Having violent dreams...

[hujames]

Since I started reliving the assaults the dreams they always remained the same, but last night was different. In the dream I was talking to this girl who I really like when the man who assaulted me appeared and threatened her. That's when I lost it and I beat him to death and when I looked back she looked horrified. If you ever watched The Walking Dead it was like when Abraham attacked the guys that hurt his family.

I have never had a dream where I killed someone. The dream last night felt real and messed with my head more than any dream ever has. It scares me and I don't want to go down that road.

Have any of you ever had dreams like that? This honestly scares me and makes me feel as if I'm losing my humanity.

 

[Duckie]

deleted

 

[traveler]

I used to have dreams that terrified me but when I would tell what they were about, no one could understand why I was so afraid. it seems that because my abuse was so repressed and denied, I could not even dream about anything similar, but found innocuous symbols for what was happening - but still experienced the same fear as if the dreams were about the literal events.

when I started to face up to the truth, my dreams became more graphic - more realistic, and more of a reflection of the true memories that were surfacing. at least I knew why I had been feeling so terrified for all those years.

what I am suggesting is that as you get to the root of your issues, your dreams may become pretty nasty. it doesn't necessarily mean that you are inclined to act upon them - any more than dreaming that you can fly means that your really can. I think it may be more like you are getting in touch with your true feelings about abuse - which may be quite a healthy way to get it out of your system - along with writing about it and talking about it.

Lee

 

[Severe stammer]

Ive suffered violent dreams all my life since about 8 , don't feel frightened its just what you've had to endure in your childhood aswell , I have dreams 3 times a night of killing people but I don't act upon it its part of the scars we have to live with x
Take care
SS

 

[Carries The Fire]

We all have violent dreams, its perfectly normal, I like to think that dreams like this are part of the inbuilt defense mechanism for the mind to express your thoughts in a positive non physical way.

As traveler says, dreams can become more realistic as memories re-surface, and this is how your sub-conscious plays interacts with things we have sometimes suppressed.

I just wish we knew when we were dreaming, that we are, so we know they can't harm us! The worst ones for me, are when you are trying to pull yourself out a dream "done it a couple of times I think" and finding out you can't and your stuck.

Those ones always disorient me!

Hope you find some peace and solice here.

CTF

 

[Chewy]

Maybe just my opinion, but I think that having significant dreams mean you are ready to get out of the numbness or whatever state it is that could be blocking you from dealing with these issues. From that standpoint, these kind of dreams are a good sign. I've had a few dreams where I woke up (and everyone else) with me screaming and thinking I was about to have a heart attack. Literally, there were pains in my chest after a few, for a kid in his twenties. The nature of them were violent, like you say, sometimes with me being killed, or possessed by a demon. I think it's your sub-conscience telling you that it and you are ready to deal with your past.

 

[gettingstronger]

Hi hujames,

I think Chewy, CTF and Traveler are right. I've had recurring terrible dreams all my life, and I've noticed as I'm finally facing all the different aspects of this, they're getting worse. If they're not out-and-out violent in some sense, they're so scary in other ways that I wind up with my head spinning for much of the day.

But the good news is, some of them are also starting to change for the better. I even had one of those "school dreams," which is the one where you find yourself in a college somewhere, not sure why you're wandering around in the Commons area naked and why you have no idea when or where your next class is. In this case it was a law school, (which I did attend for a year) and I had just been berated by a professor for not knowing the facts of a court case.

The change to the dream's standard ending of massive failure, bewilderment, embarrassment, and so on was when another student came up to me and said "You know, this school is funded by a grant from the King of England. They aren't even supposed to allow American students to enroll. Don't worry about your classes or your assignments!" In other words, I was off the hook, entirely. Not only did I have no obligations to the school or professors, I NEVER HAD ANY. I was free to leave, utterly without penalty.

So don't be surprised if your dreams also begin to change for the good once your subconscious starts to really process what happened. I read that our most traumatic memories aren't stored in the same place in our brains as normal ones. They're stored in the same area (the amygdala) where our hard-wired instincts are stored. (Perhaps not coincidentally, this is where our center for dealing with fear and survival also largely resides, in a very primitive sense.) So this makes them extremely difficult to get to and work with.

I'm also encountering other types of really scary, dismal, depressing or shocking dreams, but the more I explore them, the clearer their root causes become. Take your time and try to dig into them when it seems safe (like mid-day.) Don't just look at what they might mean or have in common with their closest counterpart in real life. Also think deeply about what you were feeling when this or that was going on. Were you scared? Of what, specifically? Were you feeling "dirty," or some other negative feeling? Can anything be learned from that? I've learned a lot from my dreams that way and I think that's why many of the oldest ones are fading and getting less scary.

You'll reach a point in your healing when enough of this has been processed and your dreams will most likely settle down. It's no more than your brain letting you know that the "prison cell" inside your mind where the terrors have been stored is ready to be opened and the prisoners inside are to be rehabilitated and released. But trust me, I know EXACTLY what you're going through. Best in healing.

Bob