Share your nightmares.
A place where we can reflect on our bad dreams and give support to each other.
i don't dream much but when i do it's always a nightmare.
i look around and see nothing but darkness. i start to walk forward then bump into a wall then sudenly i'm taped in a box that keeps shriking, closing in on me. i scream then i see myself falling into nothingness.i land on something soft, my half brothers bed. i try to get up but i'm tied to the bed. he slowly walk to me the gets on top of me. i scream "STOP STOP, NO PLEASE NOT AGAIN!" trying to get away. he looks pissed so he leaves for a minute but comes back with a knife. i close my eyes saying "let this not be real, god let this not be real". i don't feel anything so i open my eyes and i see i'm in the ocean.i open my mouth but begin to choke. i try to swim up but something is holding me.i stop fighting and let go. i think "please god.." but i hear a voice saying "don't call to god now"
then i wake up
so i that's just one reason why i hate sleep
@FallenAngel1000 - This sounds really dark. It's no wonder you don't want to sleep. Do you see any parallels with real life? Why would the voice say "Don't call to god now"?
i don't know but one time when the pain was too much i said "i hate you God!"
@FallenAngel1000 - Do you mean you feel guilty now and like you can't speak to God?
i don't know but i keep having that nightmare every night and it's driving me crazy
@FallenAngel1000 - Maybe you can try to talk to God and see what happens, see how you feel. Maybe it will address some of the issues you have in the dream. If there are other reasons why you think you keep having this dream, maybe you can talk to someone about it? Do you have a therapist? Or a listener? What do you think?
@Chiaroscuro1 i don't know but i'll try
@FallenAngel1000 - If talking to God in your head seems too weird, how about writing a letter to God? Just write everything you would want to say if you believe in God or the universe or whomever. Write yourself empty and see what happens. Maybe you can even start your letter with "I hate you God..."
@- Chiaroscuro1- thxi'll try
When I was little, I would dream about falling from high places, I still can't stand Escalators, but now my nightmares are more about suspense and the unknown. I usually am running from some known or unknown assailant. Last time I remember seeing the person or thing, I was being chased by David Bowie as his character from Labyrinth. That one's pretty funny when you think about it, but you real nightmare sufferers have my deep sympathy.
@writecolorread - Is there any situation in your life now where you fear the unknown?
I do worry about what I'll do about a job and after college.
@writecolorread - Yes, and these are things you can't really get away from hey? I believe many people are experiencing the same fears. How do you think you can begin to tackle these issues?
I suppose that I would begin by looking for jobs now, before I graduate. A load off my mind is that I won't graduate under a mountain of debt.
@writecolorread - I'm also happy for you that you don't have that debt. That is a big positive. How do you feel about starting to look for jobs now? Please feel free to tell us how it goes with the job hunting or to share more of your dreams.
I had a dream last night that my boyfriend and I were taking a shower together. (In real life we have never seen each other naked and he is working on overcoming a porn addiction so I do worry about myself compared to the other woman he has seen.) He was looking me up and down and telling me how much he likes my body and I just felt so uncomfortable because I am so self-conscious. All I could think of was the hair on my nipples and the hair in my private area and if I should have shaved and also how fat I am compared to others and how big my stomach is. It made me really upset today because I am still feeling bad about the way I look.
@SP873 - Maybe the dream is highlighting that while your boyfriend is working on overcoming a porn addiction, you can work on how you feel about your own body. Maybe you can talk to someone about it. I realise it will probably take some time, but I really wish you a very positive body image, feeling comfortable in your own skin, enjoying your body just as it is.
Thank you! I will work on that. Your response was very helpful to me.
@SP873 - I'm so glad to hear that. Don't get discouraged if you feel your progress is very slow in the beginning. Every step counts. To me the fact that you are even willing to think about it is a very positive step forwards. If it will be okay with you, I'd like to send you a hug. I'm wrapping my arms around you and giving you a tight hug. And hear this words while I am hugging you: "It's going to be okay, it really is".
Thank you :)
I have nightmares every night. Very vivid, i actually get confused on whether I'm awake or not. Most of my nightmares are very dark and I'm either trapped somewhere, like a girls home or school, or I'm running away from someone/something, sometimes on horseback. I don't understand. And sometimes i dream of cheating on my bf! Wtf
@Jazzyboo - The cheating on your bf can simply mean that you are aware of his shortcomings (which we all have) and that you realise you can find some of the things you need in other relationships. For example, if you like cooking, but he hates it, you can still share your love of cooking with your family or friends. It doesn't mean you are cheating or untrustworthy. I hope that will give you some peace of mind.
I also wonder if there are situations in your life where you feel trapped or that you want to get away from. Can you think of something like that?
i kind of love this idea of folks helping each other work through nightmares
@KrinkTheMellowUnicorn You're more than welcome to share you own! :D
@astm
next time I have one I will!
i also think there are row kind of dreams and the second kind is more likely to be experienced as a nightmare or anxiety dream.
i can say more about this "theory" if anyone is interested.
@KrinkTheMellowUnicorn Sure! Go ahead!
@astm
ok, well this is kind of a mishmash of some research i've picked up second hand, my own experiences, and a lot of thinking about it over the years.
So there seem to be two kinds of dream, and you can loosely think of them as backward-looking for forward-looking.
Backward-looking dreams are how the brain takes all the memories created during the day and figures out where to "file" them in the existing mental array. They can measure and show this sort of dreaming in rats learning mazes (the same parts of the brain light up while they're dreaming that lit up when they were solving the maze), and babies, who spend most of their time having totally new experiences that have to be added to the pile.
Forward-looking dreams probably evolved later and have more to do with anticipating and planning out how to cope wth possible problems in the future. These dreams are fundamentally about survival and leverage our brilliant minds to "game out" various risky and potentially harmful scenarios in the future to be prepared.
Both types of dreams are experienced as narratives, like stories or movies, mainly because that's how our brain always handles the incoming sensations and the thoughts stimulated by them.
But at night with senses shut off the stimuli are minimal and the theatre of the mind can be much more random and jump around a lot more. Those dreams of cross-refrencing recent experiences can lead to dreams where you are in a hallway in one building but then you're kind of in a sort of similar hallway in an entirely different building from a different part of your life, because your brain was making that association and then the dreaming point of view you made up some story to try to make sense of the flow of images and idas.
The forward-looking dreams are the ones that can be experienced as nightmares. This is "when lion comes I will climb the tree" or "if the bad guy has a gun I'll hid behind a car like I've seen on TV" or "my bugaboo is back and reminding me that I have unfinished business with my own fears."
The best thing about this way of looking at it is to realize the nightmares can sometimes be scary like a horror movie because they are vivid or they go too far or they get stuck in your head, but deep down they are your mind's way of trying to plan ahead and manage scary things so that you survive and continue to grow.
@KrinkTheMellowUnicorn Nice!
I actually had a few nightmares recently about me being in a situations that I've been through in the past, but in the dreams I handled them a bit different. Guess that's a perfect example of foward-looking dreams, my brain kinda preparing a game plan in case those situations happen again.
@astm
Yes exactly!
Still scary but a bit purposeful perhaps, at least.
@KrinkTheMellowUnicorn - You don't have to wait for a nightmare. We also share good dreams in "What did you dream last night".
@Chiaroscuro1
cool, thanks! I don't remember my dreams last night but I remember that I had a bunch of vivid dreams. More than usual.
I have nightmares most nights and they make me really tired because it feels like my day carries on in my nights without a break.
Last night I dreamt that I was being chased by people with knives and they were trying to kill me. Then I called the police and was put on hold so the people ended up stabbing me. Then I woke up.
The night before that I had a nightmare where my best friend got bored of me and stopped talking to me and I was distraught when I woke up because sometimes I worry that this will happen.
These are very tame nightmares in my mind to be honest. I've had way worse. They still feel scary though
@discreetAcres6234
"it feels like my day carries on in my nights without a break" I feel the same way! It's really exhausting.
@astm
I would love to just check out for a few hours but it doesn't happen. I'm also a light sleeper so I never get that deep, relaxing sleep. It's horrible
@discreetAcres6234 I don't have that problem cause I do sleep alright during the night, but my problem is that my nightmares happen in the morning, right before I wake up.
So I start the day in a horrible way :/
@astm
I have multiple nightmares in one night sometimes, it's crazy.
I also have the dreams where my day seems to carry on or I dream of everything I need to do the next day so it's like I'm living two lives. Except everything seems to go wrong in dream world so I get anxious when I wake up
@discreetAcres6234 I totally get what you mean, it happens the same way to me.
I heard that a good thing to before you go to sleep is to make a mental list of the things that you did that day, but backwards.
For example: went to bed, had dinner, came back from work, had lunch, went to work, did yoga, had breakfast, wake up.
Because a lot of what we dream is actually your brain organizing your memories, doing this list will make the task easier for your mind, and hopefully you won't dream as much.
I did it a couple of times and I could feel my mind being a bit more clear.
Hope that helps!
@astm
That actually seems like a great idea :)
I woke up from a 5 hour nap an hour ago and I think I prefer naps to actual sleep now because I sleep better and don't dream
@astm But my dreams are always about things that happen to me the day before. Like you say, my mind doesn't let go.
ive had this dream three times and it always ends the same
i was chained to a bed,
a strange man stood above me and i scream in terror as he pulled out a knife. pain was all i could feel as he ran the blade lightly into my skin on my stomach.i scream as i try to pull out of the chains that restrained me"why do you disobey me sweetheart" he said in a twisted voice. i could feel the tears stream down my face as he cut deeply in my thigh"please stop i didn`t mean to"i screamed in pain.
"why cant you just listen"he yelled in my face
and just before he slaps me i wake up in tears everytime.
@luna21515 - This sounds like a very disturbing dream for you to keep having. It must be very difficult. Is there a voice like that in your life that hurts you if you don't obey it or keeps you captive?
@Chiaroscuro1 my father makes me feel kinda trapped and i feel nervous and or scared around most of my family
My nightmare last night was me dressing for school no lights on no way of finding anything but living a bunch of cold sweat when I walk down the stairs for a breakfast.
@selfconfidentLemon3866 - When we dream about clothes it often has to do with th roles we play in our life. Do you have trouble or questions about the roles you play in your life?
It was a nightmare I had once when I was a few years younger than now. I was in my room attempting to sleep for the night, when overnight I suddenly fell asleep in this nightmare. It was a nightmare of three young men trying to survive a vicious zombie apocalypse, and as the dream progressed, one of the men started to suddenly go insane. He started talking funny, smiling constantly, and when he wad finally attacked and laughing as he was being torn up, I jumped out of my bed. I found myself on the floor instead of the bed, which surprised me considering I'm an incredibly light sleeper... so I went back to bed and fell asleep again, and I had another nightmare. This one wasn't as severe as my previous one, but this one was a quick dream about a newspaper article stating that the Grim Reaper has been spotted... and there were graphic pictures. As I was younger, I wad terrified of The Grim Reaper, so I once again woke up again in a panic. I decided to stay up for the rest of the night until I fell asleep early afternoon the next day.
