A slew of nightmares as of late.

[pheNom]

I'm new to these boards.. came across them trying to find an answer to my nightmares.

For the past month and a half or so I've only been sleeping <4 hours a night. I try to get as little sleep as possible because every time I go to sleep I have a nightmare... every single night... it's terrifying. And they're always the same dream, with a different ending.

I'm seeing myself in the 3rd person, although it's not my real self.. it's someone else. But I just "know" it's me. If you understand...

Anywho, it's a battlefield. Somewhat like in Terminator.. there are small craters all around with small groups of soldiers in them. They're each like a group of 5 or 6 people just chatting with eachother and I'm going from crater to crater punching a random person in the face... then running to the next. It's a worn down area.. like an intersection in a big city.. decrepid buildings, war-torn and falling apart are everywhere. Everything's grey, as if covered by a dust. There's gunfire in the distance and I can hear people crying out for help... I think that's why I keep searching these craters. Trying to find whomever is crying for help.

After a while I get into a fight with someone.. and I'm punching him and punching him. However, it almost feels like I'm punching a bubble. I can clearly see I'm winning, but it doesn't feel like he's being hurt. At all.. It's almost like I'm powerless against him. I never take a single hit though...

After this I "wake up". I say that in parenthesis because I don't actually wake up. I return to my body so to speak. I'm in my room, on my floor where I sleep and my eyes are just barely open. But I'm paralyzed. I can see only where my head is tilted too.. and I can hear men whispering things to me. I can't make it out but everytime I hear the whispers it's like i get that "jolt" feeling when you're about to wake up from someone calling your name.

I'm still paralyzed but I can feel some feeling returning to my body and I finally get control of my breath and I'm panting and choking because I can't catch it. Almost like I'm hyperventilating. Now I can hear papers ruffling, and rats chewing on things in my room. I get control of my fingers.. and I can feel the tail of a rat. It's clinging to my arm gnawing on me.

I close my eyes, open them again and I'm back in control and nothings there.


This dream, with the bedroom part, has been happening for a month and a half... every night. Before this it was the battlefield dream every night for like 6 months. Without the bedroom part.

It's terrifying... even though I'm there every night in the same situation it always feels like I've never been there before when it's happening. I'm considering going to a psychologist.... Provided my heath coverage will pay for it. Because I couldn't afford it if ti wasn't.

Any help you can give me would be really appreciated... perhaps if I understand this I can work towards having a good night's sleep again. I apologise for the length..

Thank you very much in advance.


*EDIT* http://www.sleeps.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?t=299
This person's experience is completely identical to mine. The feeling of being completely paralyzed, praying that you'll regain control of your body, terrified by the lack of control and what you feel is happening around you. And upon waking from the nightmare you never "wake" you just regain control.

[unclesirbobbyrobson]

NIGHTMARE : We all seem to recognise nightmares. Often we can have scarey and violent dreams and yet we would not describe them as nightmares. Yet other dreams may lack violence yet may be described as nightmares. The best person to judge this is the dreamer. We have all had nightmares but what type of real issues do nightmares tend to link to in practice? Obviously traumatic events can affect you such as deaths of people close to you or accidents. Many nightmares can link to a need to be aware of a risk such as mothers who need to be aware that their toddler is starting to open doors and get into all kinds of trouble. We take all kinds of risks and our dreams may be reminding us of all the dreadful things that can go wrong such as the people we are being rude to and offensive to may suddenly retaliate. Issues of trust are also important. The inability to trust someone after they have clearly failed to repay our trust is important. If have the strength to trust again then we are clearly taking a risk(so risk is clearly important in that as well). Nightmares can also result from changes in our life. The mind prefers to have a settled environment and so it dislikes change. [KEY WORDS : Risky, making sense, illness, trust, change, abused, consequences]

KEY PHRASES(Pick a quote which captures your feelings right now. Think especially of the day before the dream) :
- "I simply am not finding it easy to deal with this. I cannot accept what happened. It was so traumatic and so unfair"
- "Why did it happen?"
- "I have just realised that things are going to change"
- "I am starting to realise the consequences of it"
- "I feel so alone and simply do not feel accepted"
- "I know that the risk is small but things may go dreadfully wrong"
- "I am taking such a major risk"
- "I am totally aware of the danger I am taking"
- "Its so risky - I may lose him."
- "This illness is hideous. I feel such pain"
- "How could I ever be honest and tell him what I truly feel"
- "I treated him badly and I need to realise that he may fight back"
- "I would like to trust him but how could I ever trust anyone again after what happened last time"
- "I simply cannot trust a word that she says."
- "I really do not feel I have enough confidence to do that"
- "I simply cannot trust what he says"
- "I have never had to face such a change before in my life"

------------------------
"That printer. It cost a fortune and is always breaking down. I will never buy another Epson printer again. They are designed to break down". These were the exact feelings that one dream captured. Yet its only with experience that you can understand the symbolism. The topic was not linked to precisely.

We tend to link dreams to faraway places and other planes of existence. But once you understand dreams you will find out that they tend to link to feelings that are all too familiar. They capture immediate feelings about relationships or the general frustrations of life. The symbolism maybe diufficult to understand. But tahts simply because dreams talk in a language that we do not fully understand. That is made worse because dreams often make no attempts to help us understand their meaning.

The following pages above all help you to learn the basics of dream interpreting

http://www.geocities.com/hairybobby2...howtopost.html Interpreting dreams
http://www.geocities.com/hairybobby2...ssayhowto.html Triggers for dreams
http://www.geocities.com/hairybobby2000/dreamessay.html Dream dictionary