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Unrelated Nightmares And Forgotten Memories

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My therapist said this is normal with PTSD, but I wondered if anybody else experiences these. I have violent nightmares about the violence I experienced growing up and violent nightmares unrelated to the trauma. I'm currently experiencing nightmares which are getting much more violent and where I'm being stabbed (I've never been stabbed in real life before). I actually feel the stabbing and in one dream I was stabbed to death and died. When I woke up I thought I was dead and it took me a while to realise it was just a dream because it felt that real. I have wondered if its related to my mother pulling out knives from the drawer and threatening to stab herself when she didn't get her own way (she wasn't really going to do it it was part of her games, but as a child I believed she was). Also I have random memories and dreams about the past that actually happened but I couldn't remember it before. When I experience these, I then remember it and I feel an intense emotion towards it (anger, feeling extremely irritated etc). Some of these memories aren't violent, they're things my mother said and did to hurt me or wind me up. My mother used to wind me up as a child til I screamed my head off, she used to get enjoyment from it
 
I have an irrational fear of sharp things and the thought of self harming is the most triggering thing. I have never self harmed that way so I have always wondered where it came from.
It has been said to me many times that the fear comes from an association rather than a memory. I was smacked once with the side of a knife that had it's own sharpener. Although it was a blunt pain because it was the side, I have associated the pain with that because I know it was used for cutting things.

So in the same way, the stabbing that never happened is associated with periods of great distress making it ingrained as a traumatic experience. Your imagination fills the gaps.
 
I have stabbing nightmares sometimes too. In the dreams, it's either myself being stabbed or me having to stab a man in self defense. I link this nightmare theme to a couple of my traumas. I have never been physically stabbed in real life, however, there was a moment when I did perceive threat of being stabbed when I saw my abuser with knives. That night, all night I felt worried he was going to stab me.

After very bad nightmares, I often wake up feeling it was real and it takes time for me to get back to reality and realize it was only a dream.

My mother also held a knife up to her throat as a way to punish and mess with me.
 
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Yes, it does seem to be normal with PTSD. I have dreams of having my arm cut off with a serrated knife and I have both arms so I know it wasn't real. I also dream of having my teeth ripped out quite frequently. I endured quite a bit of torture and sometimes wonder about that one because I was told by my mother that I had a lot of extra baby teeth when I was younger so maybe it was just the dentist pulling them. I'm also missing a few in the back so who knows. Hard to know since she was the one selling me out.

I have come to the realization to take the dreams in stride. If I try to think too much into them I start to get really bad symptomatically and start doing stuff I'm not necessarily proud of.

Keep talking with your therapist about them because at least then you are in a safe environment to explore them more.
 
I have very violent nightmares which are unrelated to abuse (mostly), intense torture etc. they got better for awhile (less frequent/intense) and then they came back.
 
I don't have dreams about incidents in my past, not that I remember but I just don't sleep. Getting to sleep is usually quite easy but after a couple of hours I wake up and then continuously wake up every hour or so for the rest of the night. When I do wake up I find that the first thought in my head is of one of the incidents from my past. Some nights I can lay awake with the thoughts and images playing through my head for hours.
 
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