Weird realization about my dreams.

[oops!]

I have had a handful of what I considered nightmares in my life. Bad dreams along lines of what I heard others speak of. Not frequent or life changing just what I perceived as normal.

In my mind I had just wierd/awkward dreams. When I told people about them I could tell with a smile on my face and make others Crack up.

One night, recently, I woke up and I started a process. A process that felt so natural. I woke up from a dream where I was very fearful. However I started to make a story about it. I took the fear/anxiety out and just started documenting the bizarre. I was making a story to tell others/myself with a smile on my face. I realized I liked this process. I also realized I had been lying to everyone including myself about my dreams.

Most to all of my dreams come with huge fear anxiety. Not quite fearing death. A good example is a recurring theme in my dreams where I fly. However I cannot stear around obstacles and I always crash land. Always something bad going to happen and I just can't stop it.


Anyhow that level of fear anxiety has been present in my sleep patterns for most of my life. I just woke up and immediately, without thought, started turning it into something else.

Most of these stories, post dream, get forgot just like most dreams.

When I woke up that night and "caught" myself I realized it wasn't going to be the same going forward. I can't control what I dream but I can control the narrative when I wake up. Can't just pick and choose the parts that are wierd. I have to sit there, be "scared", work through it, and then hopefully sleep again.

 

[Sideways]

I have to sit there, be "scared", work through it, and then hopefully sleep again.

Is this necessary? If you have an excellent coping strategy in place for dealing with bad dreams, and the strategy doesn’t cause distress or dysfunction (sounds like the opposite), why mess with that?

I have ‘bad dreams’ most nights. The content is nightmarish - if I take the content to therapy (as an example) and try to ‘work through it’, it becomes a big deal. Like, “oh crapsticks, I’ve dreamt about the world ending again, and watching everyone around me die horrible deaths” (which is the usual theme). There’s a lot to unpack there…and it gets pretty awful pretty durn quick if I try.

But, I have ptsd. I have a history of trauma. It makes sense that my brain has a lot of emotional crap to work through, and I can get distressed if I choose to focus on the content of those overnight, brain-cleanout bad dreams. I talked about this a lot with a range of different types of Ts. And with the trauma-specialists, the answer was uniform: if you don’t have ongoing distress about your dreams, it’s actually okay to just let them be.

So, I wake up, and engage with my dog pretty much straight away. That helps me forget my dream at least 90% of the time. Which means the fact that I have dreams with extreme content is not an issue. It’s not on the list of things I want to work through at all.

Periodically I have other sleep issues (sleep walking and sleep paralysis). The former is something I’m working through (although again, it’s not a priority, because so far there’s been no safety issues with it), the latter I deal with using the same technique as my dreams (apply doggo, see you doctor if pain persists).

Different people have very different approaches. I know that for some people, working through their dreams forms a great big part of their therapy. But for me personally? It isn’t actually a problem, so I don’t make anything of it.

 

[oops!]

Is this necessary? If you have an excellent coping strategy in place for dealing with bad dreams, and the strategy doesn’t cause distress or dysfunction (sounds like the opposite), why mess with that?

I believe it is necessary. At least for now. First off I don't think I will be able to flip switch automatically.
I think the strategy does cause distress and disfunction because it runs parallel to real life and how I communicate fear with myself and others. I think I have had alot of emotions a little switched up and communicating fear with the hopes of making others smile hasn't proven very effective. Especially at a point in life where fear and I are looking each other straight in face.

That wasn't to be argumentative. I thinks it's just the place I am in my CPTSD coping.

So, I wake up, and engage with my dog pretty much straight away. That helps me forget my dream at least 90% of the time. Which means the fact that I have dreams with extreme content is not an issue. It’s not on the list of things I want to work through at all.

This part has been close to my strategy for last month or so. Especially alone w dogs. I have little concern on the specific content of dream. For me I just need to start to recognize fear and find ways to express to others/even the dogs. : )