Nightmares

Pondering how surviving abuse might have affected my dream state…

Since I was a child, I have had nightmares on a regular basis.  I never thought too much about it, because I’ve always been an avid dreamer, who also remembers her dreams very well.  I guess, I just  always assumed that nightmares were a normal part of everyone’s life and I am sure to a certain extend they are.

Over the days leading up to and on Halloween my nightmare rate increased and I was reminded of my lifelong history with them. Ever since I was a little child, like four or five years old, I’ve been dreaming about very violent things. ..Like dead bodies and dead bodies bing burned in my presence to cover the tracks of the murderer. 

Like I said this had become a normality in my life, I guess I always thought that everyone had gory nightmares like that. Now I am aware that it is not actually everyone, although this may be hard to tell, as I  have also noticed that a lot of people feel uncomfortable talking about their dreams in general.  I can absolutely relate to that, too. Dreams are very personal, often weird and intimate. Our society doesn’t necessarily encourage us to share those aspects of our existence and experience. 

But there are also other people, who remember their dreams well and who occasionally share them, maybe because they were weird in a funny and entertaining way, or maybe they would share them with a therapist in an effort to get to the bottom of their trauma. 

But what I am only becoming fully aware of recently, is that it might not be ‘normal’ for a five year old to dream about dead bodies being buried and hidden.  It is the proverbial skeleton in the closet, which you probably shouldn’t even have too many of, at that age. 

Since I now know that I had been sexually abused at that age already, I can’t help but think that this gruesome dream image might relate to a popular line that pedophiles like to tell the children, they abuse: “This will be our little secret.” The secret that needs to stay hidden…buried.

It is an awful memory, accompanied by the memory of these gory dreams and  I have to admit that writing this makes me feel particularly vulnerable and I sometimes wonder, if it is the right thing to do, putting myself out there like this.  

But I also know, that children are out there right now, being molested and that it may be an extremely uncomfortable topic, but that we need to talk about these things going on in our world and what they do to people in the long run, anyway.  Not addressing it at all, simply won’t help.

I chose to share this quite extreme nightmare, because I’ve come to believe that everyone, who has been abused in some way, shape or form – and I know, they are all horrible, no matter what it was in each individual case – might experience nightmares, accordingly. Whether they remember them or not.

They are scary, no doubt, and sometimes they’d make us feel weird and very uncomfortable with ourselves, but I also strongly believe now, that they are an essential part of recovery.  A way of our subconscious mind to deal with what happened to us and maybe even the starting point of our healing journey. 

Naturally, I looked up some interpretations of my particular nightmare and the bottom line seems to be that it is about mental discomfort and trying to hide or shy away from a certain part of ourselves. In a way that is almost poetic to me. As horrible as the experience was and as much as I  had to suppress these memories for my mental wellbeing at a very young age, it was also important for them to come up in this way, for me to be able to address them later on.  it is all about being able to heal. 

Naturally, I looked up some  common interpretations of a dream like mine and it usually seems to relate to an attempt to mentally disconnect to a certain part of ourselves and trying not to face it or deal with it.  

Thinking about this, made me realise just how much my very young self couldn’t possibly deal with the experience in her conscious mind and it brought up some other examples of nightmares, that might stem from being abused.

Someone might relive the day their narcissistic ex left them, in a dream, over and over again. Someone in high school, might dream a couple of times each week about the bully, they face on a daily basis in school. 

Someone might dream about a parent, who they officially have a good relationship with,  being extremely violent in their dreams. 

None of these dreams are particularly pleasant, but I also noticed that they occur less and less with time, when you face what you went through. May it be through therapy, talking to others about it or simply have a good, relieving cry. Those dreams showing up less and less in my experience -I take that as a sign that my healing keeps progressing and that no matter, what we went through, healing is possible.

So, I wanted to share this with you to let you know, that you have the power to survive whatever you had to go through. 

We can do this,  we will support each other and keep on fighting for our happiness.