Dealing with bad dreams.

M

Mr Hip Guy

Beloved Grand Eagle
I've posted here about some of my chronic injuries and how I have dealt with them, healed from them, etc. All with the great help from the wonderful posters on this forum. Hip pain, knee pain, plantars fascitis, and more...all TMS, and all resolved through various TMS therapy methods.

But I come to you today with a new issue, and one that it occurs to me I have been dealing with for as long as I can remember, certainly going back to childhood - and that is "bad dreams."

I don't necessarily mean "nightmares" though I have had my share of those too - what I mean are dreams that not much positive happens. In fact, usually when I am dreaming and something good appears to be happening, my dream-mind will quickly notice it, and pivot the dream to something negative - whether that is a frightening element, or simply disturbing. Usually though, it is pretty scary - and usually that comes in the form of something coming after me, like an invisible entity or demon.

It actually didn't occur to me until recently that this is somewhat similar to what TMS does to us - gives us something to fear and worry about it - but in our waking life. I think it's pretty obvious now in hindsight, but my TMS personality has found a place in my dream world too.

My question is, has anyone else made this same discovery? Is there anything in the Sarno books about this? I don't see anything The Mindbody Prescription or Healing Back Pain. The Divided Mind has a brief mention of nightmares but it's not related to anything in particular other than a patient anecdote.

Maybe my habit of bad dreams is not a bad thing - supposedly dreams are how we process memories etc and I am hashing things out in my dreams so I don't deal with them in real life. But on the other hand it would be nice to have a nice dream occasionally! :)
 
This is a discussion I had with my EMDR therapist. Because EMDR seems to have some basis in the similar function of REM sleep (eyes moving from left to right - or at least a left and right alternating sensation in our bodies) I thought it might have something to do with sleep. Although they aren't certain exactly how it works, "they" (I dunno who "They is) explain that this is a brain function, similar to dreaming where the subconscious seems to file out experiences and even play out imaginations - which is why we can get bad dreams.
I have had life long bad dreams of someone chasing me and also falling into nothingness. As a kid these were repetitive and almost always exactly the same. Now the dreams are different, especially since going through EMDR. I have the occasional (very occasional) bad dream but it's not the same as it used to be at all.
Basically your dreams are just your filing system and your brain is relating to things it has "experienced" but doesn't know if it is real (eg. movies, books, your life, what you see on the internet), but files the meaning or emotion behind the "images" or dreams. Kind of fascinating.
 
I certainly would not attach any importance to the lack of dream analysis in Dr Sarno's books. After all he was a very pragmatic and practical medical professional, and he stuck in with what I knew.

I like @Cactusflower's description and explanation.

I do believe that there is a theory out there about influencing your dreams which I think involves the practice of mindfulness activities before going to sleep. I'm a big believer in the power of pre-sleep visualization and breathing to influence the quality of my sleep. I also used this to train myself out of clenching my teeth and jaw at night (my dentist couldn't tell any difference when I finally told him several years later).
 
For what it’s worth, I’ve had very bad dreams all my life. Most of them are “night terrors.” I feel like I’m dying. It’s like a freaky bad dream mixed with a panic attack. It always flares up worse when I’m under pressure. I used to have them now and then when under pressure. When the pandemic hit, my TMS got a lot worse and these bad dreams started coming every night. I’ve been doing therapy (for 3 years) and now journaling since joining the wiki 3 months ago and they have almost completely disappeared. Personally, my opinion is that I’ve moved my subconscious fears from dreamland more to the surface. I think this is progress. And I am thankful for that.
 
All wonderful comments, thank you!

@JanAttheCPA - Ha ha yeah dream analysis probably a little too woo-woo for Sarno etc to get into. I guess I am thinking less the actual content details of the dreams and more the themes - such as my prevalence of negative dreams. I think most of the comments above tend to agree with my suspicion that our dream experiences are at least partially linked to our waking issues with TMS.

It is funny - the night after I made my post above, I had the first positive dream in as long as I can remember. It had plenty of chances for my "dark side" to twist it something negative but it didn't!

I really get alot of benefit from hashing things out on here, thank you all again for listening and commenting.
 
Circling back on this old thread, it's been almost a year and a half since I posted the above and I'm sitting here trying to remember the last "bad dream" I have had. I sleep absolutely great now as well.

I'm actually trying to resolve some other TMS issues at the moment, but I am thankful that sleep and bad dreams aren't one of them.
 
I'm so glad it resolved for you. I had nightmares or bad dreams almost every night of my adult life. Until a few months ago. As healing progressed, dreams improved. I still have them some nights, but no longer most nights. No longer my norm. Amazing.
 
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