I started keeping a dream journal when I was 12. I had a dream so realistic and so disturbing that I wrote it down and hid it like a secret. I knew then that dreams were important. They could affect you. In fact, I still remember that dream vividly, 18 years later.
It was the beginning of a 10 year stretch of time in which 90% of my dreams were nightmares. I'm talking a lot of dreams too because I typically remember 3 a night. Believe me, they were easy to remember. I am not exaggerating either. I actually went and cataloged my dreams, titling them, numbering them, and categorizing them so that I could get a better idea of how serious the problem was.
The majority of my nightmares were split between my being chased by a killer, a monster, or dogs. I am terrified of dogs and I had been studying serial killers from the age of 13, so it made sense that they may play parts in my nightmares. Monsters were a rarity and probably slipped in there because I was young. The other main component in my dreams was that someone would always be around, see what was going on and sometimes I'd even go to them for help but they never would do anything. I was always ignored.
The obvious answer being that I'm afraid of these things so I have nightmares about them and that maybe I have issues with feeling ignored in my life. I knew that it meant something more than that and that once I figured it out and did something about it, the dreams would cease. Like I said, it took 10 years, but I finally did it.
Turned out that my nightmares were all about a feeling of being out of control. That's actually why I fear dogs in real life, because I can't control them. They're driven by something primal, something I can't understand or reason with. They can turn on you at anytime and that scares me.
I figured that part out pretty early on. That's why I stress that you don't only have to understand why you're having the dreams but that you also need to do something about it. It wasn't until I did something about these control issues that the nightmares stopped.
Once I became more in control of my life, I still had similar dreams but when someone would chase me, I would turn it around on them. I know I had one dream where I stopped running, turned on the guy and lit him on fire with a blow torch. It was brutal but so empowering. I can't even tell you how good it felt to not be afraid anymore.
Labels: Dreams, My history
