Hi yaku,

This is very interesting. I can't say I ever recall dreaming that I am somebody else. I often have dreams that are about other people, or imaginary people, but in those dreams I am "present" as a disembodied observer.

When I am a character in a dream, I have the sense that I am myself, however, weirdly, I am almost never married in my dreams, even though I've been married for five years IRL. Even when H is in my dreams, there often is no sense that we are married.

My children appear more regularly, and there is often a strong sense of visceral connection with them in the dreams, but I don't dream of them together, only one at a time. It's often just me and one child and no real sense of how we got that way.

Hi, HIC. I've also had that disembodied observer type dream. In fact, some of my "character" dreams will become that way (kind of what i meant by dual awareness) if I somehow realize the a conflict with my real life in the middle of a dream. It's interesting that your kids never appear at the same time, and you're not actually married to your H. I only have one child (one on the way), so I haven't had that experience. Usually if I dream about real world people, they inhabit their actual roles, although sometimes in the dream, I might have different reactions to them than I do in real life (i.e. find out they are bad, not safe, in the dream, etc.).

Hi, Monte! Things are OK, yeah. Trying to hang in there with all the life changes and therapy stuff. Sorry to hear you've had the same experiences with bizarre and nightmarish dreams. Your experience sounds very similar to mine, in that I have no sense of my real self, but maybe different, because I did have a sense of being a different self, with a different background. Fascinating and frightening movie does sound right. Wow, your sleep paralysis sounds like it could be frightening, but it's good you're able to laugh about it. It reminds me of a couple of experiences I've had. First is a childhood dream I was paralyzed by a witch and when I woke, I remained paralyzed for a while and couldn't even talk, only mildly grunt. My oldest sister said I'd been talking a lot in my sleep, though. Another is when I have frightening dreams about being chased or stalked (usually by some sort of monster or ghost or something supernatural), and would try to scream or cry out or shout in my dream, but nothing would come out. My husband says when this happens I do make real noises, but they're muffled or muted gasps and cries. I think the most disturbing experience I have had was a few dreams about being possessed by some spirit and a strange voice coming out of me saying bizarre and/or frightening things (think, "Don't ask the boy any more questions," from Stir of Echoes, if you've seen it). It's almost in a half-dream, half-woken state and the voice actually came out of me. COMPLETELY CREEPY!

Anyway, needless to say, I have a very active dream life, and maybe a little bit strange of one...but I don't really know, because it's not something you go around asking your friends much. "Hey, do you dream like this?" I know one friend who does, but he has a similar background to me (a lot of similar family dynamics), but I don't know if it's unique to our personalities or our experiences or just...random.

Hi Yaku,

Do you think any of the current intensity of your dream life could be related to the pregnancy? I seem to remember having more vivid and memorable dreams when I was pregnant. Hope all is well.

Jillann

Jillann, hi. Yes, I've considered the pregnancy as a source, but aside from being a tiny bit more vivid, I've had dreams of this intensity my whole life. I can remember them from my early childhood, teens, and college years. I've always been prone to nightmares and to dreaming as not-me, though they increase during times of stress. The main change I've noticed during pregnancy is that things feel a little more real, tangible somehow, if that makes sense.

In general, I tend to recognize myself in dreams, though I'm often watching myself from a distance or may even look like someone else. Once, I was split into two different selves and I talked to myself in the dream. I do tend to be aware of the facts of my life while dreaming, though they may not be forefront in my dream consciousness. Aspects of my past abuse often color my dreams.

Pregnancy really brings out the monsters for me. My dreams while pregnant tend to be very vivid and violent. The other night I dreamed that giant flying insects were burrowing up to their heads in my skin, and I had to pull them out. It was incredibly icky and painful; there were huge open wounds everywhere. I'm sure my T would say there's some kind of meaning behind that dream, but holy hell...what?

Hi Affinity, that's interesting that you dream from a distance. When you "look" different in the dreams, do you just recognize, "That's me," automatically? Are you aware that it's not the way you really do look, or in the dream, does it just seem right? I've also dreams where I was multiple people (parts?) interacting with one another within the dream, but that is pretty rare. More often, if that happened, I would start as one person in the dream, then switch to the other, and not go back after that. Abuse also shows up in my dreams, but only very rarely is it accurate/historical. And about half the time, I'm not even "me" in those dreams, but as I've said, some other person.

***TRIGGERING DETAILS - sexual assault content***
Last week, I had two dreams that involved sexual assault. One in which I complied, and that one was set in some sort of ancient society in a desert where I had to be under the protection of someone to survive. So, I complied with the assault like I was just an object to be used, but made the mistake of looking my "protector" in the eye during it, and he abandoned me. Compliance with being used is a feature of some of my real life experiences, but the person I was, the person who as assaulting me, and the setting of the dream were all made up by my brain, having no basis in real life.

The second dream was being with another woman in some sort of government facility (like we worked there?), and something seemed wrong. I told a guard there about it and was going to call the police, but he stopped me from calling, and at that point, I just KNEW he was going to do something bad. This other woman looked kind of like a young Susan Sarandon, and we were in the bathroom and she was getting showered at the end of the day. I tried to warn her, but she didn't believe me until too late. He unlocked the door and came in, then she believed me, realized her error, and tried to get in his way so I could escape, though I was shouting to her to run. She didn't listen soon enough, and he got her, so I attacked him until she could get away, but then the guard had me and started assaulting me. This time in the dream I was fighting, and he was brutally attacking me in return to try to keep me from getting away. At some point during the dream, I did break free, and was being chased around the facility, before waking up. In this dream, nothing in the setting, my "character," my co-worker, my attacker, had anything to do with real life events. The feelings were spot on for some abreactions I've had to episodes of abuse, but nothing else was similar.
***END TRIGGERS***

Unfortunately, having stuff like that so vivid in my dreams just puts me in a place where I think, "Well, since my brain is so creative, maybe it made up all the abuse too," even for stuff I have always remembered, like maybe my brain is making up that I was distressed when I wasn't, or that it was as bad as my flashbacks indicate. :/

That bug dream sounds awful and confusing. I've had a lot of dreams about my body falling apart, like teeth and hair falling out and skin coming off and the like. My five-year-old, who has only been exposed to zombies through Halloween displays in stores and "Plants vs. Zombies," has had dreams about turning into a zombie. In fact, the first nightmare she ever reported to us at two-years-old was having a dream that "Daddy's face fell off," and she was standing on her scooting choo-choo-train, riding it standing up to try to get away. Sometimes when she's falling asleep, she'll have scary thoughts like the playground got a big crack in it while she was going down the slide and it all fell into the earth and she died and was separated from Daddy and me. It's kind of heart-breaking to have passed down this stuff to her, especially because I've been pretty careful to watch TV shows with her, so I know what she's getting exposed to, so a lot of it is just inside of her little mind.

It's not all bad, though. Last night, I dreamed a friend gave me a collection of books, and the first book started that you would repeat part of a phrase, then the text of the book would show up, and you could start to unravel the mystery. But, it was an interactive book, almost like a video game, where you could create a character and go through scenarios, be transported inside, and face them from your character's point of view. And every new chapter, there was a secret way to get the book to reveal more to you, like a puzzle to decipher. I had one other dream that was kind of weird and very embarrassing, but this particular dream was exciting and fun and left me wishing a book like that existed. So, sometimes it can be fun to have the sort of dream life that I do...

Hi Yaku,

Most of the time I recognize myself pretty quickly, but there are rare occasions where I have to "watch" myself for a while before I can identify myself. I may have had a few dreams where I never recognized myself, but I don't remember those in any detail.

The abuse in my dreams isn't realistic either; I tend to have dreams where my dad is abusing me as an adult woman rather than the little girl I was. There can be some weird stuff in those dreams. But, for me, that indicates the reality of what happened to me rather than making me think I invented it. The fear and disgust in those dreams are very real. I don't think an untraumatized mind could come up with that kind of stuff.

Gosh, if I had a nickel for every time I dreamed my teeth fell out or someone chased me, I'd be very wealthy. I've had the teeth dream so many times, I did some research on it. Dream experts say it indicates a feeling of powerlessness.

Dreams often reflect reality, but in a very different form - like a motif or metaphor. The details may not be true, but the emotions and dynamics are. Dreams are the mind's way of working out complex problems or revealing something about ourselves. They're worth paying attention to. Sometimes a dream may not mean anything to you. Maybe it's because you ate a meatball sandwich before bed. But most of them are going to have some kind of identifiable meaning tucked away. Even the ones where you are some other unrecognizable character.

You do have a rich and fascinating dream life. Don't dismiss it. It is a gift many creative people have.