Very upsetting dream

That sound very disturbing sankev. I’ve experienced distressing dreams which have affected me for hours afterwards, some stay with me for days.

As you say it is most probably the result of your understandable stress and anxiety.

I hope the feeling fades as the day goes on.

I have nightmares.
As a child I had night terrors and my son experienced them until was 13 . Both of us are normally happy chatty people .
Stress and worry brings them on .
I re -live a long and horrible period in my life over and over again .
I wake up feeling panicky and my chest is tight.
Try magnesium and a milky drink and perhaps some gentle exercise before bed
Try not to worry about it.
Go out today with a friend or friends have tea or lunch /watch a happy film - divert yourself.
Wishing you luck with sleeping in the future .

I have had dreadful dreams like this. One I will never tell any one about, because I am so determined never to think abut the content again it was so awful.

Personally, I found the best way to deal with this kind of dream was to set my mind not to think about it, even if it meant walking round the house with my hands over my ears and singing mindlessly. As soon as it intruded. The memory of the dream is there, but I stopped active thinking about it.

Now, 10 years or more later. I remember I had these dreams. I remember the content of only one.

Like you they occurred at a time when I was going through a period of great stress, and they all involved people who were dear to me doing dreadful things - or me doing dreadful things to people I loved.

I hope you find the responses to this thread helpful. You are not alone in having this dream and most of us have found that determinedly distracting ourselves from dwelling on dreams like this are the best way to deal with them.

sankev
Our inward thoughts and dreams are an expression of what’s happening outwardly, which in your case is the pain and worry of your DH and his diagnosis.Be gentle on yourself and him, it wasn’t real.I have had disturbing dreams at times in life and they can stay with you and make you feel irrationally angry and distressed.
It’s just the worry of your situation and your DH’s health.

Does it help to know this is just a chemical reaction in your brain? Essentially that what all feelings are.

Like Monica says, the best thing is to distract yourself, preferably with something that triggers good reactions. Sit down with chocolate, watch a funny film. Phone a friend, go for a long walk…..

You will know what works for you.

The important thing is to get the brain into releasing pleasure chemicals. Thinking about the dream does the opposite.
💐

I am so sorry you are having to deal with this. You are experiencing a sensation of loss of control. I really hope you can get your DH home asap and regain that control. I do hope he is home soon he needs you supporting him right now and is likely understandably afraid. Your feelings are understandable please don’t worry you are reacting to all of this trauma that is all. 💐

Thank you everyone, your replies definitely help. I understand why I’ve had the dream but I’m struggling with my reaction to it! The dream was just so awful I honestly don’t think I can even tell anyone else what it was about. Your advice is much appreciated and honestly just writing the thread helped. Many thanks to you all.

I still remember bad dreams from when I was small, some of them stay with you for years.

These are the things I've noticed about when I dream (which is not often these days)

1 The cold- the cold makes me dream and also my son, so maybe it was your mind reacting to something your body was trying to tell you

2 Cheese, Yes, I know it sounds like an old-wives tale but it is true for me if I have a cheesy meal late at night

3 Spicy food, especially curry. This can also trigger me into having dreams I remember on waking.

However, the obvious stress you are under at the moment doesn't help and maybe it is your mind telling you that you are maybe needing more support than you realise- so talking the dream over and also your worries may be the best thing you can do.

This is understandable. You are about to receive your OH home from hospital where he has been behaving out of character and is not fully in touch with reality, and inevitably you will be anxious.

I was in the same situation with my late OH - the man I was looking after bore only a small resemblance to my life's partner and I was treading on eggshells all the time.

I am hoping that you have some good support around you and wishing you well.

I am so sorry you have been upset by a dream. It happens to us all, I think, and I, certainly, have felt as you do at times after having a disturbing dream. In my case, I found it coloured how I felt about the person in the dream and it took a long time to get out of that mindset.
Dreams aren’t real and aren’t an indication of things to come, but are very upsetting just the same.
I think your anger at him is actually your anger at the situation, which is coming out by blaming him.
Monika, Oreo and others on here have given you great advice which I totally agree with.
In your position, I would write the dream down in great detail, even though this will be unpleasant for you. You said writing on the thread helped, so this action might help even more. Sometimes doing that can help clear your mind and writing it down is a bit like the advice ‘a problem shared is a problem halved’. Even better, write it down and then set fire to the piece of paper.
I hope your husband comes home so that you can get on with your lives.
I am sending a big virtual hug.
🫶💐

sankev I know where you are coming from. When my son died I repeatedly dreamt we were up on the cliff near where we live and his wheelchair handles came off in my hands and he tipped over the cliff top.
I hope your husband improves and enjoy your time together.

It is thought that we have a number of different dreams during the night but, when we wake up we only remember bits of each of them and they merge into one. It is possible then that, due to the stress you are under, you had one dream about your husband but other more disturbing dreams and because they became mixed up when you woke up you remember your husband doing something hurtful when in fact it was someone else (possibly from a film or tv show) that was doing the hurtful thing. As others have said try to fill your day with other things to take your mind off it. It will fade in time.

Fartooold

sankev I know where you are coming from. When my son died I repeatedly dreamt we were up on the cliff near where we live and his wheelchair handles came off in my hands and he tipped over the cliff top.
I hope your husband improves and enjoy your time together.

Fartooold, your story brought tears to my eyes. I am so sorry that you are having such an awful dream. I really feel for you. 💐

Difficult not to think about it the day after. Bit like someone telling you ‘don’t think about elephants’.

Dear Sankev, you and your husband are in a very bad place right now, which I am sorry to hear.

I think this accounts for your horrible dream. When awake, obviously you know your husband did not chose to become seriously ill, but as far as I understand these things, while we sleep our brain continues to work with whatever is troubling us.

Sadly, for some reason, which not being a medical professional, I cannot explain, in dreams the situation often becomes distorted in some way or other. This, I would think, is what has happened here.

So, please, try to think that a safety valve was activated during your sleep (sorry for the metaphor, but without them I don't think I can make myself clear) and your horrible dream was the result.

As to why you are so upset by it, and cannot just shrug it off, as something you know your husband would never do, the simple, perhaps too ingenious answer is that all the stress and worry makes a bad dream impossible to just shrug off.

In a similar situation, I found myself when awake crying about things that normally would not have bothered me at all, and sometimes waking up in tears about a dream,

Once when I felt I just could not tell anyone what I had dreamt, I wrote it down and then stood at the sink with the cold tap turned on and burned the paper. I found that helped, so perhaps it will help you a little too.

I read some scientific article that explained that dreams are just your brain having a clear out. Pieces of information get jumbled together in a nonsensical manner and if you are under stress you could experience it as a ludicrous nightmare.

As another poster said, bits of films, pictures, newspaper stories etc all get scrambled together. It's not you choosing to dream this, just your brain getting rid of rubbish!

You are experiencing high levels of distress and anxiety and this has affected your brain chemicals and triggered this nightmare. When we awaken in the morning the emotions remain but they should fade in time. My daughter has a medical condition which means she has had constant nightmares for decades. Nightmares are not meaningful. They do not say anything about the future or offer any deep psychological insight about ourselves or anybody else or our or their intentions. The best thing is to remind yourself of this and not dwell on the nightmare.. it was just a bit of brain disturbance. Very unpleasant. I am so sorry that your husband is so ill. A very very hard time for you. Be as kind to yourself as you can. My blessings on you both.

Last night’s awful dream is still fresh in your mind, and has obviously been vividly real for you, but consciously rejecting the horror of it will help you to gradually rationalise it. It will remain a memory that you’ll shy away from, but it won’t continue to have the power over you that it has today.

There are obvious real-world reasons why your husband featured in such a disturbing way in your dream, but I hope things will soon start to feel a bit more normal for you both and that your anger will fade.

I remember when I was younger and slimmer 😂 I went in to work and a colleague who I had a good relationship with was ignoring me, when I asked her about it she said I had a dream last night that you were having an affair with my husband and it was so realistic that I just couldn’t look at you today because I hated you so much.
We had a good laugh about it later but it just goes to show how realistic dreams can be.

Sankev, please try to let the narrative of the dream go, try not to repeat it but just allow yourself to be fully aware of the feeling that it caused. This sounds counter intuitive as you will be trying to push it away, but try and acknowledge the feeling , where is it in your body ? What does it look like, hold it, breathe into it and see if it softens. Does it change ? give it love, see space around it and let it move through you. Working with the feeling rather than the story can help you find a deeper love within you. Sending love [email protected]

when i was widowed at 39 my only thought was to be with my husband, i don't follow any religion but in my mind i thought if i ended it i would not be with my husband, i would dream of all these pills on the table and my husband just over my shoulder saying take them, take them then i would wake up, i still have this dream when my depression gets worse or my stress levels are high, i am 62 and my husband was 18 years older and i know he would never have wanted me to do such a thing. he told me to just get on with my life as he thought i was too young to be on my own. sankev your dreams are caused my the stress you are under, the upcoming demetia test, the doctors taking over and how you will cope at home, my husband was in hospital for just over a year, i was so scared of how myself and my son would cope, we had got used to it just being the two of us. forget about the dream, you know your husband better than anyone, maybe speak to your doctor and the hospital about anything that you need to get in place when he does come home, i hope your husband gets better soon, sending you hugs x

Hi everyone I don't post very often but I could really do with some support while waiting for a scan for suspected cancer.How do people cope with the waiting.I feel sick with nerves.

Chatterbox- remember that a scan for "suspected" cancer is only a shorthand for getting you onto the fast-track because your symptoms could be cancer , or could, and maybe likely are, something else. But they have to rule out cancer quickly.
So just see it as what it is- fast-track in order to treat you successfully if it is cancer. But far from a cancer diagnosis. I hope your scan results are negative, as many are.

Thanks everyone for all your suggestions. I wrote down everything I dreamt and my feelings about it and lots more emotions came out. How frustrated and inadequate I’m feeling at the moment and it helped. I then set fire to it and definitely felt much better. My DH is now home and I fam just so happy to be able to have him home and intend to cherish every moment. He has little resemblance really to the person I’ve shared the past 40 years with physically or mentally but he still seems to be able to make me smile every single day if only for a few moments when his old self reappears! I’m under no illusion as to how difficult it is and how much more difficult it is going to get, luckily I have a good supportive family. Once again thank you everyone. No doubt I’ll be reaching out again in the coming months.
Chatterbox I really hope things go well for you and everything comes back negative. As Valdavi has rightly said the majority of scans do come back negative. Just remember if there is bad news then there are so many advancements in treatment. Remain calm and think positive thoughts and very good luck.