Nightmares

[Waterbear]

Yesterday, I had a great workout and ran the fastest I've run in a year (5.5 on the treadmill for 2 mins, and some jogging at slower speeds, and a bit of walking - 13 mins total). Then some weights. No pain working out, a bit of "tightness under the knee" (no medial knee pain at all though)

Left knee (which I think my have been TMS along got a bit freaked out), right knee (which I think started as a real injury, was fine).

I got home and did some Mindfulness Meditation and tried to do things mindfully tha night (mindful shower, mindful make dinner, etc)

Knee pain was gone in about 2 hours. Ankle pain started a few hours later when it was bed time. I meditated a bit and told my joints that I was going to sleep well and wake up pain free.

Then I got hit with a horrible nightmare. I woke up shaken and crying.
Today my left knee hurts again* and my ankles hurt.

* My dad has a new favorite story (he tells me it every time we get together :/ )about how I need to be careful b/c he increased his speed running and hurt the medial side of his knee, guess where my pain is today...

How does one deal with nightmares?

Thanks!

 

[Mermaid]

Hi Waterbear,

I'm a new member and not an expert on this (yet !), but I've been greatly trouble by nightmare off and on. How I usually deal with them is to tell myself that they're meaningless biochemical reactions, it's only my body getting busy putting me back in balance. I then do lots of positive affirmations and that usually sets me straight again.

Bless you. Hope that helps

 

[Dahlia]

How does one deal with nightmares?

Thanks!

I don't know either. I've gotten them on and off most of my life. I wake up screaming or my husband has to wake me up because I'm whimpering/hollering. I'm thinking there is some very fundamental fear here in the unconscious and if I could identify it maybe that would help....but I really don't know.

Looking forward to hearing what others have found.

 

[Walt Oleksy (RIP 2021)]

In "A Christmas Carol" by Charles Dickens, Scrooge had a nightmare and attributed it to a bit of undigested dinner.

I sometimes get nightmares and when I wake up thank God I was only dreaming. Then I forget it.
Maybe they're from an unconscious fear, but who really knows? I'm just glad they're not real.

I think of something happy or funny and soon can't remember what the nightmare was.

 

[Ellen]

Hi Waterbear,
Congratulations on just jumping in and starting Mindfulness Meditation.

There are different theories about nightmares out there, and I don't know which I believe. Some say that dreams/nightmares are messages from our unconscious brain, and that it is beneficial to look at the content. Others (as Mermaid states above) believe they are just random firing of neurons that have no special meaning.

Regardless, when I have an upsetting dream, I just talk to myself like I would a child who has woken up with a bad dream. I remind myself that they aren't real and can't hurt me. Then I give myself positive messages that tonight I will sleep well and have pleasant dreams.

Wishing you pleasant dreams.....

 

[Lily Rose]

Nightmares .....

Waterbear ~
If I had such power, I would curl you in the warmth of Angel wings, and send their songs to your ears to comfort your heart.

Nightmares were the critical bane of my late teens and into my early 30's, tapering with painful slowness until what remained manifests as occasional anxiety dreams. I was given medications as the dreams became so vivid that I feared sleep. I used other substances to stay awake for as long as I could, sometimes days, then back to the prescription meds to dive into the void of sleep so deep that dreams could not reach me. My saint-husband learned that nighttime would be broken by screams, and he patiently, gently soothed me until, with hitching breath, I would be eased back into sleep. At this point I no longer took the stay-awake drugs, nor the prescription drugs.

I did not know, then, how to cope. My tool box was barren.

I believe there are several types of dreams. Some really are just the random firings. Others are creative expressions, and so forth. Nightmares, though ... in my experience, they are eruptions of the deep emotional pain we carry. They may not be specific-memory related, but they are emotional-memories.

Fear of the nightmares give them power. Like fear gives our pain power.

Perhaps treating them as we are learning to treat our TMS pain ... it is there, but it is not going to restrain us from living, nor from sleeping.

I send you empathy and compassion for your pain ....

with grace and gratitude,
^_^

 

[Waterbear]

Thank you all so much.

This nightmare in particular had TMS written all over it, so I was thinking that maybe my brain was "playing dirty". I had done so well meditating that I was wondering if maybe my mind decided to strike when I couldn't do much about it.

Regardless, I'm going to keep up meditating and see if i can show it who's boss.

 

[sewmuch]

Interesting comments. I have nightmares and they have become more common and vivid in recent years. Mu husband wakes me up too - which I have read that you are not supposed to wake someone as they will be less likely to remember. I am still trying to figure them out, why and when they occur, as they don't seem to have a pattern. I try not to think of the dream itself but more of what I am or have been feeling. My husband read where nightmares and dreams are the brain's way of taking out the trash. I think some of us are just more sensitive and remember them more. I agree with Lily that fear of them gives them power.