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Dreams, anxiety and meaning
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I suffer (if that word even begins to describe it) from anxiety. I always have done and I probably always will do. It’s part of me. It permeates, literally, every single part of my life and I can’t even escape it when I’m asleep.
I’m often woken up by a (kind of) recurring dream in which I discover that I’m close to where an ex lover lives (usually some version of North Carolina or Madrid). Upon this realisation I attempt to get to their house, and as I try to steer and control the dream things get more and more frantic without me ever getting closer to where I want to go, until I end up waking myself up in a confused, heart-thumping sweat. Sometimes I see the person I’m looking for at the end of the street, but the floor turns to glue, or my legs stop working, no matter how hard I’m running. Other times I’m mad with frustration as I’m trying, and wall-thumpingly failing, to use a mobile phone.
Anyway, I’m wide awake, now. Tense. Brow ache. Headache. Wanting to reach out and connect with the person I was trying to reach, which would obviously be a bad idea. Wondering if these dreams are some kind of manifestation of my need for closure or understanding about how things ended. Unanswered questions are never good for an anxious mind.
Anyone else have this kind of torment?
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By (user no longer on site)
over a year ago
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Dreams are a reflection of things happening in reality. If you don't deal with things, your brain will try to do it for you. The recurring dreams will stop when you've made peace with whatever happened with your ex. |
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"Dreams are a reflection of things happening in reality. If you don't deal with things, your brain will try to do it for you. The recurring dreams will stop when you've made peace with whatever happened with your ex. "
Yeh, that’s what I’m thinking too. No chance of that happening any time soon, though. I’ve made as much peace with it as I, personally, can, but it was an abusive relationship so there’s just far too much to fully understand. |
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By (user no longer on site)
over a year ago
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I feel your pain OP. One of the things I hate about sobriety is the vividness, the solidity, the intense colour and feeling of dreams. Alcohol dumbs them down massively. It can take an hour or more to reset from a bad one. Last night's was a doozy.
My subconscious is a cunt. I'd like a few strong words with it in a room with no windows or other breakables. |
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By (user no longer on site)
over a year ago
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I dont envy you at all dreams can fuck you up really bad
I had similar about a former best friend almost everyday for about a year i had to see her get hurt or die in different ways everynight with me unable to save her id wake panicking at 4am and had no power to stop it i spent everyday in panic mode worried that shes not safe seeing signs in everything it broke my brain its rough as fuck i dont envy you at all hope it fixes itself for you soon |
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"I has a dream in which my sister died last night. Not sure how I feel about that.
Oh damn  "
Yeah, my sister and I are quite estranged and we both hold a lot of resentment towards each other. But she is still my sister who I love in a way. I dunno, I've tried fix things in the past but it's like trying to get blood out of stone.
Anyway, congratulations? |
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"I feel your pain OP. One of the things I hate about sobriety is the vividness, the solidity, the intense colour and feeling of dreams. Alcohol dumbs them down massively. It can take an hour or more to reset from a bad one. Last night's was a doozy.
My subconscious is a cunt. I'd like a few strong words with it in a room with no windows or other breakables."
I know how you feel about it taking time for your brain to reset. My anxiety means that I fixate and my thoughts end up going down a rabbit hole. It can really knock me for six sometimes, and I’ve been known to spiral for weeks. Thankfully those days are fewer and farther between, now.
It’s funny how I can go for months and months without revisiting that relationship, which probably makes it even more of a shock when my subconscious pipes up with a, “Here’yah, you’ve still not dealt with this.”  |
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"Last night I dreamt I didn't find out I was pregnant until I was 20 weeks. Though I did go to a gender reveal yesterday.
You've always been a woman to me Lacey."
Oooohhhhh I take care of myselffffff |
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"I has a dream in which my sister died last night. Not sure how I feel about that.
Oh damn
Yeah, my sister and I are quite estranged and we both hold a lot of resentment towards each other. But she is still my sister who I love in a way. I dunno, I've tried fix things in the past but it's like trying to get blood out of stone.
Anyway, congratulations?"
Strained family relationships are difficult. I feel for you. You can only do what you can do. Maybe one day. |
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By (user no longer on site)
over a year ago
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OP, have you heard of binaural beats?
There is some research that points to unbalanced brain waves causing anxiety. Listening to binaural beats, which is a different beat in each ear, makes the brain slow down and helps calmer brain waves to take over.
It might be worth looking into to see if it helps. |
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We don't understand dreaming very well but do know that our memories and experiential processing of pur lives is typically done outside of full awareness.
Dreams have emotional contents, so will have the potential to disturb our sleep.
I'd not view much significance in them, unless you consciously have issues that you'd like to be resolved. |
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"OP, have you heard of binaural beats?
There is some research that points to unbalanced brain waves causing anxiety. Listening to binaural beats, which is a different beat in each ear, makes the brain slow down and helps calmer brain waves to take over.
It might be worth looking into to see if it helps. "
I have heard of Binaural Beats but I’ve never really known fully what it is. I’m skeptical about things like that. There are a multitude of videos on YouTube that supposedly use sound frequency to “heal”, which I just can’t take seriously, I’m afraid.
Where would I find out more? I’ve heard that the Binaural Beats videos on YouTube aren’t worth much cop because the compression of the audio in order to make it streamable from a website reduces the sound quality too much for it to be effective. |
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By (user no longer on site)
over a year ago
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"OP, have you heard of binaural beats?
There is some research that points to unbalanced brain waves causing anxiety. Listening to binaural beats, which is a different beat in each ear, makes the brain slow down and helps calmer brain waves to take over.
It might be worth looking into to see if it helps.
I have heard of Binaural Beats but I’ve never really known fully what it is. I’m skeptical about things like that. There are a multitude of videos on YouTube that supposedly use sound frequency to “heal”, which I just can’t take seriously, I’m afraid.
Where would I find out more? I’ve heard that the Binaural Beats videos on YouTube aren’t worth much cop because the compression of the audio in order to make it streamable from a website reduces the sound quality too much for it to be effective."
Most music sites (Amazon music for example) will have music/sound with binaural beats on there. |
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By (user no longer on site)
over a year ago
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"OP, have you heard of binaural beats?
There is some research that points to unbalanced brain waves causing anxiety. Listening to binaural beats, which is a different beat in each ear, makes the brain slow down and helps calmer brain waves to take over.
It might be worth looking into to see if it helps.
I have heard of Binaural Beats but I’ve never really known fully what it is. I’m skeptical about things like that. There are a multitude of videos on YouTube that supposedly use sound frequency to “heal”, which I just can’t take seriously, I’m afraid.
Where would I find out more? I’ve heard that the Binaural Beats videos on YouTube aren’t worth much cop because the compression of the audio in order to make it streamable from a website reduces the sound quality too much for it to be effective."
Well, they help you to meditate. If you listen to different beats in each ear, your brain focuses on combining them to make a single beat. Whilst you're doing that, your brain is producing more theta and alpha brain waves which, when they're dominant, make you feel calmer. So there is some science behind it!
There is a study that says it's a placebo effect. But, all studies report participants feeling calmer and less anxious so even if it is a placebo, the objective is being achieved.
It might well be nonsense, but it's non invasive and harmless so I would say worth a try. |
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