Nightmares that are attached to childhood

[Gina Marie]

My father passed away in 2010 from cancer. He never fully accepted the fact that he had terminal cancer and I always struggled with the fact that I never heard him admit he was dying or he was at peace with it. We had a very rough history as he was a troubled individual. A lot of drug/alcohol abuse along with keeping us living in squalor with no money in and out of work constantly. It caused me much anxiety and hopelessness in my childhood. We did make up the year before he died, but we were never close.

After he passed, I began having awful recurring nightmares about him and the house I grew up in. He built the home and never finished it and had junk cars and parts all over the yard so I always hated living there or having people over. The dreams I have include a variety of individuals both strange and familiar in an apocalypse setting. It will always be the end of the world in some sense, but we would always be holed up in my parents house fighting to survive. These recur to this day and are always extremely vivid.

The other dreams happened for the first five years after my father died. I had to sell all of his things and home after he passed so I would have dreams where he would come back to finish his chemo treatments only to find that his home and all of his stuff was sold. He would become enraged, and start chasing me down the road in his truck in the dark down my old street. Most of the time I’m riding a unicycle as I try to run from him.

These dreams have always been extremely disturbing to me considering my tumultuous past relationship with my dad. Could anyone shed some light on these?

 

[Saywhat]

My father passed away in 2010 from cancer. He never fully accepted the fact that he had terminal cancer and I alway...

I have no insights to offer on the meaning of your dreams. But I have an opinion on dreams ;) I had horrible nightmares of being chased by various forms of monsters for all my adult life. I was working hard on my healing journey. One day I decided to take control of the dreams. I changed the narrative of them in my head, and when they woke me up at night, I reminded myself of the new story I was writing. After some time, I stopped running and instead stood my ground. Worked some more on my narrative. Eventually I stopped spending my sleeping hours running away, seeking safety, trying to save my life.
I still had nightmares, but less often, and less specific. As I continue building my tool kit of healing tools, I have fewer nightmares and my sleep has improved drastically. For all the work I put into self-awareness, I still can't readily articulate what's gotten me to this point. But it's a gift.
Maybe that trick of deciding to change the story only worked because I was ready for it to work. Maybe there are other reasons. I don't know why it worked. But maybe it's something that you can try?
To be clear, it's only been in the past year that the nightmares have really slowed down. Best to you.