Nightmares

[Nirvanadragones]

Tell me about yours. Which are the ones you remember? Which are the worst you've had. Do you have reoccurring nightmares, and/ or themes in your nightmares? And, how do you deal with it, if you do?

I have interpreted dreams for as long as I can remember, even as a little kid. Not from a "Joseph" perspective, but from a slant of - many of our dreams are simply our subconscious way of filtering information, and the stuff that is inside our heads. But at the same time, dreams are opportunities for our subconscious to force us to deal with some of our (sometimes hidden) fears and problems and issues. Sometimes it's purely parts of ourselves we are not aware of. And dreaming brings it to the surface. Sometimes dreams let us face parts of our personality that we hide from, or do not even want to admit we have.

Not all dreams are like that, though. It's just that I think dreaming can be a tool to help you understand yourself and your motivations better, if you're sensitive enough to really listen.

My nightmares frighten the fuck out of me. Seriously, I dream things that is almost inconceivable to me while I'm awake. And this morning, all I can think of is "Where - where did all of that come from?"

Anyway . . . I'm still half asleep, so pardon the rambling. I was just wondering about other people's nightmares, and would like you to share with us.

 

[The_Fool]

One of the craziest I remember was when I was about 19 or 20. Not too sure of the details anymore, but I was being held hostage. Worked through the whole, "You are getting released, you are not getting released" deal. That was traumatic in itself. The really freaky part was the end of the dream, when the bad guy walked up to me, put the pistol to my chest and pulled the trigger. I felt the impact. Felt no pain. Felt the numbness. Then everything just faded out. Done. Dead. Then I woke up in a sitting position sweating my ass off, breathing hard and heart going like crazy. Hard to get back to sleep after that one.

 

[Nirvanadragones]

One of the craziest I remember was when I was about 19 or 20. Not too sure of the details anymore, but I was being held hostage. Worked through the whole, "You are getting released, you are not getting released" deal. That was traumatic in itself. The really freaky part was the end of the dream, when the bad guy walked up to me, put the pistol to my chest and pulled the trigger. I felt the impact. Felt no pain. Felt the numbness. Then everything just faded out. Done. Dead. Then I woke up in a sitting position sweating my ass off, breathing hard and heart going like crazy. Hard to get back to sleep after that one.

Goodness, that is disturbing. Is it a couple of years too late to offer hugs?

 

[slyc_willie]

Of the dreams I remember (I read somewhere once that we remember less than 10% of our dreams; perhaps the conflicts involved are reconciled quickly enough by our subconscious, who knows?), the majority of them are often pretty violent. I am usually cast as a reluctant hero in my dreams, defeating the enemy but only barely. Often, whatever weapons I have are inadequate for the task at hand, yet I somehow get the job done.

There is also often a sense of loss, but I rarely have an idea of what, exactly, was lost. It's as if I feel I am fighting for something I don't really understand, but a basic sense of duty -- often protection -- compels me to fight on to the end. Maybe that has something to do with my real-life actions as a soldier; I serve out of duty, fighting for a basic philosophy which I either do not understand or accept only grudgingly.

When I was a kid (I think about seven or eight), I often had dreams of flying in helicopters. I never dreamed that I flew on my own. In some cases, I jumped out of the helicopter; in others, I only wanted to. In the cases in which I jumped, I remember falling for a long time, but never hitting the ground.

Funny that, as part of Airborne training, I would jump from both helicopters and planes.

I once had a dream in three parts. Not a recurring dream, but more like a story that slowly unfolded. I was a young warrior seeking something called the "Eagle Blade," against a backdrop of war between armies composed of a variety of Tolkien-like creatures. I remember finding the sword and leading an army . . . then nothing. Just lots of fighting and heroics and blood and pain. I sometimes wonder if there will ever be a Part Four.

Lately, many of my dreams have been about the fears of a father toward a daughter, as I now have one. A recent one had me attending her high school graduation (in my old high school's colors), but she was still tiny enough for me to hold in my arms after she had walked the stage. I remember being unwilling to let her go and join her friends.

Psychoanalysists would have fun with interpreting my late-night miasmas, I think.

 

[slyc_willie]

One of the craziest I remember was when I was about 19 or 20. Not too sure of the details anymore, but I was being held hostage. Worked through the whole, "You are getting released, you are not getting released" deal. That was traumatic in itself. The really freaky part was the end of the dream, when the bad guy walked up to me, put the pistol to my chest and pulled the trigger. I felt the impact. Felt no pain. Felt the numbness. Then everything just faded out. Done. Dead. Then I woke up in a sitting position sweating my ass off, breathing hard and heart going like crazy. Hard to get back to sleep after that one.

I feel ya. I had a dream once in which someone broke my neck. I vividly remember the pressure around my neck and the sense of something snapping . . . then numbness and a sense of complete helplessness.

That happened when I was a kid, and not long after I suffered a concussion falling off a Jungle Gym.

Scared the shit outta me to the point where I would sleep only with my hands wrapped loosely around my neck for a while, as if protecting it.

 

[Arotico]

Disconnectedness

I don't know that I have nightmares anymore (I probably shouldn't have said that...) but a few times in the past I have dreamed that my arm had somehow snapped mid-forearm, and as I'd start to lift it, the lower half, wrist and hand would stay on the bed. I'd keep trying to lift it but the best I could do would be to have those parts just dangling from below the elbow. I'd wake up horrified, thinking it was really happening.

Nirvana, do you ascribe to the idea that most symbols and people in a dream represent a part of the dreamer? I've done some analysis on myself and others, and that idea always seems to work well for me.

What about your nightmares?

 

[The_Fool]

Goodness, that is disturbing. Is it a couple of years too late to offer hugs?

Never too late for hugs...

 

[Huckleman2000]

In my nightmares I am being attacked by someone, and I'm on my back kicking at them and screaming, but since I'm under sheets and asleep, I can do neither. Then my kicking and screaming wakes me up.

I also used to have dreams where I was just raging at my son, who would also be my younger brother sometimes. Those were the worst.

 

[Vermilion]

Funny you should mention this. I had my recurring nightmare again the other day and blogged aboutit. Because I'm lazy I've copy/pasted it here... It scares the shit out of me every time, but never quite as badly as the one where I was in a concentration camp and had to watch my family have their clothes and posessions taken away then be marched off somewhere else... (I think I'd been reading Anne Frank's Diaries, I was about 13 or 14 at the time). Nothing actually *happened*, but the foreboding horror of what was expected lingered with me for years.

So I have this recurring dream, right? I'm somewhere public, people around me when I start to feel that one of my teeth is loose. I probe it with my tongue and get that mushy-gum, sharp-edged-tooth sensation on the tip of my tongue. I can taste blood, my mouth fills with saliva and as I poke at the tooth is loosens even more, wobbling and finally coming out. I open my mouth and, in a cascade of spit and blood, let the tooth fall from my mouth and then, horror of horrors, I feel that another tooth is loose, and another and another, and one by one they all start loosening and falling out.

I couldn't tell you the number of times I've had this dream now, two or three times a year at least and it started a fair few years ago. It's got to the point now where I even check whether or not it's a dream... Like this morning, when I was having the dream I thought, "Hang on a second -- this has happened before but it's always been in dreams, maybe this is a just a dream and I'm only dreaming my teeth are falling out." I can't remember why, now, but I came to the conclusion that it was, in fact, reality and I truly was losing my teeth. I woke up, panicky and sweating, a few minutes later at quarter past six, frantically checking my sturdy, healthy teeth with tongue and fingers.

Who can say why we have recurring dreams, or what they mean, but I truly hate this dream and would be happy to never have it again. I still feel freaked out by it now and it's nearly midday.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Dreams are how the brain gets rid of stuff.

Neurons are re-cycled, and their contents are dumped into a trash bin. A dream is the brain examining the contents of the trash bin JUST IN CASE something important is being thrown out.

 

[feeeriek]

Funny you should mention this. I had my recurring nightmare again the other day and blogged aboutit. Because I'm lazy I've copy/pasted it here... It scares the shit out of me every time, but never quite as badly as the one where I was in a concentration camp and had to watch my family have their clothes and posessions taken away then be marched off somewhere else... (I think I'd been reading Anne Frank's Diaries, I was about 13 or 14 at the time). Nothing actually *happened*, but the foreboding horror of what was expected lingered with me for years.

 

[Nirvanadragones]

Nirvana, do you ascribe to the idea that most symbols and people in a dream represent a part of the dreamer? I've done some analysis on myself and others, and that idea always seems to work well for me.

What about your nightmares?

I do believe that many times the people we dream about are aspects of self.

My nightmares . . . would give Stephen King a run for his money. Seriously, it's not easy for me to even think about, let alone write down for someone else to see. It's disturbing to say the least.

Having said that, let me try . . .

Last night involved being chased through this valley . . . similar to the scene of the after-life in "What dreams may come" but just more gruesome and "real". There were bodies of dead and almost dead people everywhere. I was being chased, and I had to run, and it was difficult for me to focus on what I was running on . . . resulting in a few incidents where I stood on different body parts, sometimes belonging to people who were still alive, other times they were already decomposing. I could feel the bones snapping underneath my feet as I crushed them. I could feel the blood and Goddess knows what else that was pooling beneath my feet and hand as I fell onto corpses. I could smell it, and hear those people call for help, gripping my ankles as I tried to get away.

I was running from a pack of wolves. I think there were four of them. They had the faces of people that I know, and this would change. And they were after me, and would do anything to get to me. I was scared out of my mind. When I eventually got through the valley of bodies, I ran off a cliff . .. fell onto these huge bounder type of rocks which was practically between heaven and earth. I stayed there for a very long time and I was so thirsty. I remember how badly I needed to drink, but I couldn't move.

The wolves finally got to me, and ate me alive. Most of them tearing at my limbs, removing pieces of flesh from my body, while one wolf sunk his teeth deep into my throat - which is when I woke up.

 

[TheeGoatPig]

Wow, Vana, uhm...

*hugs*

You need all the warm tight hugs you can get.

 

[OhMissScarlett]

Wow, and I thought my frequent zombie nightmares were bad.

I've discovered a direct relationship beween how high my blood sugar is when I go to bed and whether I have nightmares or not. But, before I realized this and would eat a bunch of sugar before bed, I'd have crazy zombie nightmares. The worst one was where I put my son up in the attic and ran out of the house to lead the zombies away. It was so vivid, thinking my son would certainly starve to death without me there, but choosing for him to die that way, rather than be turned into a zombie. It sounds stupid now that I think about it, but I woke up screaming and sobbing.

 

[Selena_Kitt]

Last night:

Last night I dreamed of that sound (a fetal heartbeat) like a drumbeat calling me. I was searching in the darkness, and every breath I took felt as if I'd swallowed glass. Then the sound stopped. It just stopped, and I stood there, paralyzed, unable anymore to follow the sound of his beating heart.

There was just the silence, a stillness beyond measure, and I stood alone, unable to go on. Frozen. Directionless. Lost.

I was crying when I woke up - already crying, my pillow wet.

 

[NoJo]

Last night:

Last night I dreamed of that sound...

I was crying when I woke up - already crying, my pillow wet.

 

[rgraham666]

Last night:

Last night I dreamed of that sound (a fetal heartbeat) like a drumbeat calling me. I was searching in the darkness, and every breath I took felt as if I'd swallowed glass. Then the sound stopped. It just stopped, and I stood there, paralyzed, unable anymore to follow the sound of his beating heart.

There was just the silence, a stillness beyond measure, and I stood alone, unable to go on. Frozen. Directionless. Lost.

I was crying when I woke up - already crying, my pillow wet.

*HUGS* Selena.

 

[Handley_Page]

My worst nightmare, and I remember the impact rather than the whole event, involved being eaten by a Cow. I can remember the slobbery jaws and huge teeth to this day five decades later. I still don't like cattle.

I know if I've had a bad one, even if I don't remember the full detail. I'm usually sweating like a pig, heart racing, and breathing like I've just run a mile.

It's not nice.

 

[Tricialen]

I had this same nightmare for years. I'm at the beach with my kids and the water disappears then starts coming back with a vengeance as a tidal wave. I grab my kids and run as fast as I can but no matter what I do the wave always over takes me. Just me and I drown. It was happening when I was very unhappy in my marriage and once we divorced the dream stopped. I finally realized that it was our relationship that was drowning me. The dream was so real that I would wake up surprised that I was alive and dry.

 

[harrlequin]

I have nightmares about aliens. They always look like giant upright squid. Since way, way back. Armageddon scenes, lazers flying all over the place, people slaughtered for meat, people factories...very often I am running, trying to save people.

I can usually wake myself up screaming before I get eaten, but not before the flaying.

Does anyone have some equivalents for aliens? I'm not sure what they mean or who they are, tho I have a sneaking suspicion it has something to do with my crappy self-esteem.

 

[impressive]

The images that terrify/horrify me are the ones that haunt me when I'm awake.

My sleeping dreams are largely benign in terms of terror/despair. They're quite often erotic, and while -- in the dream -- I'm always hugely turned on & may even climax in my sleep, when I recall them after waking, I wonder why my subconscious found the images arousing -- 'cause my conscious mind definitely does not. I have no waking fantasies anymore. Sucks, really.

 

[oil_paint03]

I've only had one that I remember in the past few years and it involved losing a child (mine) to this X-Files, Fringe-esque, shadow society. I remember goingthrough a huge green dumpster filled with adult-sized animal costumes that I was supposed to don and search this HUGE freaking mall. I remember not caring for the choices of costumes (figures). People, if that is what they were, would punch through the time-space continuum via a huge, gilded mirror (mirror, on the wall), and before I woke up I remember giving my wife a number with which to identify me later, but then realized that the number they gave me was not mine, yadda yadda, wake up WTF the dogs are barking...

 

[matriarch]

As far as I can remember I've never had a nightmare in my life, and I rarely remember dreams. Just the odd fragments when I wake up, or sometimes a trigger during the day reminds me of something.

I have deepest sympathies for anyone who suffers from nightmares.

 

[oil_paint03]

The images that terrify/horrify me are the ones that haunt me when I'm awake.

I'm with you - reality is way spookier...

 

[impressive]

I've only had one that I remember in the past few years and it involved losing a child (mine) to this X-Files, Fringe-esque, shadow society. I remember goingthrough a huge green dumpster filled with adult-sized animal costumes that I was supposed to don and search this HUGE freaking mall. I remember not caring for the choices of costumes (figures). People, if that is what they were, would punch through the time-space continuum via a huge, gilded mirror (mirror, on the wall), and before I woke up I remember giving my wife a number with which to identify me later, but then realized that the number they gave me was not mine, yadda yadda, wake up WTF the dogs are barking...

That reminded me...

When my kids were MUCH younger (toddler age), I used to have recurring nightmares about their abduction -- about them being scared and being hurt and screaming for "Mama" -- and wondering why I didn't come to save/protect them.

Makes me shudder just to recall that. Eeesh.