I think the big thing is just realizing that you don’t have to sit there and take it. I recall the first time I turned around a nightmare. I was Jesus and I was being chased, hunted is more like it, through a complex of caves. I was scared half-to-death. I had been taking judo for about six months at that point. Something inside me said, “I’m gonna make a stand,” and the dream ended. Since then no wannabe nightmare has come to fruition because I always get up the will to fight and that is all it takes. But I think you need the confidence that you’ll stand a chance. For me, it really is like a horror story: the nightmares feed on fear and once you put bravery, fatalism, hubris, or whatever you want to call it, forward and decide to act, the nightmare dies. Taking judo made that confidence easier to acheive. Since buying the gun I’ve found it is even easier to muster the courage, since a gun is a street-fight trump card.
Of course, I’ve had dreams where my pistol’s magazine keeps dropping out, or I only have the wrong ammo, or I can’t get the cartridges in the magazine. But even in those cases it resolves itself.
The first time I ever heard of using self-defence in a dream was in an article about the Gracie family. One of the Gracies taught his wife enough jiu jitsu to defend herself in dreams. With that in mind, I’d like to suggest that Marconi & Schmeese start taking Brazilian jiu jitsu. I suggest that particular style for two reasons: It’s been shown to be effective in fairly real circumstances, and one of the main fighting positions is exactly the same position a woman might expect to be in under sexual assault conditions. (Why not kill two birds with one stone?) I assumed that by family member it was like someone getting killed in a car wreck. But if it has to do with a psycho, then learning how to grapple and make another person submit, and that you can make another person submit, seems like a great tool to be able to pull out while dreaming. Like I said, I credit judo for doing that for me. For me it seems like knowing that you can fight back is most of the battle. It’s as though a nightmare is infinitely weak and it merely relies on its ability to scare its victim into submission.
God, good to know I’m not alone. The wife and I just bought a house, so I’ve kinda been thinking about getting a gun. I keep having these horrible visions (that’s not really the right term, just thoughts I guess) of me just grabbing the gun and shooting myself. In fact, whenever I think about owning a gun, shooting myself with it is the first thing that crosses my mind. (I don’t think about shooting my wife, though, you sick bastard you )
I am totally not suicidal or anything like that. Any psych-dopers have a term for this?
Taxguy, I think you & Lobsang have nasty cases of OCD (I do, too, so no offense). It’s a pretty typical symptom - it’s an impulse control issue. I often will be a passenger in a car that has a “center” emergency brake and envision myself pulling up on the e-brake when we’re going 75mph on the freeway. I often sit on my hands “just in case” I can’t control myself. :eek:
JS, I will check out the offerings at my local continuing education center - it would be great both mentally & physically. BTW, the family member is a dangerous psycho.
Someone else gets those nasty vision-type things? This is such a relief to me. I’ll envision myself doing things like opening the passenger-side door of a car going down the freeway, or whatever. And it wouldn’t surprise me to discover I had mild OCD - I can spend ages doing something like popping all the zits (real and imagined) on my face. Then, it might be an ADD thing, too.
As a guideline, you may consider my threads hijack friendly.
I used to know a guy who lived on the tenth floor of an apartment building. The windows could be opened, but they had no screens. I used to have to leave because of the overwhelming feeling that I’d sprint to the window and take a flying leap.
IMHO js has a perfectly good point. If you are rationally or irrationally afraid of intruders, (say, due to having a family) this could easily show up in dreams. Getting a gun (and treating it safely) could clear this up.
(Whether guns are sensible to own for protection is another thread.)
He did, however, say it so it sounded like a gun was a solution to everything which is obviously wrong and bound to rub people up the wrong way.
I get the same fear that I will decide to open the passenger door and leap out. there have been times when I have told the driver to lock all the doors.
I get the fear that I will jump from high places, even if there is a fence, I fear I will climb over and just fall.
The other day I was walking round a very confined, but very tall castle (Castle Rushen - Isle of Man UK) I looked over the edges while I was at the top, out of sheer stubbournness to ‘enjoy’ the castle (“I will enjoy this view even if it scares the living daylights out of me to look over!”) I looked over quite a few.
First there is the feeling that you might willingly jump, then a split second later there is the vivid imagination/vision of what it would feel/look like (from within) to land, bones shattering. Then there is the sweat. Then there is the overwhelming desire to be at least 2 metres away from the edge.
Thinking about it - I realize that the fear is actually that my body will decide to jump without my brain’s sayso.
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