Dreams/Nightmares May Trigger

Dreams/Nightmares May Trigger
W

willtobecomplete

Registrant
Hello everyone, hope you all are great today. I would like to open up a topic on dreams. I am going to do some work w/ my T on pulling out some reppressed memories. One of the methods is imagistic work expanding on memory fragments, another is analizing your dreams/nightmares for memory fragments. I have been having several nightmares about being SA, I understand that much of it is highly symbolic because its in the dream world of coarse.
Has anyone done any simmillar memory work? Have any success stories or expeirences that you would be willing to share? Know of any other effective techniques for bringing out repressed memories? Any feedback on this topic would be very appreciated.

Thanks guys,
Calg
 
Calg
the whole area of 'recovered' memories is something that is still very contraversial, but they are different to 'repressed' memories.

Recovered memories are often claimed to be false, the result of poor therapists planting ideas by asking leading questions.

Repressed memories however are different, and modern therapeutic thinking accepts that people are capable of pushing traumatic memories so deeply into our minds that they effectively dissapear.
Accessing them again is often hard and emotional.

Dreams seem to be something that vary between individuals. I rarely dream about my actual abuse.
But a friend of mine does have very vivid dreams where he talks to his abuser - with him as an adult and the abuser as he was all those years ago - and because he remembers the dreams clearly it's actually enabled him to 'talk through' many of his issues.

Dave
 
We just had a discussion on this very subject tonight in group. This isn't very profound but what was emphasized tonight was that we were about getting all of the other stuff out of the way and the repressed stuff will come leaking through. We have done a lot to forget these things and it's getting the other stuff out of the way so we can make contact with ourselves. Our therapist said that in his experience it was providing a safe environment for the group or individual so that we would feel safe enough to let this stuff come through. He said that was why we call it recovery...it's recovering what was once ours by remembering what was done to us and those memories we pushed deeply inside where no one could find them...not even us.
What ever method your therapist uses, as long as you're not re/abused, our therapist says, it's the environment he establishes that's important. If you feel comfortable and not threatened, you will eventually remember.
Good luck, brother Calg,

David
 
Thanks guys so much, I am definatly going to use that very usefull information. I can see how that is very important to clear away some minor issues so you can get to the deeply reppressed ones, and then filtering through the dreams and seperating what is from your present and what is authenticly reppressed from your past CSA. Good stuff! I'll definaltly share what comes out.

Thanks again,
Calg
 
Calg, I am now 50yo and don't have too many dreams, I wish I did, and I wish they could be good dreams. After SA, I remember three distinct recurring nightmares which meant I got no sleep because of the ferocity of them.

Repressed memories are repressed by your mind for a reason, they generally take a lot of other good memories with them, or so I believe. I think the mind represses for a reason, to help us survive trauma.

I think the best way is, to let the mind deal with repression the way it wants to, and not try to disturb it, it was put there for a reason.

As Dave said, there are therapists who can put ideas into your mind that are ficticious and can lead to problems of confusion over discovered memory rather than perceived memory.

Any therapist using this approach should be highly trained in the use of it, there are so many warnings in this field. Planting memories in what the therapist thinks, can have a very damaging effect on recovery.

I am getting some memory back by reading books on the inner child and going back to what he went through, and how he dealt with all the turmoil.

Is it any wonder we block it out? Trying to be kids when you are dealing with a load of shit, sure is a hard one, but we got there because we were kids, and kids can be stronger and more resourceful than adults.

I think we blocked it because we certainly could not live with all this shit flying around inside our heads'.

It will come out when it wants, if it wants, but beware of flashbacks and triggers when it does.

I've certainly had my share of them!

Maybe my mind is scared of letting go and just dreaming. But NO, I am not far from being able to just dream again and not have the fitful nights that we all don't deserve.

If we can dream and observe our dreams, then this can be a good thing, repressed memories can surface as nightmares, but they cannot be perceived so vividly as that of the child witnessing them. Child nightmares, are to a child real nightmares where the child is indeed truly petrified and scared with nobody to protect them.

The night is in itself a perceived danger, because of the loneliness of the child, he has a nightmare and wakes up terrified in the dark, and even the proximity of parents does not console the child, he is in perceived danger unless a parent is with him or her.

I always remember asking my father to never leave me alone and clinging to him, sobbing as he left the room to leave me in the darkness.

I really needed him to be close, but he could not be, because he had to go to work the next morning, but I had to deal with all the shadows and the faces appearing on the ceiling, and everything else that real nightmares are made of.

I always remember that the control I had to put on liveing was hard, a bit like being in the sea, bobbing up and down, sometimes going under and gasping for air, waves of emotions crashing down and engulfing me. I learnt to live with the waves of emotion and keep on top of the waves, but only just. :eek:

I was toying with the idea of not posting this, as I do with a lot of my posts, but thought I would do because these feelings meant so much to me!!!

ste
 
As part of the training I did recently to become a counsellor we had to do practice sessions in front of the class that lasted up to 30 minutes.

One day we were discussing dreams and the role of the counsellor in their interpretation.
I volunteered to be the 'client' and used a real recurring dream that I have had for many years.
Because of the size of the class we were split into two groups in seperate rooms, and I was the client for two different trainee counsellors, who hadn't seen the other person at work.

My dream is of me as young boy, about 11 or 12 ( my abuse started at 11 ) I'm naked and running on the spot. I'm on a riverbank by the home I grew up in, and the place has no significance to my abuse which happened many miles away at boarding school.
There's nobody else there, no threat or anything, and no emotions.

Both of these trainee counsellors led me to very convincing conclusions, and both were different.
The first led me to think that the dream was about me being 'stuck in time'and trying desperately to move into the future. The nakedness and the fact I was at home in a safe place was possibly the need to feel clean and safe.

The second idea I came up with was that I was trying to run to escape and flee to safety. The nakedness represented the abuse, and the place, once again, safety.

On the face of it they have much in common, and I wouldn't be able to say which one has the most relevance to me.
But in the classroom on that day I was stunned at the complete and utter difference I put on each interpretation, as were the two tutors who have many years of therapeutic experience between them.
Each of the two trainees, a man and a woman who were very good, teased different things out of me, and it was a genuinely emotional experience for me - I cried during both sessions.

Since that day I have never had that dream again, I obviously sorted it out in very exceptional circumstances - and very publicly!
So, do I believe our dreams hold any answers? "Yes, I do" But I also think that the interpretations we can possibly arrive at can differ due to the circumstances we deal with them in.

I would have been perfectly happy with either interpretaion because the skill of both these trainees led ME to find my own interpretaion.
I was lucky that they could both tie up in a meaningful way, and that was solely down to these guys doing their job / training properly and NOT projecting their interpretations onto my personal dream.

They're OUR dreams, and only we can discover their meanings. Others can help, but ultimately it's our interpretation that will mean something to us.

Dave
 
Hey guys,
Thanks for all the info on this. I am going about this like I handle a buffet, try a little of everything, find out what works best,leave the rest, and keep going back for more until they kick me out. I believe the differing views are helping me find a balanced view that I can utilize. Right now I have a strong desire to find out exactly what happened so I can deal with that and yet at some level of me still doesn't want to know and is dreading what I will find and that is probably why the full flood gates of memories haven't burst open although I do believe that they are close.
Anyway, I believe delving into this is a healthy thing right now and that my mind is wise and it will come out in layers that I can handle.
I definaltly do have fears though. Because everything as far as fragments, dreams, memories and how denial and doubt creep in, are so fragile at this stage, I can see the dangers of misguidance, misinterpretation, and implanting additional crap to what's already there. I am already having some confusion as to what's real and what's not. So there is a need for caution as I proceed, but clarity will come in time.
It will all come out in the wash, and if not then, in the rinse.
but please keep coming with any additional info and expierences, for they are very valueble

Thanks Again,
Calg
 
I think this may be the thread Dave was looking for with this post https://malesurvivor.org/cgi-local/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=1;t=004696 , linking an article on repressed memories.
 
I just wanted to share that for the past 30 years I have repressed my memory's of my abuse. My abuse started when I was 10, and continued until I was 16.

I was not willing to deal with it, and so I chose to lock it all away in the very back of my memory where it has remained or so I thought for the past 30 years.

I have discovered that even though this seemed like a good way to deal with it, in the long run it has prov en to be full of faults. I have had sexual and interpersonal problems through out my life because of my abuse.

I have had to learn the hard way that by not dealing with the issue of my abuse, it has NOT gone away, and in fact it has Incorporated itself into every facet of my current life. :eek:

So, I have come to the conclusion that whether I want to or not, I MUST deal with my abuse in order to have it finally resolved.

In case you have not noticed I do have a innate talent for stating the obvious.


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Dreams are interesting to me, because of all the theories about them. That there is symbolism,and subconsciousness, etc. I know that in the earlier stages of my healing, I would have strange dreams, that seemed to displace the abuse with the 'wrong' person or in the 'wrong situation'. But on further review of the events, the history, etc, there was things that happened that I had blocked out, that I had maybe shifted some in my brain, and mis-remembered inititally. So I do think that exploring your dreams is a good idea. You have been given some very good ideas I think. I wish you luck, and I hope you and your therapist make some good discoveries.

leosha
 
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