What Type Of Nightmares Are You Guys Having?

[Leigh925]

I have extremely graphic nightmares only a small percentage of them are actually of the abuse although all of them deal with themes I dealt with during my traumas....fear, helplessness, abandonment....etc.

I have a lot of nightmares about being dismembered. It's really horrible. I recently just set a personal record of 9 very graphic nightmares in one night.

It is frustrating that they are so graphic because I am so careful about what I watch and read so as not to give my brain any ideas!

Sometimes it makes me feel bad about myself that these thoughts are even in my head to begin with.

I went years without nightmares. It was only when I was retraumatized that they started up again.

It is definitely one of the things I hate most about PTSD.

 

[Karen12]

Nightmares are a contributor to my insomnia. I have them almost every night, sometimes several in one night. Some are just run of the mill nightmares and others make me awake with a start and I sit up trying to catch my breath then dissolve into sobbing. After that if I try to go back to sleep my body is just like, "NOPE. Not going through that again. Nope, nope, nope." Even if I wait until the next night, when I try to go to sleep the nightmare and feelings of terror come flooding back and I can't fall asleep.

The nightmares I have pretty much run the gamut: end-of-the-world apocalypse, ghosts/demons, haunted houses, being chased by an attacker, being attacked, school dreams like showing up for an exam totally unprepared (I haven't been in school for 25+ years!), being picked on in high school, and so on. They aren't the weird, surreal landscapes that dreams are typically characterized as. They are vivid, realistic and movie-like, and the settings are consistent from dream to dream. For example, if I dream about the campus and city where I went to undergrad, it looks a little different from the actual campus and city but it is the same in each dream. Same for the house I grew up in: it's a little bit different from the real house but it's the same each time I dream about it.

I try to make my bed and bedroom as pleasant as possible so they are light, safe and inviting instead of a source of dread. My bedroom window faces east and it gets extraordinarily bright (and HOT). I have to keep it covered with a blackout shade that is tacked to the wall all around the window or the sunrise wakes me and won't let me return to sleep. I tried a sleep mask but the light leaks in around it. As a result the room stays dark all the time, which I hate.

I have had some success with lucid dreaming in that I can sometimes wake myself when a dream begins to turn nightmarish. Has anyone else tried lucid dreaming?

 

[Chava]

Most of my horrible nightmares have been seemingly random but with hints that make a lot of sense....like I am slightly outside the dream, watching, because it is too horrible. My parents might even be hurting a little girl, but it is a strange girl I have never seen. Or I'm being molested but have no memory of that person molesting me, and I'm actually watching people I don't know being murdered or killing themselves as this is happening (this seems like a strong hint but the dream itself gave me bad palpitations and I went in for an EKG, so I do not assign literal meaning, but allowed myself to remember that nightmare). Lots of blood and betrayal. While I try not to assign literal meaning (because they aren't "real"...I've never seen a load of people be slayed like I have in my nightmares), I do try to consider deeper metaphor or meaning. Or if really bad, just let it go and try to stabilize.

In one bad dream, I turned my back on a little girl who was being killed by a dog (I sort of wished for it)....another strange little girl who was innocent and simply needed a trusted adult. When I saw she was alive but her hands (important symbol) were chewed up, I took her to the ER. Sort of felt like my struggle to not disown my self, but step in as an adult, my own caretaker, and take my own ass to ER or therapy.

I know random bad dreams can relate to regular daily stress, but my nightmares all connect to young strange girls being hurt, usually by family.

 

[risingsun]

Do you guys have more obvious PTSD themed dreams, or do you have a mix of random bad dreams/PTSD ones, or just random bad ones?

I think that after a while the fear and terror that we experienced during the trauma(s) begins to spill over into other aspects of our life in the dream sphere. For me, after a while, the themes of terror, isolation, betrayal, cruelty, loss, etc. would show up in my dreams relating to other situations and circumstances in my life. I suffer every night as you do. I've tried hypnosis and meditation but I know, as you should, that one day these dreams will subside. I can empathize with you. Keep the faith. My prayers are with you. Warmest, Rising Sun.

 

[Deleted member 28403]

I have all kinds of dreams, ussually filled with monsters of really wierd shapes, but all nightmares have one thing in common.

After running away from monsters and getting through a door into a room where the door dissapears or being unable to move and falling into a pit I end up in a wierd surrounding which alwags has hundreds of different white masks laughing. They just laugh, just laugh at me and don't stop till I wake up with the falling feeling (most of the time).

 

[shell]

I am finally nightmare free after years, of multiple nightmare in each night. As I have learnt to be more accepting, I have become less anxious, for me without doubt the lack of nightmares is a reflection on my calmer mental state and increased sleep. I am now remembering more dreams and while they are weird they do not wake me in terror. I am hoping it lasts.

 

[Ronin]

Nightmares, that varies. Whole bag of them honestly. I seem to mind the awake ones more than the night ones because they interupt my day and get sort of irritating. I'm though sort of glad for the night, because I used to get terrors and not really dreams and before that a great deal lot of nothing (remembered at least) for years. So it's pretty much a progress. Nothing, terrors, nightmares, nice dreams along the way time to time. I'm getting there slow-an-slow. In a few years it'll be all zen nights. :D

I've gotten fond of those night scares. They remind me of parts of my life I blocked out bad. In a way they're better inventory of my life than I'm able to do consciously.

I think I'm more bothered by all the motoric weirdness I do in my sleep than the dream content. I'm so glad who I live with just doesn't mind so many nights it's a fight I'll have no clue about in the morning. He's luckily the type to think of it as exercise, and we're both good going on a few hours sleep a day without issues.

 

[Seagreen]

For a couple of years I would dream that my abuser was standing over me and wake up terrified and screaming. Often I'd get up out of bed and run out the door before realising it was a dream. It was horrible and my heart would pound really slowly and periodically palpitate for a while afterwards. I don't think it was very healthy! Id be too scared to sleep for the rest of the night. Luckily it hasn't happened for over a year now.

 

[Deleted member 1860]

Ones about school. A million different scenarios, but somehow they're always about school. The last one was the other night and I was going to school in NYC, taking a full load and considering dropping a class b/c I couldn't handle 5 at one time. (I'm only taking 1 right now and its a lot, then again I'm a returning student and have a lot more going on than the typical right-out-of-high-school college student.) No matter what I did, I couldn't figure out the subway system to find my way home. It was distressing to say the least!

 

[NotApplicable]

I usually don't remember my nightmares but i wake up with panic attacks. Sweaty hands and my heart ready to rip my chest. It happens more than once during the night.
I also started to have dissociate episodes apparently because i wake up and im .. lets say not harmless.
When I do remember nightmares though im usually being chased down, its always dark and i dont remember faces at all. My therapist says its relatable to my sexual abuse.

But you guys ive asked for medication before for nightmares and they told me there's nothing like it. What are you guys taking? are they also help you sleep cause i have trouble falling asleep and then when i wake up panicked it takes me long time to fall back to sleep

 

[Kintsugi]

I used to have nightmares about being pursued by men or I would have family-related (trauma specific) nightmares every night.

Then I got my first dog, Annie, and all of my nightmares became about her safety. They were no less horrible, but I was projecting my fears onto her. Instead of my dreams being about running from someone, or trying to kill someone before they got to me, they were almost always about trying to find and save my dog.

I have a reoccurring nightmare that is not specific to my trauma but feels specifically related to me. The details change, but basically I'm in a house with a man who is obviously going to rape me, and there are knives available to me. I grab the knife, but I can't bring myself to stab him. I thrust at his abdomen, but the blade barely pushes against his belly, and I wake up feeling incredibly weak and distraught. Recently, I had this same dream, but I stabbed the shit out of that guy. Like, I just went at it. It didn't stop him, but it felt incredibly cathartic.

Lately, since I got my giant puppy, I've been having nightmares than I am in trouble, Annie is in trouble, or both, and my puppy comes to rescue me. It's been awesome. I feel so much better when I wake up. He comes to save me.

 

[Nicole France]

All of my nightmares center around the abuse I suffered from, every night i relive the two months I was in a sexual and physically abusive relationship. Some nights they're far more vivid than other nights.