I posted this at Street Prophets in 2006. It was my last haunted house/ghost/evil spirit dream. I think I resolved a lot of my fear and rage in this dream.
Dream Journal (w/Poll!)
by x [Subscribe] [Edit Diary]
Sun Feb 26, 2006 at 01:58:12 PM PST
Nightmares ?
Bad Dreams, or Recurring Dreams ?
Lucky You!
Almost everyone has experienced one or more dreams that contain
anxiety or outright fear. For some, unpleasant dreams or nightmares recur
repeatedly; for others, the content may change while the theme remains the same, such as scenes of falling, or of being pursued or attacked, late or unprepared for a presentation or an exam, stuck in slow motion, unable to move or scream, or naked in public, to name a few common themes. This type of experience, when unpleasant, is usually associated with lack of progress by the dreamer to recognize and solve related conflicts in life.
I have vivid dreams. For years I have had a recurring nightmare involving a ghost. In the scariest versions I was in a house in which there was an area that was occupied by a very evil, angry, frightful spirit. I was terrified
when I went near that area, and was fearful of the demon wherever I was in the house. I didn't come face to face with her in recent years, though many years ago I did encounter an enraged she-demon face to face, & ran away lickety split, since she seemed determined to rip my head off.
A few weeks ago I dreamed I was in my mother's house. I got up to go to the
bathroom, which was down a hall. I reached to turn on the light switch , which was opposite my mother's bedroom, in the hall, and I was siezed by an invisible force who violently grabbed & threw me down the hall against the bathroom door, & picked me up & threw me around repeatedly. He was enraged & kicking my ass. I was screaming for Mom. She didn't come out of her room. I awoke in a state of dream paralysis, trying to scream but no sound was coming out.
The other night I dreamed I was with a family, not my own, but close, like close friends. We were going to visit their teenaged son in a Psychiatric hospital. Along the freeway, on an overpass, there were several police who had surrounded a very young man who was wearing a hockey mask, (like in Silence of the Lambs). He looked down at us. Someone told us he had done something violent.
When we got to the hospital, we were seated at a table in a large food court type waiting area, and heard a whip cracking and a young male voice groaning in pain. As we
started to leave, I started complaining about the whipping of the patients. A man behind me said I looked good in my shorts. I looked at him, incredulous, then woke up.
I'm thinking that if I'm lucky, this is the evolution of the same theme, & maybe
I have moved beyond the terror of the old demon and toward facing this particular shadow with more acceptance & less fear. Lucky me. I hope...
Psychologist Ernest Rossi has put forth that one important function of dreaming is integration: the combining of separate psychological structures into a more balanced and comprehensive personality. Renown psychologist Carl Jung observed that portions of our whole personality which we knowingly or unknowingly judge become disowned, and are frequently projected outward in dreams, taking the form of aggressors, devils, monsters, intimidating animals or natural events (e.g. tidal waves), and so on. Jung referred to these symbolic
figures as "the shadow". Whether we become aware of such elements of our shadow
through nightmares or daymares, re-accepting these judged and disowned portions of ourselves is the message and the awaiting gift.
So, we truly are lucky to have such nightmares, since they provide a natural
`pressure-release' therapy for the psyche, and especially since they may even provide what amounts to an early cure if we listen to, make an effort to understand and then act upon the valuable insight that dreams try to bring us.
The goal is still to put an end to nightmares and recurring dreams, but by evolving them into more beneficial scenarios, and not by blocking, ignoring or denying them.
What does it mean if we dream of Angels?
Do you care to share some dreamstate adventures/nightmares/epiphanies?
Dreams are our subconscious working out our problems.
What I got from that dream is that the people who had disappointed me were abused and disappointed themselves, & didn't understand how they were damaging me. It made me forgive them, & understand how they had acted from being so damaged, themselves.
I think PTSD, (PastTraumatic Stress Disorder), is widespread, in variable intensities.
Our parents & their parents passed it on to their children.
Hopefully, we can end the cycle, by acknowledging the damage done, & not passing it on.
A lot of depression is based on feelings of abandonment.
Forgiving people who felt abandoned by their parents is a good thing. And it helps to free us from abandonment issues.
Thank you for reading. And feel free to post your own dream journals whenever you want to. Maybe we all can help sort out the meanings.