Nightmares - A Fear Of My Existence

[goingonhope]

Experiencing Bad Dreams now whenever I sleep

I had this dream this afternoon. I revisited my Jr. High School along with my mother at my side. Don’t remember a heck of a lot about what unfolded next, but do remember that in the end I was taken the rap, being reprimanded and held responsible for my actions (much partying/drinking). Though my girlfriend felt remorse, she said very little about it and was willing and able to move past it. She had been overlooked by the authorities and was not being held responsible in the least.

And in the completion of this dream I had discovered and could see that my mother, as completely innocent as she may have appeared to others was hiding all of her ill intent and wrong actions, and had been involved and working behind the scenes in it all and was walking away Scot-free in the end.

I, OTOH, had now earned myself a reputation that I could not accept and forgive. Rather my goal was to persuade others to validate how bad I was, by revealing to them my very worst behavior, omitting all the good, and taking full blame and despising myself. Apparently, I wanted to use what I had on myself as ammunition to scare them away from me by letting them think I was someone awful and someone not to associate with, when in fact I believed two different things: 1st, that this wasn't the case at all and 2nd, that it just simply might not be the case. Much insecurity in this dream.

And so, in this dream I did set others straight on just how horrible of a person I am. When in fact I wasn’t any of the kind and only feared I might be. I however, represented it as fact for fear that my mother would disown me.

 

[Nam]

I had a recurring dream where I am forced to watch my daughters go through what I went through at their age. A very, very sick joke my mind was playing on me. I am happy to say that I no longer have these dreams. In fact, I hardly have dreams at all. (And it's not from not sleeping...lol) I sleep a good seven hours straight each night without the use of drugs or alcohol. I act like I've been sleeping professionally for years, but in fact only has become regular about three/four months ago. I probably do average about two dreams/terrors a month, but usually I can convince myself that they are dreams while I'm dreaming. It does get better hope. Try wildfire's suggestion...although instead of doing it before nighttime, I would redo the ending after the nightmare hit. Wake up and rewrite it. Then go back to sleep if you can. I think I would certainly have the nightmares if I started to write about them before I slept.

 

[goingonhope]

Nam

Thanks for your suggestion Nam. Much appreciated. I have to say the first sentence of your posting brought tears....very sad...so sorry that you ever had such a dream and that you even remember dreaming such a painful dream. I guess our mind does toy with us in such horrible, frightening ways at times. Thrilled that you seldom if ever have terror dreams these days, and W:hello:W,~(wow)...Awesome Nam 7 hrs. a night, Excellent! Do hope this continues on for many years for you, this is something you just don't want ever to end, huh. Thanks again for your encouragement, as just to hear that it does get better from your experience is hopeful and music to my ears. You know that place where you add to someone's good reputation, well I'm clicking it. Another words, THX...so very, very much.

 

[Daisy]

goingonhope - that is an awful dream (the one about your son), you poor thing, it must have really shaken you.
I manged to use Wilfire's trick to stop nightmares for a while (although my nightmares weren't repetitive, so I just focussed on general happy thoughts before sleep), but now I try and use my dreams to get an idea of what might be bothering me. I'm no good at interpretting dreams though.
My dreams seem much more colourful and intense now, as if my subconcious is really concentrating on every detail - I sometimes think that is why I'm so exhausted, I use up energy in my sleep. The dreams are all different, many are nightmares, with three recurring ideas - someone trying to kill me/ the human race is about to be wiped out/ I am trying to kill someone else - usually they invlove feeling helpless and a bit irritated.
One time I dreamt I was being stoned as a witch, as the angry crowd through big rocks at me I though irritable "Oh for God's sake, you can't even throw straight!" It was strange.

 

[goingonhope]

Another real doozy of a nightmare for me last night

Last night I almost shot down the stairs and got onto this forum, within a matter of seconds, as I was so freaked out. Why do I rely upon this forum so much? Bc there is no one in my life I talk with about my PTSD. I take one prescribed dose of a sedative at bedtime when needed, which I seldom if ever do now, bc I hate the idea from my own personal trauma. The man that did such psycho. and physical abuse on me use to have his meds. shipped into our household in these oversized, manilla packag. and he filled our food closets, our shelves, our tables, our countertops, grocery bags, his dresser top everything with every pill bottle imaginable. He practically had no blood circulation left at times in his body and he'd practically be purplish, and with his yellow nicotine stained hands and him. eerrrhh..giving myself the willies. Another reason I don't talk about my PTSD is that I don't even have a therapist. Frightened, thus far unable to find competent one, and don't trust that most are competent. I know some are, but I know far too many are not.

Well I didn't run downstairs, when I awoke, instead I soon went back to bed. I had awoken abruptly from such a bizarre and creepy dream. One scene from it was most overwhelming.

I had been attending school of some sort and just couldn't think straight to know where to go, when or how to get to class. Was in a confused and such a dazed state of mind that I was wandering lost, practically helpless to help myself. Then I found a room in which you sit and wait your turn to talk into a micro./tv set monitor to one of the administr. of the school and they would then help you find your way through this enormous, complex school building. Before it was my turn I went to have a seat and hadn't noticed someone sitting there. I almost sat down when I quickly stopped myself. The man may have accidentally grabbed onto me below the waist, in a most exagg. manner of touch. Immed. I fell back into his lap and right then I could hear, MY Voice As a Child, crying out, "No Daddy...I don't want to do this, please don't, stop it Daddy. No! No! Oh' Daddy, I love you please stop it"......so forth. Now this was completely out of context with my adult yrs. and what was happening. Apparently though the school administion overhead through the micro. and had rushed in. She said, now you sit here and lay back. I'm taking you to the hospital. I said No, but then inst. new that No meant nothing to her and then I was speechless. I knew where she was taking me. She was planning on strapping me down and taking me to the closest state mental institution. I thought, if only she knew I don't belong there. I was very scared and in shock.

Oh' what a horrible, horrible, horrible dream this was for me. Woke me wide awake and I was just standing there left with and remembering hearing my voice as a child in this most bizarre dream.

 

[batgirl]

I'm having some wicked nightmares myself right now, although they're pretty self-explanatory. They relate to my uncle being deployed to Afghanistan in January.

There are basically 2 dreams, with slight changes each time I have them. In the one dream, I am in Afghanistan myself, and I'm a soldier. I'm with my uncle. The terrorists or the Taliban or whatever shoot my uncle point blank, and then they try to shoot me, but I get away. Then I'm shooting at them, but they never die, they just keep coming and laughing at me. My uncle comes back from the dead too, except he's still shot so he looks like a zombie. He comes after me as well, and I'm trying to kill him but he won't die. In another version of the dream, my uncle is blown up by a bomb, and afterwards I'm looking for the pieces of his body. Ugh.

In the second dream, we're back in Canada and my uncle has turned into my father basically, and is trying to shoot and kill the family. He shoots me in the stomach, and I swear I can feel the pain in my dream the same way I did when I was actually shot. The house is dark, the lightswitches don't work, and the doors are locked, so I can't get out. In spite of being shot I am still walking around, searching for a weapon so I can kill my uncle. He's killed everyone else but for some reason I am still alive. Anyways they are awful awful dreams.

 

[nov_silence]

Ah, nightmares. For me my parents are usually present. My mother or some other imposing female is threatening to beat me. I always wake up screaming, yelling, hitting the air, hitting my husband (in the process) when I have nightmares. Alot of them are shadowed with betrayal or those who are close to me (my husband, sister, close friends) turning their back on me. In the past two weeks, I have had dreams about bad things happening in my old house (where most of my abuse happened). One scary dream in particular was this gobblin thing that had its hands around my neck and shaking my like a rag doll. I procrastinated going to sleep the next night. A couple nights ago I dreamt that my sister and I were raped by these two guys living (in my dream, they don't exist in real life) in my apartment complex. I was really naive in the dream, trusting...

 

[goingonhope]

Alot of them are shadowed with betrayal.

Nov, I too have betrayal woven in somewhere in each of my nightmares. And dreaming time and again about being betrayed by those we love dearly, sucks IMHO. I Wake up sobbing and crying and feeling all alone in the world, just as I'm about to get a fresh start on a new day. Always the worse when the betrayal includes violence, lies, abuse and a twist of depression at the end...I end up feeling like I'm to blame...if only I wasn't me...then everyone would be happy and I wouldn't have had it coming to me just by nature of what my family believes I am.

Nov, sounds like your dreams are most frightening. Sorry and hope they decrease in intensity and freq. How often and for how long have you had them?

 

[nov_silence]

I would say that I have a bad dream like once a week... Sometimes twice. I almost always have night sweats. I hate waking up screaming... I end up feeling so vulnerable. In the dreams heavy with betrayal, my father is almost always a prominent force. Iiiiiiicky

 

[goingonhope]

Fear

Horrific Nightmare - Not a pleasant read!

** :frown: :mad: :crazy-eye :wall:


It's been sometime now since I've had horrific nightmares. Last night I had one of the worst.

One of those nightmares, I'll never be able to forget. It was so real like, and gruesome.

It portrayed me as having been poisoned with vile and filth and treachery. In it, and within a moment's time, two men (acquaintances of my husb. and I) think they're both going to attempt to succeed in raping me. They fail.

In that moment, as I am fighting back and preventing the rape, I witness from across the street a nasty, evil, filthy rotten phenomenon.

A hateful, wicked, man is grabbing hold of, head and lip-locking and then vomiting into the the mouth and soul of another man in which he (the monstorous man) wants dead. He succeeds.

For the next couple of nights he repeats his murderous attacks. The victims are left barely alive.

Then the third night he attacks me in the entrance to a pizzeria and I drop to the floor, but hours later I'm helped to my feet and consoled.

This individual is willing to share his knowledge of a cleansing or 'purging' process and so he conjures up a force which gets to the start of the elimation of waste material, which had been ejected and disposed of within me. I had been severely poisoned and filled, via my mouth, from head to toe and now would die unless it were released and removed.

And, so the rest of the dream is me, standing in a room among witnesses, while I struggle and endlessly pull and yank out, from my stomach and through my throat, pile upon pile, of sausage like thin, erupting cases of what looked most horrifying and exactly like feces.

This may have been the most disgusting, horrifying nightmare I've ever had and one you just don't tell ANYONE, for fear of what they'll think.

I mean what were my choices? Let his extreme and violent act kill me from the poison, or accept help, fight for my life and be willing to go to any and all lengths to physicaly and forcibly remove and vomit HIS poison from me, in order to hope to live?

---just a unburdening of something -a horrific nightmare, that felt and feels most shameful, alienating and frightening, and would otherwise just be denied, stuffed and further buried alive within me.

How do I feel now?

very sad, alone, and fearful, but also brave, independent and somewhat willing to trust and to risk. Mixed emotions.

 

[goingonhope]

Nightmare Vent:

Nightmare Vent:

I am as if in shock with the nightmare from which I woke.

The physical pain in my woman's uterus and ovary areas is now improving; I woke with it and was in it for a little while. It was the very same physical pain I found myself in shortly before, or in the last scene and experience of my nightmare this morning.

---

The Nightmare ............. :

The whole dream was of me in some horrible nuerological condition.

Very hard to put into words, but:

My entire physical body was doing many strange things and going in many different directions. Perhaps at times to ease the discomfort and excruciating suffering not having any control over my mind and resultingly so my entire body: arms, torso, neck, mouth, speech, legs, intelligible cognitive capacities.

At time I would stretch, twist and buckle over one way while unable to shape my mouth and form my words to speak. At other times I would pull myself across the chalky, balled-up pieces of broken cement to corners of that basement where I simply layed, sprawled-out alone.

I had seen light from one corner of the basements foundation and with all the effort and struggle one could imagine ever needing to get nearer to that light while alone and in this condition (which to me represented freedom and a way through and out) I managed to do so.

My neurol. condition improved just long enough to examine for myself that there indeed was a missing section of foundation and a way out of that basement suffering and hell.

But then I was no longer alone, my sister had appeared in the dream. My condition worsened and I was helpless again over my physical and motor capacities; She took me by the hand, pulled on me, and dragged me back into the dim and dark of that basement. She now lay alongside me and observed my floundering condition and spasmodic motions; She both appeared eased and behaved in ways that suggested that she had now found her comfort zone. She spoke to me as if pretending to care while asking me what's wrong. She'd pull me close to her and once when my body made a painful jump she slid her hand in such a way as to seriously violate my boundaries and betray me.

It was me and her and the dusty cement in that isolated basement now, and she was at ease. But then she vanished. Gone as quick as she had appeared and I was greeted by a familar voice. Still nuerol. totally out-of-control of so many of my decisions and all of my body movements and that phys., emot., shameful pain that would seize over me the familiar voice was that of a once known acquaintance from 12-step meetings. He took responsibility for me. He was in good condition throughout this nightmare and he cared enough to not care what condition I was in. He spoke to me when I couldn't form words and speak words back.

..(crying)..

He would attempt to lift me and pull at and stretch out my arms and shoulders and neck which were tightly freezing and locking in most painful positions. He assisted the help of his father, (whom I also once knew as a really wonderful, wise and loving older gentleman), and together the two of them

..(crying)..

got me to those basement stairs and up. It was real up those stairs; There were people, moving about and going about their business. There was bright lights and life and possibility. There was the love of these two caring, (no-strings-attached) men who wanted nothing more than to see me function once again and take control of my body and mind. Together they got me to the entrance of that bldg. and the younger of the two men and I awaited a bus that would pick us up and take me to a place of possibility, love and hope.

But then much extreme pain took over and charge of my lower stomach and didn't let up. I buckled over and fell beneath the table. My face was then underneath the table, with my mouth open and nearest too the black iron pole that supported it; It was quite grimy, filthy and yucky as I remember it to be. I could hear a conversation of these two men above me and standing upright. I was now saying pieces of things, as I had done a bit of earlier in that dream, but things that made little to no sense to anyone but me; These two didn't seem to care, they were decided that I was worth their care, guidance and love.

I continued to lay there, flounder and wait and I muttered something. I heard the son ask his father something about me and his father's response was: "She'll begin to get better once the facade passes."

In listening, and knowing I knew he wasn't referring to my entire condition, rather I suspected that he was referring specifically to particular behaviors.

End of nightmare...........

---

I woke up in a great deal of physical pain in my lower stomach area, and feeling very frightened while thinking this is just like I imagine cancer of the women's organs to feel like. What is this, and how could this be. It's the very same feelings of pain that sent me under the table in the nightmare. What I woke up to I for the most part dealt with first by asking my husb. to please listen briefly to my nightmare (I think he was mostly asleep) (lol) and then second by getting it out and telling it here.

And, having done so, I feel a million times better. It doesn't seem to have the power over me which I suspect it would have all day today, though I wouldn't have wanted this. And, that pain has mostly gone away.

.........For reasons I won't go into, I thought precisely of this thread as being a proper and suitable place to purge and immediately move on and beyond the state of mind and feeling that I awoke from this nightmare in.

I feel very grateful and relieved right now to be among others whom have been temp. given the privilege to -----space----- that promotes the positive all around when used properly, whether through reading, educating and learning or through reaching-out, sharing, examining, discovering, questioning, learning and/or venting.

Right now I feel 100% better! fact: ...not frightened, ...not in pain, ...lighter, ...not at risk of confusion, or any dishonesty and/or any self-pity. And, that fear and surprise paranoia that I too awoke with is gone.

I simply feel and think very much the same as I did when I fell asleep last night, which was I was thinking inwardly/outwardly positive and feeling really good. In fact, I really enjoyed my evening resulting from visible great progress and improvement from fears, self-consciousness, low self-esteem and social anxieties that have throughout my life pushed me around and dictated my decisions.

**Note: Just another nightmare among many nightmares Ptsd sufferers endure. We all have enough of them. Just a nighmare vent, not even real and this one I vented bc I really needed to work thru it and get it out. All of which I did thru writing about it.

This one I felt would be best vented and out.

Hope

 

[debbie3]

Nights?

I was just wondering if anyone deals with nightmares at night. It has come to the point where I wait up as long as I can until I am so tired that I won't care. The only problem is that I am a mom with kids and it is 2:30am and I do this every night. I hear myself sounding very stupid and I apologize for that; I am just worried and as much as I hate to admit it, I am also scared. I can't believe in a million years that I have let 3 strangers control my life and invade my head like this after hurting me so badly. I just want to go on with my life and make this all go away. Sorry for this post.
Debbie