out.

 

[Canotia]

I didn't read the entire thread, I tried, but I can't concentrate long enough. If I repeat what has been said, I'm sorry. I dream a lot. My dream starts out as wrong, it never happened, then turns into something that did. I get chased up the stairs into my bedroom. I was never chased up the stairs, but I walked the long walk every night. Most of the time it is the same dream, most of the time. Sometimes, I put different faces to the abuser, I don't know why. I know for sure that person never touched me, but that is the face I see that night. Still, the content is consistent and correct. Trust yourself, in your heart you probably know.

 

[Sideways]

Trust yourself, in your heart you probably know.

Yeah, my 4 year old little probably knows (which amounts to the same thing I think). But that means communicating with her. She doesn't seem up for that yet, pretty sure I'm a long way from being up for that.

At some point, I think the healthy response is to take a look at it with my T and see where that takes me. I want to start that process from a better space than where I currently am. But pencil it in for the future. Dang!

 

[Gs172003]

I had a dream the other night that a car me and my daughter in was pushed by a flood. A week ago I had a dream my son was trying to drown me getting out of water himself. Neither happened but I feel like they mean something.

 

[theshadowoftheliving]

Hey @Ragdoll Circus, I haven't responded because I've been thinking a lot on this one and haven't managed a coherent response yet. A lot of my dreams are confusing to me and I don't know if things happened in dreams or in reality. I confuse talking to people in dreams and in real life, and banal things like paying bills or checkin email. So, I'm right there with you in that department.

But, I've also had trauma dreams. And you know how you can tell the difference between ordinary recall (like that microwave conversation) and the absolute knowingness, embodied truth of a flashback that just registers as real on a visceral level? I think the same is true of dreams.

I live with the ambiguity of not quite knowing if it was my father or my grandfather that did those awful things to me. I decided it was my grandfather based on a dream. And maybe, this was just the easier choice for me. I'm not sure, but, like abuse in general where others can't or won't corroborate it, I think we just have to trust ourselves on a base level.

I hope that is helpful in some way?

 

[Sideways]

I hope that is helpful in some way?

Very very helpful!

Learning to trust myself and my mind's version of the truth - thought I was all over that, but apparently not. Sometimes, actually what I need is for someone to remind me of those allegedly simple things that I can so easily overlook when I'm full throttle on the over-analysis.

"It's okay to trust yourself and your mind."

I think maybe I've reached a point with a couple of thingss where pausing for a moment, and learning to trust myself is going to be the most helpful thing I can do.

Please excuse the shocking diction. Hospital brain!

 

[katz]

I had a dream the other night that a car me and my daughter in was pushed by a flood. A week ago I had a...

Sometimes water or flood dreams means that I feel overwhelmed by something or I'm lost and alone. Maybe that's only me. Maybe it helps.