Recurring Dream

[Kat]

I walked into my therapist's office yesterday and told her that I remembered that I'd killed someone.  Obviously (hopefully), I haven't.  But the other night a "memory" popped to mind that I'd killed someone long ago and had forgotten about it.  It was actually a memory of a recurring dream I've had my whole life that I'd forgotten about. 

I used to dream quite often that I'd killed someone and that I had to keep it secret.  The dream was so real that I was often convinced that I actually had.  I had it quite often when I was younger, probably during college.  And then I've had it off and on since.  It's something that had come up in therapy a few times long ago.  I had forgotten about the dream until the memory came up during waking hours. 

I became curious about the dream because it feels so real.  It always brings up intense feelings of guilt, shame, and fear.  I looked online and found that quite a few people have experienced the same thing.  People shared that they too were stunned by how real it seemed and how they'd been convinced that it was true.  One gal said that she was a child in her dream.  She had killed another child and buried her in concrete that was poured in her backyard.  She knew that the part about concrete being poured when she was a child was true, so she ended up grilling her parents and some childhood friends because she was convinced she'd killed a kid. 

The thread I was reading was on Quora where one can go to just ask a question for people to respond to.  It wasn't for people who've suffered trauma or anything like that.  A few people did offer up the fact that they are recovering alcoholics and tied the dreams to that.  I'm just wondering if any of you have experienced this dream or something similar.

[BlancaLap]

Sure I have had this type of dream a lot of times. Sometimes I have to hide the evidence, sometimes don't, sometimes people found out the truth, sometimes don't, sometimes I care about people finding out that, sometimes I don't care at all hahahahahaha but the truth is I use to dream a lot more about beating up a specific person that used to abuse me when I was a child. It scares me sometimes... but I know I could never ever even kill a fly. Don't worry about it, it's just your brain trying to overcome the trauma (that's what I have read). And the part that you don't know if it happened or no... that's dissociation, or at least that's what I have read

[Three Roses]

Some of my dreams are vivid enough that they leave a sort of "imprint" on my waking mind. In those cases it can be kinda easy to confuse them with an actual, real memory but I always know the difference by how it feels. Sorry if this is vague, I'm not sure how to describe it better. Hope it's helpful! 

[Kat]

Thanks Blanca for sharing your experience.  I agree that it's likely tied to trauma.  And, Three Roses, I think I understand what you mean.  There are times when I have dreams about the most mundane things that I could swear really happened, but I know by the feel that they were dreams.  For instance, I might dream that I bought a bottle of shampoo.  I'll later remember the dream of me putting it away, and have to pause to think about whether I bought it or not.  But I'll sort of just know it was a dream.  Ok, now I'm feeling like I'm not making sense.

[Rainagain]

Its odd but I had a very similar dream a few years back, it was woven into my situation back then but I ended up fighting for my life and killed my neighbour, in self defence.

As I woke up I began thinking where my shovel was, I became fully awake but still felt annoyed that I would have to dig a grave, and that I wasn't sure where to begin looking for my shovel.

The fact I had killed someone was irrelevant, it was the work involved in getting the hole dug I thought about.

After quite a while I realised I probably had dreamt the whole thing, but wasn't sure as it seemed real.

[Blueberry]

I don't think I've had that particular recurring dream. My recurring dreams do seem very real though.

I've heard the "killing a child" dream being interpreted as: someone killed the dreamer's Inner Child, or tried to. Won't fit all situations I'm sure.

[Elphanigh]

Kay, I too have had very vivid dreams like that. Sometimes I kill the person, sometimes I watch them die. It is normally the latter, but I understand how real they can feel. I hope those strong feeling syou were feeling have begun to subside some 

[ah]

Kat,

Your post got me thinking. So, according to what we currently know of the brain, it doesn't seem to know the difference between experiencing something and imagining we experience the exact same thing. Very similar areas in the brain light up in both cases.
The brain may be interpreting the two as a real experience.
I can only guess all of us here know how powerfully true this can be during an EF, too.

Maybe very emotional dreams, where our fight / flight is strongly activted, are the same. Our brain takes them to be real just to be on the safe side, in case the danger felt in them is real too.
It may mean we've gone through some unspeakable things, and our brain is trying to make sense of them, to tell a story that will explain our strong feelings of guilt and shame.

When we dream quite a big chunk of our logical brain is inactive, just like during an amygdala hijack. This enables us to do impossible things in dreams, like jump from place to place or fly or die without thinking "Waaaait, this makes no sense... how did I get here?" there are theories this enables the brain to process what we go through during the day and get rid of what it doesn't want. Well, we've got tons of memories and emotions our brain doesn't want.
Maybe we're having dream EF's without realizing it.

My guess is anyone with cptsd will have lived through things that are nightmarish, so it makes sense our dreams might be very vivid because of fight / flight. I know mine are often just the same.

I have a nightmare about death that keeps repeating itself, in it people are trying to kill me, or they successfully kill me, or they accuse me of killing.
Just like Blueberry said. Trauma, losing sight of ourselves, feeling we're dying on the inside, feeling we're in danger, being disbelieved and gaslighted, not being free to feel angry, my guess is all of it could land us with some very strange dreams.

[Rainagain]

I think I've already posted this somewhere but I have some memories and knowledge which are in the real memory part of my brain but are actually laid down during dreams so are not true, not real.

Not knowing which memories are actual and which I have dreamed is a slight worry.

I only find out when someone else challenges my 'truth', internally I am completely unaware that I am talking about something I dreamed rather than actually experienced or heard on the news.