How to Steer Your Dreams

Posted on by stilllearning2b

I remember feeling safe. Our bodies were pressed together, recesses and curves paired together as though from complementary molds. His smell was familiar, both comforting and intoxicating, bringing contentment with a whisper of passion. My eyes were closed as we began to kiss, slow caresses that were full of promise and affection. As our lips parted, I pulled back and opened my eyes.

In my dream, I screamed and shoved him away in disgust and revulsion.

In my bed, I sat straight up, my pulse racing and my stomach queasy.

It had happened again.

For the first several months after he left, some version of this dream would visit me on a regular basis. It was one of those persistent ones. The kind that leave a lasting mark like the reddened skin after a pinch, coloring the entire day. I hated those dreams. They embodied my shock and confusion at the discovery that my protector had turned into my persecutor as the dream flipped from love to horror. Furthermore, the dream made me feel violated and dirty, as I no longer felt any sort of attraction to him.

I hated them.

But still they came.

Quickening the pulse and deadening the day.

I tired of them.

I tried ordering my brain to stop force-feeding me those images while I was defenseless.

It stubbornly refused, simply providing variations on a theme.

So I got creative.

It’s impossible to fully control your dreams. Yet you can apply some strategies that help to steer them in the direction you want:

Purge

If you fall asleep with a whole bunch of toxic sludge filling your thoughts, it is no surprise that those thoughts will work themselves into an unwanted dream. Before you head to bed, purge your mind of all those worries and fears bu simply jotting them down. This is not a full writing exercise, simply a listing of words and/or phrases that capture the negativity on your mind. Let it go first and perhaps it will let you rest in peace.

Replace

If your dream is like mine where the context is fine and the person is the problem, work to replace them in your mind. Before you fall asleep, picture the replacement in the situation. If you awake from the dream, similarly picture the stand-in. It’s often easier to tweak an element of a dream than to try to suppress the entire thing.

Edit

Another way to actively modify your dream is to rewrite the portion that causes grief. Most likely, the worst part of the “story” occurs at the point where it awakens you. So, once you are awake and in control again, finish out the story, bringing an ending that is less painful. You’re telling yourself, “Yes, that was scary. But it was not the end of the story. I can still change the outcome.”

Listen

Sometimes our dreams contain a message. Sometimes there are themes we need to address in our lives or voids we need to fill. Examine your dream, looking not at the literal components, but at the overarching truths. Is there something there that you’ve been hesitant to face in your real life? If so, this is your wake-up call.

Journal

Journal writing exists in the space between the conscious and unconscious minds. It is uniquely positioned to allow your thinking self to dialog with your feeling self. Write about your dreams without censorship. Explore the paths that appear. And don’t hesitate to build new paths as well.

Prime

Be cognizant of what you are exposed to right before bed. If your reading or viewing selection if fraught with tension and dark themes, it primes the mental pump to continue these in to slumber. Instead, select media that provides a sense of levity or comfort and allow it to infuse your dreams.

Live

This is perhaps the most important piece. Live while you are awake. Don’t allow your nightmares to limit your dreams.

Once I instituted these ideas, the dreams began to lose their power. First, their intensity was lessened as he was replaced by a replacement. I would still wake up, but I would be left with a feeling more of confusion than of horror. Then, the dreams began to lose their frequency, becoming more and more rare as I addressed the root emotions and continued to build my new life. And now, those dreams are only a memory, safely buried.

Perchance to Dream

Posted on by stilllearning2b

I woke up at 2:30 this morning with pulse racing and limbs twisted under the covers. I had been having a dream where I was trapped in a house with some unknown person that I felt protective of and my former neighbor and her baby (as they were in 2002 or so). Outside the house was a postapocalyptic scene, and I think there may have even been zombies (that’s what happens when you binge on Walking Dead:) ). I remember panicked dashes across the house to get to safer areas and shooting the zombies outside.

English: A zombie

None of that was the scary part. At some point just before I awoke, my ex made an appearance. I don’t even know if he was a zombie or a ‘good guy’ trapped in the house. His arrival was enough to pull me out of my dream and leave me unsettled.

Dreams are such strange things. As a kid, I used to have very vivid and memorable dreams. Some were repetitive and told overarching stories of strange characters (I remember a walking, talking frog with a shirt and no pants, in particular. don’t ask.) where as others would come and go in a single night. I had many dreams that seemed to be premonitions or interpretations. I used to listen to these. I remember waking from some of those meaningful dreams and heading out to my monkey swing in the backyard (kind of my ‘go for a run’ substitute as a kid) where I would swing and spin as I pulled apart the dream, searching for clues. My early nightmares were of the typical monster variety and would send me to a pallet next to my parent’s bed for comfort as I worked my way back into slumber.

Monkey swing:) I used to read and eat popsicles on mine simultaneously. Yup, that’s talent!

As I got older, the intensity of my dreams decreased but the frequency remained the same. I would wake shaking the remnants of a vision from my head several times a week.What’s interesting to me now in retrospect is the theme of the dreams. Not long after my ex and I were together, I started having very vivid dreams every couple of months or so where he cheated on me. I would wake up filled with rage, the sight of his slumbering form next to me making me want to lash out. Perhaps it was due to the lack of a monkey swing to properly analyze these dreams (or more likely my mind’s inability to face the content head-on), but I never did put any merit in those visions. Nonetheless, those were tough days that followed those dreams. I would alert him to my nightmare and he would respond by being especially gentle and affectionate. Even still, it would usually take hours for the residual anger and anxiety to leave my body. It’s strange. Those dreams are the only time I felt anger towards my ex while I was with him. I was just too bone-headed to listen.

Mozart Dancing

After he left, I didn’t sleep. The anxiety gripped my body and caused it to shake, its own tarantula dance, as though I was trying to rid myself of his poison. I spent weeks sitting on the edge of the bed, my eyes fixated on a point on the wall, my mind inhabiting the nightmare that had become my reality. Eventually, I agreed to medication – dosages that would cause a horse to enter a permanent coma barely eased me into slumber. I had only a single dream that entire fall. In it, I was near some benches at a whale watching facility in the Pacific Northwest (where I planned to move at the end of the school year). A male was sitting on a bench, facing away from me. I approach him and place my hand gently on his shoulder. He turns, and I discover it’s him.

Those nightmares stunned me enough I wished for my childhood pallet next to my parent’s bed. He had become the monster, yet he looked like the man I had loved. Variations on the that dream persisted for the first six months. Until finally, they began to fade.

A depressed man sitting on a bench

I remember my excitement when I awoke one morning and realized that I had dreamed of another man – a guy I had been dating. I was thrilled. It was like calling in the Ghostbusters, his appearance sweeping my ex into the vacuum canister.

I weaned myself off the medications that first spring. I left the primary sleep aide until last, fearful that the demons of the night would reappear. For the most part, they haven’t. In fact, my dreams are now few are far between and most are quite innocuous. My ex rarely makes an appearance, but when he does, I still react with panic.

Most importantly, I never have dreams where Brock is unfaithful. I don’t have dreams that cause anger or anxiety that lingers. But if I ever do, you better believe that I’ll listen. And maybe install a monkey swing:)