My dreams are a changin'

Started by Regret, August 21, 2019, 06:47:29 PM

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Regret

For the past 2 to 3 years, ever since discovering or realizing I had the cPTSD disorder, my ever lucid dreams have always been helpful and/or entertaining. My dreams were positively therapeutic (at least the ones I would remember).

Over the past week, this has changed and I don't know why. Now I am having dreams about bad events in my within the past 30 years. They are not dreams of past events, not reliving the events, but they include the people in the places as they existed in those not very good events in my life.

One was the narcissist I knew for a few years who did great damage to me telling me I still had my old problem. I asked what that was and they said "you are still in love with yourself." Really? I have no clue where that came from.

Last night I had a dream about being in a workplace, the scene was a combination of two places of employment over my past 30 years,  and involved me and another person being told that the consensus of the company was that in 88% of the things I did, I was found to be or have a negative influence by those I was dealing with while working. The other person was rated at 20% negative.

Both of these had me waking up triggered, not feeling well and questioning what was going on in my dreams. Up until now, I was never criticized in any of my dreams. My dreams were always representations of past events but in a happy, positive and changing for the better script, re-writing my history in a better way than it was. They helped with my recovery.

That seems to have changed now. I'm not looking for an answer to this,, what's going on, just saying I'm not real happy about my dreams turning negative lately and have no idea of where they are going in the future or what effect they will have on me, or my life upon waking. Or my daily life.

If or when they do, I will add to this.

Jazzy

Sorry to hear that your dreams have become worse. That can make everything really difficult if you don't get enough rest. It makes sense though. Now that you're aware of what has happened, it will be in your subconscious mind more. Personally, I find that my bad dreams are worse when I'm suppressing something while I'm awake. Hopefully as you continue to heal, they will improve again. Take care! :)

Regret

#2
Thanks, Jazzy. You are right. And I haven't slept well for some time - hard to fall asleep and I wake up tired.

But, sometimes it pays to complain, to write stuff like that down for that alone can cause a change.

Last night I had a simply marvelous dream.

I entered a tall building, got on an elevator. The first person in selected the top floor 9 or 10. The door closed and when it opened, I was standing on the roof of the building. It was a bright, sunshiny day with the sun low on the horizon so it was in my eyes. I shielded my eyes from the sun and discovered the top of the building was rolling hills covered with pure, white snow. The hills blocked my view of the land below so I started to talk up the hill on a path made by someone else. After reaching the top of the nearest hill, no more than 5 or 6 feet high, another hill blocked my view. I headed toward the highest hill and discovered the path ended at a sharp incline, too slippery to climb. Backtracked to where that hill started and took another path that was covered in waist deep, powdery snow. Walked through the snow to the top of the hills to see the landscape below in all directions in bright sun. I noticed a door to a room. Upon entering the room, I saw 3 people working on desks creating things, one was drawing something, another making a collage of 4 inch diameter sparkly covered paper rings, some orange and others silver and another taking a test. All were having difficulty completing their work. And then it began to rain without a cloud in the sky. It rained very hard, so hard that the 3 people decided to leave and the last I saw of them was as they rode their bicycles down a path through the rolling hills, a path surrounded with snow and they were already quite some distance away. I turned back into the room and walked down a curving hallway and when I got to then end, there was an elevator door to go down. I turned to walk back down the hall to the room and woke up.

As I write this, hours after waking up, the dream is still in my memory as clear as when I was dreaming.

Such are my dreams. This one in the more pleasant category. A lot to unpack in that one but at least I woke up with a smile on my face.

Kizzie

Glad to hear you had a more positive dream to balance things Regret  :thumbup:

I wonder if it (having some negative dreams) is you taking letting some more of your trauma (seeing/feeling something you haven't quite dealt with yet) surface in your sleep in preparation for re-scripting it?  :Idunno:

Regret

Kizzie,

I think you are right. I am at a stage in my recovery where my mind knows I am ready to take on more "stuff" in dreams for the re-scripting of my life, the next step to work on. Every dream that I've remembers for months, and even years, without writing it down has ended up having something to do with my life changing. I know the dreams I have that are too much for me as forgotten withing seconds of waking up, if remembered even that long.  And, getting a pleasant gift of a dream, the snow cover building top which was quite amazing and remarkable from the moment I stepped on the elevator, seems to be a message to me that the bad dreams aren't taking over, the good stuff, the good times are still there and available to me when needed.

Tonight should be interesting.

Regret

#5
As a catch up reply, that next night I had a remarkable dream.

During my reverse dreaming after I discovered I had cPTSD, there were time in my life that did not show up in that sequence of dreams that went from my current age to when I was 3 years old. Two of the dreams I did not have were about a person I had a 2 year relationship with about 1970 and another person I had a 3 year relationship in the early '80s. The remarkable dream I had was about both people at the same time. In the late '80s, I discovered that they by chance crossed paths and in their conversations discovered they both dated me. Had I not been suffering from the disorder, either one of the two would or could have been a fine, life long relationship but thanks to my issues, my baggage,, they both left my life because they were not willing or able to deal with me.

Well, in the dream, I saw them both but only talked to the '80s person who told me the first person really didn't want me and I would be better off with the second person. It was a touching, tender and very gentle dream conversation and I woke up with a smile on my face. Nothing sexual in the dream, just hugging, and closure on two parts of my life that were not dealt with in my backwards dreaming sequence that ended up with grown up me talking to my 3 year old self in front of my childhood home.

The next night, two more bad dreams dealing with my last job and an issue I had with my last landlord. Woke up triggered and anxious. The following night, a peaceful, friendly dream. Such is how my sleeping time is spent.

Writing today, a week after starting this topic, because I had a dream last night that was unlike anything before or any place I was ever in or knew. I was reading along with Just Hatched dream topic

https://cptsd.org/forum/index.php?topic=12289.0

dealing with dreaming about things that were "about things I've never actually experienced" and that is what last night was to me. During this dream, I was laying in the fetal position on a couch or bed shaking uncontrollably. There was another person there, a thin, small oriental man. The man was comforting me with words and hugs for what seemed like an hour. I have never done T but this seemed like a T session. He calmed me down to the point I was no longer shaking and I woke up.

My current life for the past few months has had me in a deeply hostile interaction with a person on another forum. That person did a lot of real harm to me with criticism and libel and my hatred and anger toward him turned me into a very bitter person with just the thought of him. I quit that forum months ago but the deep feelings toward him persisted. This morning, after that dream last night, I woke up and laughed at him, the thought of him, the person that he truly is. That dream "exorcised" him from my mind and today I could care less about him, what he did to me or what happened on that other forum. What caused that dream? I got an email from a friend yesterday "preaching" to me that the circumstances of that event made me a very bitter person and I needed to get over my unhealthy feelings toward him. I've known this for months but it wasn't until someone finally and pointedly told me what was happening to me that the dream occurred.

Strange how dreams work, are created, what they can mean, what they are telling us or doing for us while we sleep  be they good scenes or very bad nightmares. I've had dreams, even recurring dreams that made no sense to me and had no effect on my daily life, at least, none that I noticed, but maybe even those are the mind, the brain doing natural neuroplastic redevelopment of new connections to replace those destroyed by the soup of chemicals released into our brains during our times of great trauma. Just my opinion based on what Robert Sapolsky said about chemical imbalance and chronic depression

https://youtu.be/NOAgplgTxfc

and the many, many dreams I've had over my lifetime, especially those since realizing I was suffering from cPTSD caused by a traumatic few years when I was 3 and stopped my social development growth a that time. Nothing like now realizing I live all of my life as a 3 year old with a fawn (please) cPTSD typology until about 3 years ago when I came to know cPTSD. Since then, I've grown up a bit and I think I am now in my early teens.

Can't wait until tonight to see what's next on the playbill.

Kizzie

Wow Regret you are really working on recovery in your sleep in one way or another!  I love that you are having healing type dreams alongside dealing with trauma ones  :thumbup:   

Regret

It's been awhile and I always wondered when dreaming my life backwards to age 3, some years or events in years did not appear in my dream life reversal.

Within the past two weeks, I think I discovered the answer to my question. During that time, I've had 2 dreams of someone I dated for 2 years in the late 80's, a friend who I worked with a few years in the early 60's and I've had a few dreams similar to my last job but in or as pleasant conditions.

So, my reverse chronological sequence appears to have been neuroplastic healing or constructing new, healthy pathways by going backwards through traumatic events but altering them to make them a positive experience that should have occurred had it not been for cPTSD getting in the way. A neurological healing of sorts.

The next "type" of dreams I had over the past 18 months were situational dreams helping me get over any remnants missed in my reverse dreaming or helped me deal with new events that triggered me, helping to free me from the trauma of the recent event in but a few days instead of suffering for months.

The most recent dreams have been pleasant in that I enjoyed the relationship and miss my work friend who tragically died in the late 60's. And, the work dreams are just fun, the way work should have been had I not been hampered by the disorder or working for a boss who made the last 5 years in that job so emotionally stressful that I developed PTSD on top of my lifelong cPTSD.

Bottom line, I am very fortunate to have this take place while I sleep and the effects of my "dreams" have indeed dramatically helped with my ongoing recovery.

It's still two steps forward and one backward and probably will be for the rest of my life in that I know I have to accept who I am, where I came from, deal well with all of my regrets and outright embarrassment of past actions, realize I don't have the time to be reparented, understand I will repeat mistakes made in the past when my guard is weak, own each minute of my life going forward and not beat myself up for errors I make in the future. I think doing that will bring some level of stability and happiness to my daily life.

Regret

How it works for me these days.

Many times a day, usually when doing something that I had done in the past with disorder caused awkwardness, I am filled with embarrassment and regret for not having had the emotional development and social tools to having it have been how it would have been had I been a real person, my true self.

Even a song, smell, taste or memory can trigger this sad type of wasted life moment, and I wish I could go back to do it over right but am left with the stark reality that that instance to have and enjoy that moment so many years ago was stolen from me.

Tonight I woke from a lucid dream in which I was happily looking forward to going to my high school graduation party, a party that never took place. I was going to buy a bound tablet so I could have others write something good about knowing me in school. I had the tablet in hand when I caught myself realizing that could not be done since I had no friends in high school, not one thanks to my disorder created needless, and then thought, in the dream, I would go to the party and explain to everyone,one at a time, why I was not normal for those four years.

Woke up after that thought filled with sadness and regret for those four years of wasted time. The legacy of my recovery process. And this happens all of the time - lot of awkward moments to resolve in 60+ years of living with the disorder.

Regret

My dreams continue to be a nightly adventure never knowing what I will dream next or how it will affect me.

I was wondering if anyone ever had a dream in which they became extremely agitated, mad at someone in the dream (for good cause) and yelled at that person for, in dream time, a long period of time. After I stopped yelling, I got into my car to go somewhere and woke up.

That happened to me last night and I woke up, after 8 hours of sleep, totally exhausted, as if I did not sleep at all. I didn't want to get out of bed to make a morning appointment. After the appointment, I went home and slept for another 5 hours. I feel better now but I am still tired.

Has anyone else ever been affected by a dream in this or a similar way?

Jazzy

I'm not sure I've argued with anyone for hours in a dream. A lot of my night terrors involved me fighting for my life, or being killed. It wasn't uncommon for me to wake up throwing punches, or diving across the room... so yes, I would say extremely agitated and more. It also often felt like I got no sleep at all.

Hope you get some rest soon, and your dreams don't get too bad. Take care! :)

Regret

Jazzy,

Thanks for the reply. I remember some of your posts talking about your dreams. I've had night terror dreams and it is terrible waking up after one of those.

In this dream, I didn't argue with the other person, I didn't let them get a word in edgewise. It was a non-stop tirade from me to him and anyone else who came into sight. It was nothing more than yelling at the top of my voice at him for what seemed like an hour in dream time. He would walk away and I would track him down to start yelling at him again. I think I quit yelling and left the building when I became hoarse, lost my voice.

Over the past few years, I woken from sleep happy, sad, smiling, scared and anxious but never so physically exhausted. that's why I asked if anyone was so affected by their dreams.

Jazzy

Sounds like you really needed to get it out. Hopefully it helped! Maybe there's something in the waking world you need to get out?

Regret

Quote from: Regret on November 16, 2019, 11:52:02 PM
That happened to me last night and I woke up, after 8 hours of sleep, totally exhausted, as if I did not sleep at all. I didn't want to get out of bed to make a morning appointment. After the appointment, I went home and slept for another 5 hours. I feel better now but I am still tired.

Just wanted to say it took me a full 7 days to recover from that dream, to get out of the fog it put me into and to get back to normal energy. I had dreams every night since then, most I can't remember, and only one was on the terror side. I did have a new one dealing with my brother-in-law, a person who has not talked to me in 20 years including at my mother's funeral a few years go and at his son's wedding this past summer. That was the first time he's showed up in one of my dreams and no, that was not the terror dream.

Kizzie

I don't wake up as exhausted as it sounds like you do Regret, but I have been having more dreams about telling people off that I ever used to.  I think of it as being ready finally to address some of the issues I stayed quiet over to keep the peace, avoid confrontation, etc., and the feelings I avoided.  Anyway, there's a lot of pent up frustration/anger in my dreams (which are fairly short), so if your dreams are long ones I would imagine you would be quite tired.  It's a major letting go of sorts.