Well, I actually think I have to come back to this blog. I didn't have motivation for so long, but now, it's almost about surviving, I guess. Because for the first time since I was probably four, I've started having nightmares again. Four was about the time my mom told me I had the power to wake myself up to disappear from a bad dream, and that's when I started to be aware of dreaming, and it grew into lucid dreaming. And so, if you can control things, well, first thing you do is throw out the nightmares.
I've lost some control. And I think I know why. My dreams are often a combination of images from my waking life, or things I've sensed (hear, taste, etc). But the other thing they are is a combination of feelings I've felt while awake. And now, I have felt true and utter helplessness. And where before I could imagine being stronger than I am, or safer than I am... that ability is gone right now. Everything has been forced to be more realistic.
Thank you James.
You know, I've had bad experiences with every James I've ever known? :) Anyway.
The helplessness is a new feeling, and it's in my dreams. Where before I could just tweak the dream and save myself or others, now my mind can't believe in it, and I've stopped being able to do it.
Last night I had many dreams, one of which qualified as a nightmare that I can't remember, followed by a second dream that was nearly a nightmare, but not quite bad enough because I was able to fight. The thing is, now when things turn out ok in the dreams, I don't believe it. I wake frightened because of what should be happening. Let me explain.
Last night the dream I remember. It was Star Trek, a show I never watch. There was a girl who was the daughter of that captain, who I saw a blog about the other day, a joking one that I'm sorry, I didn't understand or find funny. Anyway, he had a daughter. She was the product of him (human) and his robot wife... who was totally lifelike, I'd imagine more like Battlestar Galactica, which again I never watched. There was a question at the beginning, if this half-breed had a soul, and if she could feel. Later on in the dream, when this young teen girl was researching rape on the spaceship computer, it was revealed (as like in a movie) that she had been raped, and oh yes, she could feel. It was sad. Then some men came in and started attacking with big guns. Well, first they just told us to cooperate. But her dad, and I who was now her big sister, decided to sacrifice ourselves to save her. So we shielded her and took her to the door. It wasn't until she was pushed out the door that the bad guys thought we'd done something unacceptable. On that journey to the door, this father turned from the captain of star trek into batman. My dad. We pushed her out the door, and closed it, she was safe, and then turned and they started shooting us.
In the past, my mind would have handled it somehow. But this time... nothing I did or thought stopped them. The gun was pointed right at me, and someone with another gun pointed it at batman. And they shot us. Over and over and over, I knew it was hitting my chest and my head. And I knew in real life I was dead. And it was a nightmare. I've been trying to sleep through the dreams, to let them play out because somehow I think that it will help me, because when I don't wake myself, I DO somehow cope. For example, I walked toward them, grabbed an empty rifle of someone, and started using it to bludgeon the bad guys. I fought back, and you don't understand how good it felt. How necessary.
Dreams, they think, help people take emotions of the day, and process them into more manageable feelings. And I have been feeling these two things. Helplessness, and leftover fighting energy. This is why traumatized people are often angry. When something happened to them, they had all this adrenaline to fight, but didn't get the chance to fight. That energy doesn't just go away, and even years later they want to fight to save themselves, but they look around and there is nothing to fight. If you don't understand it... you start fighting your friends and family and loved ones, physically or verbally. I've felt that urge during the day. Like I just need to get into a fist fight with someone, take karate lessons, something. So fighting in this dream, it was so utterly satisfying. The problem is, I couldn't believe in it, because I have this new dose of realism floating in my brain, and I should have been dead. Maybe that's why traumatized people have nightmares; they are cursed now with too much realism.
The other bad dream I can remember... I've been having them every night, and needing to use the bathroom triggers them. I used to just dream I needed to find a toilet. Now I get nightmares. It took me at least a week to realize this is a new pattern, but it is. Once I noticed it, I had two nightmare-free nights. But last night they came back, and I had two. Although I didn't wake up.
I only know the bad dream of the day I realized I needed to start paying attention. By the way, last night was the first time the bad dream actually related to what happened, all the other ones were awful, but random and more about feelings I guess, than events or images.. Even though I wasn't in the theater, I'm really intimately connected to it. It's only by chance that James shot some people and not others. And it's equally only by chance that he tried to shoot some people, and tried to blow up others. He could have shot up his apartment, and blown up the theater. He just didn't.
The other bad dream. Again, there was more, I only remember the last bit. And that night, I wasn't yet trying to sleep through it and resolve it. I was waking up each night in a panic. We were working with baby dinosaurs. Dangerous ones, like t-rex and others that would kill us. I had to just avoid them. Mom could scold them and flick them with the spiky ring on her finger to get them to behave. My sister kind of could too... I guess I think mothers are tough. Anyway, at one point they gasped. I saw enough around the bend and up the incline to see a pool of blood. My mom told me, no, don't come. I'm supposed to be the omniscient dreamer here, so before even looking I knew a baby dinosaur had died. I came to look, and to my shock I was greeted not with a dead dinosaur baby (and baby still means twice the size of a human), but my dad standing up. He had slipped, fallen, hit his head on a table, and been unconscious. At the time I saw him, he was just waking and standing. This was my real dad, not a pretend dad like star trek/batman-dad. And he was in a large pool of blood that ran all over the room, he was covered in blood, and he had a hole in his head. I suppose it looked more like a bullet hole than a hit-the-coffee-table hole. I think I knew that too. For the dream, he was fine. But that new helpless realist in me knew that this was stupid, he had lost so much blood, he really would be dead. And that horror woke me, and I was pretty upset, too.
This was the first time I knew I was getting nightly nightmares, and I tried to go back to sleep and resolve the dream in a tweaking way, make it turn out alright. I did it, but can't remember how. It helped take away the horror though. So now I'm going to try doing that without waking myself up, just resolve them, even if I can't believe in it.
I have yet to dream about bombs, other than during that nap. A couple days after, while we were still evacuated, I was taking a nap during the day. I slept a lot that week. Almost like I was sick. And while I was sleeping, a thunderstorm showed up outside in real life. The sounds of it entered into my dream, like alarm clocks do, and were transformed into bombs. I woke nearly in tears. Since then, I haven't dreamed of that. But somehow, I suspect I will. That, and scary people breaking into my home, and other feelings I had.
I guess it's just part of the body's way of processing things, and I hope that by trying to sleep through them, I can heal some. But we will see. Traumatized nightmares can get really bad for people, more like relivings than dreams. I wonder if it's that dose of forced realism we get; we are not in control in the world. People die fast, and people die without warning. I might die in ten seconds. Other people have real impact on us, and no, we can't fight and protect ourselves from everything. Home is no safer than out and about, and out and about is no safer than home. There is no safety. Just odds. How can you dream fantastical stuff, when you dream feelings you have, and that is the feeling you have? But regardless, I beat the crap out of those shooters last night, even though really I needed to be dead and knew it. And it felt good. So... we will see. But I think writing down the bad dreams needs to happen now. Sorry, I might skip the good dreams. I still have them, lots and lots of them. But... not my top priority right now.
