I have been awake since around 3:00AM this morning when my roommate came into my room to wake me. He said that I was screaming and crying.
I never remember my dreams, but I remember this one. I was in a foxhole. It was like something you would see in a WWII movie. I was hunkered down in my foxhole, trying to avoid the enemy fire, when someone started coming in. Without looking and without hesitation I opened fire. I looked over the wall of the foxhole and saw the body of my 10 year old son. I had shot and killed him.
I know that this was just a dream, but it has really fucked with me. I cannot explain how this has made me feel. Even though I know it wasn’t real I just cannot shake the image or the feeling. I know that it’ll go away after a while, but today sucks. I have tried to move my mind to other things, but I keep drifting back to the dream.
So, basically I guess I am pitting my dream and my inability to get over it. I am seriously “out of it” today. I just want the image to stop popping back into my head. As soon as it turned 8:00AM, and I was sure he was awake, I called my son and told him I love him. Why won’t this thing leave me alone? damn.
Those kinds of dreams do indeed suck, especially when the effects linger for most of the day. I’ve had some highly emotional dreams that just hung with me; even as I was fully aware that they were just dreams, I still felt horrible.
I’ve had dreams that have had an emotional legacy that’s lasted up to 24 hours. It’s such an odd feeling - different to a regular emotion, I think - but it does wear off. I predict that tomorrow you’ll have problems recalling precisely the emotional state you were in today.
jjimm, I agree it will wear off, but years later, I still remember exactly how bad I felt after two dreams I had: 1) I dreamt I had a baby and someone stole it, and 2) I dreamt I lost my husband in a boating accident. I will never forget and can easily slip back into the emotional state I was in after those two dreams. ::shudder::
I sometimes have dreams, usually the “exam dream” type of thing, and wake up and am not sure if I really have to take the exam I was dreaming about or not. After that, I usually need to tell myself, “You’re out of high school/college/grad school. You already have a Master’s degree. You don’t have to take exams any more.”
I’m a horrible dreamer, myself. I usually only remember one dream a month, but the ones I do remember are 99% of the time vivid, violent, and disturbing. The only comfort I can offer you is that there are a number of responsible psychologists who believe that dreaming is pretty much a null-value activity, where the sub-conscious simply recycles images and impressions that are hanging around. I’ll admit it’s not a universally accepted theory, but it’s one that I take great comfort from.
Actually, I’ve gotten so used to my nightmares that the last time I had a dream put me into a depressed fugue it was because of one of my very rare ‘happy’ dreams. :smack: