Poll Ptsd Nightmares?

[WendyVictoria]

I have nightmares where I'm in the black and I'm spinning uncontrollably. Very similar to my car crash (which happened at night) before the first impact. All my other nightmares are less literal. Usually a metaphor how I lost my childhood innocence (childhood sexual abuse). An example being, seeing my elementary school and then being chased by a man.

After a nightmare I will usually wake up terrified and will think I see the outline of a black man (not racially black, just an unidentified black shadow) somewhere. When I turn on a light, it's usually a jacket hanging on a hook or something. I'm not sure where this comes from because all my sexual abuse and assaults where in someone else's home. But I remember experiencing things similar to this my whole life. Maybe it's just hypervigilance?

 

[Hush92]

I have suffered from horrific nightmares ever since I was a very young child. They became much more mild/less frequent for a period of years during my adolescence but returned with a vengence during late high school, because of really bad things going on in my life.

I've had plenty of nightmares related to all of those topics, but very frequent themes are me being forced to fight in brutal situations, kill or be killed, and sexual abuse/torture. Like my one the other night where I was molested, got the crap beaten out of me, ended up butchering the men that hurt me in the end and narrowly avoided having my genitals mutilated. Just fun stuff like that *sarcasm*

 

[Deleted member 34424]

I haven't had a bad dream in years because I lucid dream and change my dreams or stop them whenever something I don't like comes up.

The only dream I can recall that had something to do with my trauma was that I was in a museum and I first saw something that I thought was real but then I looked again and saw the "truth" of the object, which meant that what I thought was "true" about myself was not.

 

[trying2movefwd]

Nightmares: Have them, can't remember what they are. Wake up sobbing, screaming, panicking.
Flashbacks while awake are the bigger problem for me!!!! Often (not always , can be anytime of day) they start at night, just after I lay down, but before I ever close my eyes to fall sleep.

 

[Unknown Victim]

I got my PTSD young in age. My first nightmare was seeing peoples heads cut off and the heads were moving. I was around 5 or 6. I don't know of kids that young thinking of these things. I didn't realize until recently why the heads seem to be uncomfortable. Someone put sand in their eyes. I always think there is something smarter in my head. And I'll end it right there because something tricked my hyper vigilance once.

 

[Nessa7]

I went with reliving events almost exactly as they happened, but I will usually add something bizarre. Instead of alcohol, it will be something really gross and disgusting. I used to lose time at school, but I'll lose hours instead of minutes. If it is from when I am really young, the dream will be from a strange perspective. I have ones where everything is the same but my father is on fire.

 

[Draiocht]

I think mine fall under "losing control". They are never exact copies of traumatic events from my life but they certainly follow the same theme and usually involve some kind of physical or sexual violence. I can never stop what is happening to me, I am completely helpless. Or if I try to fight back it's like I'm moving in slow motion and my punches do absolutely nothing to my attacker.

A lot of my earlier childhood nightmares were mostly about being chased by some generalised avatar of abuse, running and running and running but it's never fast or far enough. Trying to tell people about some horrible disaster but they won't or can't hear me. One recurring nightmare I used to have as a kid was me walking into our living room, looking out of the window to see a huge flash in the distance light up the whole sky and I'd just drop dead immediately.

I used to get sleep paralysis a LOT. I'd feel like I couldn't breathe (very much related to a repeated aspect of my trauma), and sometimes there would be something trying to get into the room. If I struggled enough I could kind of rip my "soul" out of my body, dive through the wall, but the noise of doing that made still makes me shudder. I still refuse to ever fall asleep lying on my back because that seems to influence it. These episodes were sometimes joined with looped dreams, where I would take a long time to realise I was dreaming, then frantically try and wake up, into sleep paralysis, which I'd then sink back into myself from, only to end up in a practically identical dream, over and over.

 

[Lionheart]

I used to have recurring dreams of being chased by a dark figure and trapped by them but, the worst nightmares consisted of murder, abortion, drug addicts, fires, deformed babies, death, abusers, perverts, and general mayhem, such as tornadoes, and other disaster like spontaneous combustion, etc., etc.

 

[RobH]

I've had a plethora of different themed dreams. School, falling, monsters. A dream I've had on more than one occasion is that my life is in danger, I see guns, I grab them but they don't work. I've had those types at least 6 times. I've had vivid dreams about the xenomorph like creature in Aliens killing me with the secondary inner mouth. I would usually wake up immediately. I have dreams of getting stabbed, shot or people gave me diseases all types of messed up shit. I'm on prazocin now so most to all have stopped. A few nightmares have broken through or emerged but it's probably an issue I need to deal with. The one recurring dream or kinda nightmare I've had after prazocin is about a racist teacher I had when in middle school. Most of my nightmares deal with sexual trauma that occurred to me in Germany when I was about two. Every Time I'm triggered by something about the abuse it used to give me this Germany feeling about the abuse, go figure that one out.

 

[RobH]

I used to have recurring dreams of being chased by a dark figure and trapped by them but, the worst...

Same here too.

 

[AnnArkist]

Police and authority figures(jail) because that's what caused my PTSD. Being wrongfully arrested

 

[Leisel]

My nightmares are usually in two categories:
1. Some event is happening that isn't exactly the trauma I experienced but is related thematically. For example, last night I had a dream my stepdad was torturing all children in earth except my siblings because he didn't want people to have proof he was hurting us. In my nightmares, usually, I am not hurt or assaulted. It's the running away. I'm always trying to find a place to hide.
2. Creatures. I'm terrified of mascots so a lot of the time it's mascots, or it will be dark hooded figures, and I don't know what they will do to me if they get me so I run. But my legs don't work. It's like a cartoon, and I have to move my legs incredibly fast to even be at a slow walking speed. But I'm also like Yoshi lol so if I'm moving my legs like that, I can sort of glide, but only if I keep moving my legs, and I'll eventually need to land and kick off of somewhere again.

Didn't notice before but both categories are me trying desperately to run and hide.