Is It Normal To Not Have Nightmares Unrealated To Trauma?

[Deleted member 26314]

I have a vary of nightmares, a couple of them reoccuring, the majority of them just being different each night. I'd say that half of my nightmares are about the trauma, not directly but are about the trauma in some twisted way. Like seeing my abuser in the place of my current boyfriend or something frightening like that. However, I do have some nightmares which don't seem to be related to the trauma. Definitely not directly, maybe very indirectly. For example, the ightmares I have which don't relate to it, often have me feeling vulnerable and exposed in the sense that I'm not safe or anything like that. Which is why I am on the fence with it relating to the trauma or not, since the feelings I get in these nightmares (vulnerablitiy, fear, panic etc) are the same as those I experienced (and still experience when triggered) during my traumatic event.

So, is this normal? To not have dreams that relate directly to it but instead portray similar feelings but in a different way. Like different scenarios are played out in my nightmares but give me the same sense of vulnerability etc.

Sorry if this is a bit muddled, I barely understand my brain 90% of the time so sorry if my post isn't all there. Thank you!

 

[arfie]

It's normal for me. My dreams are pretty surreal across the board, nightmares included. I interpret my dreams more on the feelings they generate than the images within them.

edit: you understand your brain 10% of the time? I'm impressed! Ya got me beat!

 

[open eyes]

There's not really a normal for PTSD, but I identify with what you're feeling. My nightmares began following my first hospitalization, when I began dealing with the trauma (a sexual assault). Originally the nightmares were about sexual assault in general, in the dreams perpetrated by a variety of fictional & real people. Then I started having nightmares about my abuser, & after a few months of that I just had nightmares in general-about everything & anything.

I take Prazosin for them. Sometimes I still have nightmares but the Prazosin kind of makes it so that they don't bother me.

 

[Deleted member 1860]

Yes, it's normal. I've never had a nightmare about my trauma itself but I do have nightmares.

 

[NewDayTomorrow]

I have had two kinds of nightmares. Most of them are variations on my traumas, with sometimes obvious or sometimes very subtle connections. When something really stirs up my traumas, I can also have video-like repeated memories of actual events. These can recur in exact detail, with no variation at all. This kind are the same as the flashbacks I can have when I am awake, but of course the flashbacks are shorter and more fragmented.

My sleeping imagination is pretty out there, in terms of the scenarios I dream up. My friend once joked that when he thinks to warn me that a movie might give me nightmares, odds are, I already had a nightmare worse than the thing in the movie.

So you are about as normal as I am (which might not be saying much)!

 

[Deleted member 26314]

Thank you all for your comments, it's made me feel a lot less alone on this topic. I don't understand a lot of my nightmares, in the sense that a lot of them are quite surreal and have nothing to do with my trauma, so I get confused wondering why I have nightmares unrelated to it. But I guess, from what I've read, it's very common for people to suffer nightmares that aren't always trauma related in the slightest (as in nightmares about anything)?

 

[Justmehere]

For awhile, I had nightmares about various animals chasing me and attacking me. It lasted for months on end. None of my trauma has anything to do with animals, but there was probably some distant relation to the idea of being pursued, or my life being in danger.

My nightmares that are more obviously about the trauma are usually also very twisted and surreal. It's like my mind keeps trying to work through parts of the trauma in my sleep, and it all comes up in very weird ways.

Even people without PTSD have nightmares now and then. It is my understanding that PTSD just makes it worse, and sometimes we can also have nightmares about the trauma, and sometimes just increased nightmares as our brain is in more activated and fear based states overall.

 

[aka]

I have never really had any nightmares about my traumas though I will say I don't remember much to begin with. When I was younger I use to have a recurring nightmare of being chased around a town by a tornado. Lately though I do dream of things that would be considered nightmare material like being poisoned, chased by bad people, and people dieing. But there is little emotion attached to these dreams like if I was just watching it on TV. Though I am pretty sure this has to do with the sleeping medication I take.

 

[paula parcell]

Yes

 

[Fadeaway]

I often have nightmares that are more about the emotions my trauma caused. Nightmares where I am put in a situation that causes me to have the same emotions I felt during my trauma. I have had nightmares where I released suppressed pain and anger due to my trauma and hurt people because of it. I have had nightmares solely about the havoc PTSD has had in my life and my fears about the issues PTSD causes for me.

So, while these nightmares aren't about my trauma in and of themselves, they are related. I wouldn't be having these nightmares if the trauma hadn't taken place to begin with. I hope this helps a little.

 

[shell]

I have nightmares of all different things from being shot at, chased, falling, drowning, stabbed, throat cut, and people cut in half, surrounded by snakes, chased by animals and being abused and raped, people dying, cars out of control. Some of these things happened to me, some not. The terror and the fear, and feeling out of control of the situation is a constant theme.

I got told to make each character in the dream a part of you, and to listen to what each was feeling and saying and doing in the dream, it worked for me, I learnt what was causing some of the nightmares, which related to my fears and avoidance.

After three years of constant nightmares I have been nightmare free now for about a month, which is really saying something, as I am a very sceptical person, and thought dream work was a load of crap.

 

[Deleted member 19804]

Great thread! I've been wondering the same thing. Glad to see I'm not the only one.

The topics of my nightmares seem to be related to my trauma for 50% of the time, the other 50% seem quite random. I do get chased a lot and I try to call the emergency phone number in almost every nightmare, but it never works. Either I keep typing the wrong numbers, or the numbers change on my screen, or nobody picks up.. It happens in both kinds of nightmares. Perhaps it's a way of our mind to express general stress and fear, that is for a large part related to our trauma.

Dreams really are a curious thing.