Why a nightmare?

by Richard Reeve on December 24, 2008

in AziMuth

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Many of us can recall childhood nightmares. My repetitive nightmare as a child went like this: crossing a boardwalk over a swamp with alligators in the water when a train comes rushing and I realize I’m on the train track. Then at the moment of impact I’m in a chicken coop and white feathers are flying everywhere. I wake up terrified. It always accompanied high fevers, and looking back, I sense the train impact signified the breaking of the fever. In fact I see the entire somatic experience of the illness in in the imagery of the dream.

Not all repetitive dreams are nightmares and vice versa. As I grown to accept the images that the unconscious provides in my dreams, I’ve learned that the nightmare is a move the unconscious makes to get my attention. Terror is not present when my attention is properly given to the dream images.

Experiences of trauma are known to manifest as nightmares and many with trauma in there personal histories are plagued with them.  That issue aside, how often do you experience a nightmare and how do you process it?

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  • Hi Richard,

    Dreams are so fascinating - and sometimes traumatizing in and of themselves! I once dreamt I was having sex with my father. How Freudian. And horribly disturbing.

    A recurrent nightmare is being chased and desperately trying to get away, and attempting to defend myself from an attacker and finding that my punches and strikes have no force, are completely ineffective. I haven't had them recently. I had them while practicing the martial art pakua, but not while practicing taekwondo, which is more aggressive and to my liking. Either way, obviously, these nightmares may very well be about something else. As a woman in a patriarchal society, however, the issue of being able to defend myself against an attacker (most often male, tall, and muscular, in my nightmares) is relevant and rooted in everyday life. The unconscious is a murky, complex, and tricky entity.

    How to deal? I guess I did by practicing a martial art that let me test the actual force of my strikes, versus punching the air like I did in pakua. But most of the time, I don't know how to deal. I just keep panicking in my sleep.

  • Hi Richard Thanks for the follow on twitter. I find dreams interesting as well. I've written about several on my site, though I'm no psychology person I am very interested lately.

  • richard

    when i was in the 4th grade i began to have a series of dreams in which i was running through trees, away from something...and i would always wake up and puke, and then come down with tonsillitis...this was always accompanied by that kind of fever pink floyd sing about in "comfortably numb", as well as a sense of floating up out of my body...

    this was a progressive dream and over time, i had it every 6 months or so, it evolved to the point that i reached a clearing in the trees and stopped running, and then experienced the most beautiful and calming music ever. then the dreams stopped.

    funny thing is that they were site specific...i moved to texas in 4th grade and left in 6th...never had the dreams any place else.

    extra crazy thing is that when i was in college i found a record called "music for airports" and intrigued by the title i bought it and took it home and then was in total shock and awe when the 2nd track was the music from my dream! mind you, this album was recorded some 8 years after the dream span had ended!

    that said, i occasionally have what could be described as nightmares these days...and they always involve someone getting increasingly violent with me...getting in my face, blocking my way, pushing, grabbing, etc. and me either physically or verbally telling them to stop. and then finally me having to dispatch them in an extremely brutal way. something like grabbing them by the feet and then swinging their head against a wall (think nick cage in "wild at heart"), or, in my most recent one a few nights ago, stabbing them desperately with a bic pen!

    these days, however, i have no real fear or panic in these situations...it just seems like inevitable, something i have to do. it is just tense violence...struggle...survival.

    and as you mention, i am extremely aware of my surroundings in these dreams...looking for anyway out of the situation that won't involve killing this person...like bruce banner trying to explain to someone that if they don't leave him the hell alone he's going to go all big green hulk on them...

    thanks for the topic!

  • For 10 years, I have met the same nightmare with two variances. The frequency of the dreams vary, but by this time in life I know how to combat them.
    I fall asleep with the t.v and bathroom light on, laying next to a furry four legged protector.

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