Can't sleep in my bed b/c nightmares

Can't sleep in my bed b/c nightmares
C

cant_remember

I sleep on my couch in a sleeping bag, sometimes with the TV on, instead of in my nice comfortable bed in the other room...

Because when I try to sleep in my bed, I have nightmares. Smoking pot helps, but apparently it's not enough.

It's 5:00 AM and I'm wide awake. Usually the nightmare is something simple: getting attacked by bats, or UFO's, or fish with teeth, whatever. But tonight I got a whole horror movie with a narrative. Can't get it out of my head.

The dream: A young woman that I knew (and she has a small child) was researching something about the farmhouse where she lived, and discovered something about a boy that had died there, and as she was learning about it, her house burned down but not in a normal way. All her upstairs windows burned out in perfect ovals so they looked like empty eye sockets, and then the dead boy appeared and had the same burned-out empty eye sockets. Scary.

I feel like an idiot for being afraid of this. But I'm wide awake because of it, and I'm afraid of my bed.

The dead boy with the burned out eyes -- one doesn't need to be a genius to see him as my abused self who has the power to burn down houses from beyond the grave.

Ugh. I want to feel like I"m making progress in life, but being afraid of my own bed because of what my mind produces when I'm asleep there? That doesn't make me feel very confident about my ability to deal with this.

Cant
 
After thinking about this all morning, my interpretation of this dream:

The house that burned down was a symbol of the relationship that I had that recently ended. That's why it belonged to a woman with a child. It, the relationship-house, was burned down by the ghost of a dead boy, or my abused self.

A priest that I talk to has suggested to me that I sabotaged the relationship by disclosing my abuse too early to the woman I was seeing, which I must admit is possible.

So this dream is me telling myself that my abuse (or the disclosure of it) burned down the relationship and its potential (represented by the living child of the woman in the dream).

So basically, I'm fucked.

Cant
 
Hi Cant,

For me, this type of dream isn't about me being fucked, but is my subconscious processing all my experiences so I am able to learn from them. It seems for me unrealistic to expect myself to function well if I'm pretty sick. I'm pretty sick, and the dreams I have are always tools available to me to help myself understand me in my own process. They are a gift to me. It did take me some time to make friends with all my dreams and come to understand they are an important ally.

Don
 
Thanks, Don.

Cant
 
Cant_remember and Don

Cant: Your dream is reminiscent of the movie Jeepers Creepers. I watched that many months ago and I'm convinced I should NEVER watch that again.

I'm having sleep (dream) problems also. I usually have to sleep several hours in the afternoon to make up for not sleeping during the night. During that afternoon time I sleep best if I'm in a semi-reclining position and have classical music playing. When I awaken I feel great and very rested. I never feel that great when I awaken in the morning. Another part of me (an alter) has remained awake through the afternoon music and remembers what was heard. In fact he has even memorized some of the music. Yes, the two can and do communicate with each other.

Since we've talked last I've realized that I was worked on by the CIA. I know that they know how to use vibrations to set up DID alters. (I can give the reference). So I'm concerned that the EEG brain patterns my sleep doc has looked at were possibly some "sick" patterns set up in DID. I'm not quite sure of the implications. Music truly consists of organized vibrations and much more. If anybody understands this please let me know.

Pufferfish
 
pufferfish said:
Your dream is reminiscent of the movie Jeepers Creepers
Click to expand...

I was thinking the same here PF. Jeepers Creepers was just shot down the road from here.

Cant_remember, I had a run of 4 days of nightmares last month, triggered by a dead AC and the anniversary of my first attack. Heat is often one of my strongest triggers. (along with children crying or laughing, also the smells of old cigarettes, leather, vinyl) more triggers than Roy Rogers.

I have found I get my best sleep when I drop off to ANY Star Trek franchise marathon. Before my wife entered my life, I too would sleep on the couch.
 
Jeepers creepers is a good movie. Nightmares are part of my life as well I have tried a lot of diff things to stop them but no such luck.the content of my nightmares are usually sexuall in nature. Instead of fighting them I just deal with them. The only hope to offer is that they do come and go. There are stretches when I actually sleep. I don't think they will ever be gone forever

James
 
Cant,
You're not nuts. Many of us battle this symptom. I haven't slept in my nice bed for years. I got tired of sleep deprivation and started trying different things like a pallet on the floor or living room chairs pushed together to simulate a cot. I've tried returning to my bed, but I can't breathe and I lie awake to stand guard over myself.

My brain seems hardwired to anticipate another physical assault by my brother or a sexual assault by my father. My brother used to routinely hold a pillow over my face until I fainted from lack of oxygen. I believe he was assaulted by my father. He was a strange child and he is an even stranger adult.

When I stopped over-analyzing and fighting my thoughts on it, I slowly transitioned into sleeping in a locked guest room on a fold-out bed.

Maybe something here can spark ideas for you?
 
I have very graphic sexual dreams most night. I wouldn't say they are "nightmares" but they are not pleasant and leave me disturbed, but not afraid. I also find pot helps a bit to dull the dreams.

I find sleeping alone in bed is the worst situation for these dreams, I fall into a deep sleep and can't wake myself. I also sleep on the couch because I am more uncomfortable, don't sleep as deeply and can wake up easier. when I sleep in bed with my husband he wakes me up if I sound distressed or whatever.
If I'm alone, I'm almost always on the couch.

I try to think of dreams as processing time for my brain, especially the bits of me I don't have great access to. That doesn't make things feel any better at 2am but sometimes it makes me feel less crazy.

Hope you get some good, safe, peaceful sleep soon (everyone)
 
It looks as though I'm going to have to obtain a recliner chair to sleep in. I have the problem others do with bed. The medical community is not able to help.

Puffer
 
I got a LOT of my sleep in a recliner for about 10 years. In retrospect, I feel it was because my abuse issues were slowly rising closer to the surface and I felt so much safer in the recliner. I didn't get triggered by the recliner the way I did in the bed. As time, and my process, moved on, I no longer sleep in the recliner, but do have to move through some avoidance(old fear) of going to bed at night. Don't feel that way if I sleep in the day.

Don
 
A few things as I deal with this:

1) I was able to sleep in my bed last night, but didn't go to sleep unit 3:00 am, and only after 3 beers and pot in my system. No dreams.

2) In reading online about nightmare remediation, one suggestion is to think about "re-writing" the dream, what would I have done differently? If I could have, or if I have the chance in a future dream, I would have stopped at the burned out house, entered, found the boy with burned out eyes, and hugged him.

3) I talked to my priest about it today after mass, and first, he asked, "was the boy [in the dream] dead?" When I told him yes, he said, "Well, the first thing you need to do is bury your dead." Which is a perceptive insight, but I don't know exactly how to do that.

The dead boy in my dream is my abused self, my sexual self. I don't know how to bury him without burying the rest of me along with him.

If anyone has any insight on how to "bury" my dead self while surviving the process, please let me know.

Cant
 
Hi Cant,

I wonder if the boy in the dream is truly dead, or just feels dead. My experience with the damaged/dead boy in me is that he was never dead, only his ability to feel life was killed. And, over time, continuing to learn new skills, continuing to process out my abuse and fears, continuing to learn how to release negative thinking and create some space for positive thinking, I am able to re-parent the damaged/dead boy that is me, and hold that early version that is me in safety so he can grow up healthier right now in real time. That is how I watch my brain rewriting itself today. I still continue to process fear and terror. I also still see myself growing.

Don
 
To get back to cant's dream:

On a subconscious level, you see yourself to be dead {sexually}. The Jeeper's Creeper's monster invaded your life and now you're a burned out shell on the soul level {At least this is how you see yourself subconsciously}. The burnt-out eye sockets have to do with the tremendous grief you have experienced because of csa. As with many of us, the eyes are the parts of our anatomy where our grief seems to reside.

The young woman represents that person you knew and who ended up hurting you deeply. She seemed to be "the one" but then turned out not to be.

On the subject of "burying the dead", we have to grieve for those losses. For me, watching the movie Mommie Dearest was painful but it allowed me to grieve (with a lot of agony and tears) the mother who caused me much pain. There are a bunch of other movies that have allowed me to identify my "dead boy" grief and to cry and get it all out. I've made lists of these movies elsewhere in MS. Two of my favorites are Oliver Twist and Flight of the Innocent. The first one where I discovered this even as a boy was Pinocchio. Even as a boy I cried because I want to be a "real boy".

There is an online person in MS who goes by the name BuryingJack. He has written an excellent book about grandfather abuse. He had to decipher the extremely painful abuse by his grandfather and grieve for it before he started to feel healing.

I hope the fish with teeth weren't pufferfish. If so then I owe you many apologies. The bats and other critters were memories of bad relationships, especially of those who wear black.

On a real-life level you are a delightful person. You have such a great interest in people and events. You are just fun to be with. Your quick wit and intelligence are a delight. But, as with many of us, your own self concept is at variance with reality. That is how many of us need to be healed.

Puffer
 
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Puffer,

You are a kind and sweet man. Thank you for your positive thoughts about me. Just FYI, the teethy fish that I have had nightmares about in the past were like piraa and barracuda. Like I was treading water in the ocean with nothing around me, and then attacked from all sides by them, prompting the fear-freeze response because there's nothing to do in that situation but freeze and die. Same with the UFO's and the bats. Nowhere to run, nowhere to escape.

I have come to diagnose those kinds of dreams as my unconscious mind misinterpreting the biochemical nature of REM sleep. When you enter dream-sleep, your body makes hormones or some biochemical compound to paralyze your body so that you don't act out your dreams as you sleep. But because my mind associates this paralysis with the abuse, my subconscious finds a dream narrative that makes sense of the situation -- hence always a narrative of being frozen in place by fear and about to die, with just different details.

Last night I slept in my bed, successfully. Maybe the thunderstorms kept me from going into REM sleep, but I'll take one good night sleep.

I have also resolved to stop being afraid of my nightmares. They can't hurt me. I'm a grown-ass man (supposedly).

Yes Puffer, seeing my traumatized self as a boy with the burned out eyes symbolizes the level of grief and sadness that I feel for what I have lost, which is access to my true sexual nature, which has been so twisted and distorted by the abuse as to no longer belong to me. I fear now that those distortions are irrevocable, and therefore that part of me is dead.

I don't know how to grieve the loss of an essential part of myself without then becoming increasingly pessimistic existentially. The hope that I could recover sexually has kept me going, but I think I've lost that hope.

I'm looking for a reason to make the struggle worth it.

Cant
 
Cant,
You have a way of wording things perfectly. You hit the nail on the head. Your posts are always helpful. Thanks for being here and posting, I really appreciate your openness.
 
Cant

I believe sleep is an issue as we begin to relive the past. I could not sleep for almost a year. I would retreat to a chair, a couch, TV would be on--but once I closed my eyes the past became alive, I tried to stop myself from closing my eyes. But as torment continued to escalate and the abuse and abuser took over, I found myself sleeping on the floor--why the floor may have been because I was on the floor in the church cellar. I was reliving the abuse--I could feel him and the dreams and flashbacks were overwhelming--taunts from those around me heightened the pain. I heard I was on drugs because sleep was so erratic and other times I would sleep from exhaustion for many hours. But I was not. I talked to my T and others in support and many found the same experiences as to sleep or lack of sleep from nightmares and flashbacks.

Today as I am healing I can sleep and having someone near gives comfort and gives me feelings of being safe. Sleep is now peaceful and refreshing.

I believe our minds are spinning as we tried to heal or deny the abuse, and the memories or thoughts that try to mask the abuse and pain overwhelm us as we try to sleep--when our guard is down.

I hope, as it has been for me, as I healed and surrounded myself with the capacity to understand, and my acceptance helped to first minimize the nightmares and flashbacks and ultimate the ability to find peaceful sleep will come your way. You deserve. Sleep deprivation hampers our healing.

Good luck and thank you for sharing because this is so important to survivors--sleep.

Kevin
 
KMCINVA said:
Cant

I believe sleep is an issue as we begin to relive the past. I could not sleep for almost a year. I would retreat to a chair, a couch, TV would be on--but once I closed my eyes the past became alive, I tried to stop myself from closing my eyes.
Today as I am healing I can sleep and having someone near gives comfort and gives me feelings of being safe. Sleep is now peaceful and refreshing.

...

I believe our minds are spinning as we tried to heal or deny the abuse, and the memories or thoughts that try to mask the abuse and pain overwhelm us as we try to sleep--when our guard is down.

I hope, as it has been for me, as I healed and surrounded myself with the capacity to understand, and my acceptance helped to first minimize the nightmares and flashbacks and ultimate the ability to find peaceful sleep will come your way. You deserve. Sleep deprivation hampers our healing.

Good luck and thank you for sharing because this is so important to survivors--sleep.

Kevin
Click to expand...

I appreciate hearing this as well.

I've definitely had issues with sleep for quite a while now. Starting around junior high, I had what was diagnosed as sleep paralysis. In the past year, it's finally clicked that this is not coincidental sleep paralysis, but waking up in mid-nightmare.

Beyond that, I've definitely had big stretches where I hated sleeping in my bed. In my post-college years, there would be a month at a time when I just slept with a blanket or in my sleeping bag on the floor.

Lately, I've been able to sleep more soundly with my wife in bed with me. She's also been really good about comforting me when I wake in those semi-paralyzed nightmares. I've also comforted her in her nightmares (she is an abuse survivor as well).

I believe in the idea that as I try to deny or don't deal with what happens, my dreams or nightmares bring it up anyway. I am looking forward to more peaceful sleep as I face things head on.
 
Nuriah

Having someone there to comfort you when you awake in those states of paralysis helps to alleviate the pain of the dreams. You may not talk but to have the feel and touch of a caring person hopefully minimizes the visceral and visual memories of the abuse. I have that now and no longer fear being made fun of or ridiculed for the noises or screams the memories provoked in my dreams and nightmares. I am thankful that those nights are now so infrequent and hope they remain that way.

I know the compassion of your wife will help you move forward and have those peaceful and sound nights of sleep will be with you. Lack of sleep plays tricks with our minds in so many different ways and without sleep it leads us down a path we would never travel.

Take care of yourself and continue to heal. Share your memories here or with anyone you feel comfortable and safe. Details are not important, just telling you were abused helps to let out the poison of the abuse to heal.

Kevin
 
I dont know if it will help you any, but after my father went to jail i changed the room completely. like all the big things like bed, closet etc in diff place. I threw the pillows away and bought new ones on a sale. Diff bed covers etc. Even painted one of the walls. If i'd have the money id change the rest of the bed too.
Fresh start... or something.
 
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