If you had asked me prior to yesterday about my definition of a nightmare, I would have talked about feelings of terror and fear.
But last night I had a series of dreams that I consider nightmares, but they were purely emotional. I felt incredible depths of sadness and despair. No fear involved. The dreams involved stuff from my life, in what could be called “worst case scenarios”.
I’ve never thought of this as a “nightmare”, but that’s what they felt like to me in the aftermath.
When I was pregnant I had several dreams in which I had horrible screaming fights with someone, usually my husband. This is something we basically have never done in real life.
I was just writing about this in someone else’s LiveJournal today - at least a couple times I’ve had “nightmares” (in that there was no fear involved but the emotions were horrible) that my husband died and it felt like days or weeks had passed during the course of the dream, and I was mourning him. When I woke up from these dreams, they carried over so that upon waking I thought about yet another day without him and how alone I was, and my heart was aching just as it had in the dream. Then I’d notice him next to me and quickly realize it must all have been a dream, but I’d still be kind of freaked out and sad from the dream, as if in the real world someone had faked his death and then returned him to me. I mean, I was elated that it was just a dream, but it was hard to make that transition so quickly.
This is a true story - A little background… My mom and her sisters all sound alike when they talk. And a random sister is always severely ill. (Heart trouble, Alzheimer’s, Lupus, Diabetes, etc, etc, etc)
I was taking a nap one Sunday afternoon when I dreamt that I was in a thick fog or mist. Couldn’t see anything, but I could hear one of the Sisters stumbling around in the fog - and I feel very frustrated and angry. Then a great feeling of relief came over me and I could hear her say, “Well, that’s enough of that.”
I woke up frantic to get to the phone, Hubby comes in looking at me like I’m nuts. As I’m telling him I have to have the phone, the phone starts to ring. Hubby, who has the phone in his hand, answers it then holds it out to me. And I start to cry. One of the Sisters is on the phone and asks me to sit down. I cry harder, cause I think my mom has died. It’s actually my mom on the phone and the aunt with Alzheimer’s has died. Just a freaky series of events, but I’ll remember the deep feelings of frustration followed by peace in that dream.
I’ve had dreams about my ex that were so filled with misery and anxiety that I woke up in a cold sweat with my heart pounding. So yeah, that fits the OP.
Yeah. Generally, I can never remember my dreams, but just a week or so ago, I was suddenly awoken by my alarm. Generally, my reaction is to sit up (alarm is on a table at the foot of my bed), hit snooze, and fall backwards to the pillow. That morning, the alarm went off, and I was completely and totally furious. Not at the alarm, and I didn’t even know what I was angry about. Instead of just hitting snooze, I ended up literally throwing my alarm across the room.
Later, when I was once again rational, and I went back and thought about it, I think I could pretty much pinpoint what in my dream made me so angry. But man, that was scary, as I’m not a rage-ish person.
I have them often. Usually they are triggered by a conversation or connection that has occured during he day.
Dreams often help us explore/resolve shadow aspects of our personality. If you are interested in investigating in more depth read essays by Joseph Campbell or James Hillman.
Yeah, a long waking dream in which I married a crazy woman. We’re in the midst of a divorce right now.
Oh, you meant real dreams!
Yes. I had one last summer in which I got so angry that I killed my father. Then went “that ain’t right, I would never do that” and quite literally changed the dream so that I went through it again and didn’t do so the second time. I got to another point where I was supposed to kill him and refused to do so, at which point a complete stranger popped into the picture (in my parent’s old house) and insisted that I had to do it. I laughed in his face and said basically “no I don’t, this is my dream and I wouldn’t do such a thing”.
Then I woke up.
I’m dimly aware of some past, highly emotional dreams as well.
first, there is a medical condition (I forget the name) of depression that can be triggered if you are awakened during a certain stage of sleep. I experienced it once and it was horrible. I had the presence of mind to go back to sleep and it went away.
second, I’ve taken certain cold medications that trigger “loop dreams”. The dream doesn’t have to make sense, but it usually has a lot of emotion associated with it. And it continuously loops.
A lot of the dreams about deaths of loved ones are expressions of your own inner fears.
My daughter once had a dream that she was dreaming. She “woke up” in the inner dream, but was still asleep. Then she tried to wake up for real, but every time, she dreamed she was waking into another dream. When she finally woke up for real she was terrified and took (understandably) a looooong time to go back to sleep.
I once dreamed that my wife and I had stopped at a conveince store for some supplies. I went in alone and had trouble remembering what I was supposed to get.
The next thing I know, I’m in my car alone and didn’t know how I had gotten there. I drove home. My wife told me that I had run out of the store and kept going. A neighbor said that I had run down the street, jumped into my car and drove off.
I felt dispair and worry that I could no longer trust my memory. I woke up and almost instantly ahd that “whew, it was just a dream” feeling.
Do the “I have a final exam tomorrow and I haven’t been to any lectures” nightmares count? Seems to be a recurring theme, even though I haven’t taken an exam in 7 years.
I have had these kinds of dreams before. I’ve woken up with tears on my cheeks before, albeit rarely. The despair and sadness is just so extreme that it comes through the dream and into waking awareness. I’m am incredibly relieved to wake up from these dreams. It’s usually that one sad or bad experience from my past that works itself into my dream and I obviously have no wish to go through it again.
I once had a nightmare where I knew I was asleep and was trapped in my sleeping body as I tried to scream myself awake. I felt my vocal cords get tense and strained from my efforts and I couldn’t move to wake myself up. It almost seemed an out-of-body experience but I was still in my body, if that makes any sense. I saw myself asleep but from within. It was very important that I wake up but I couldn’t “reach” myself verbally or move. I could see out into the room and everything was as it normally was, which really made it intense. Usually, my dreams have something out of the ordinary that’s obvious, like I’m talking to a man with blue skin as if this was normal but upon waking, I know blue skin is not normal (lame example). That"awake/asleep" dream was pretty freaky but I’m hijacking.
Most of my dreams involve some deep emotion anyway, If I’m happy… I’m REALLY happy, I’m “floating in bliss” happy. If I’m mad, I’m “ragin’ bull, gonna kick some ass” pissed. Fear, well… you get my point.
I often have dreams the content of which I cannot remember once I’m awake, but the emotions they inspire linger throughout the day. Sadness, fear, and loneliness, especially. Sometimes I’ll have a dream in which apparently Gunslinger has left me or died - again, I don’t remember the details, but when I wake up I feel so incredibly heartbroken and if I see or speak with him that day I feel surprised that he’s still there. I hate days like that.
I have them quite a bit and I like them not at all. My dreams, good or bad, are very vivid. I remember most of them even if I’d rather not. The negative emotion dreams though are the worst because when I wake up from one I’m more tired than if I hadn’t slept at all. The only good thing is that I’m sometimes aware that I’m dreaming and can change the course of the dream. Sometimes.
I have had many horrible nightmares, some like the ones described here-- my boyfriend cheated on me and I beat the crap out of him, someone died and I was crying, a serial killer was chasing me through the basement of my old elementary school, etc. These dreams are always bursting with very intense, traumatic emotions. When I wake up, I’m always relieved and marvel at my unconscious’ ability to screw with me.
Just today I dreamt I was someone else, sleeping and having a nightmare and crying in my sleep. Weird, huh?
ive felt dreams where i was being stalked by a murderer, sometimes it was jason voorhees, sometimes someone anonymous. in one i can remember i was hiding behind my parents house with my dog trying to figure out how to get back inside without him seeing me or finding me. I felt subdued fear in those dreams, its hard to explain but it wasn’t normal terror or fear for some reason.