Dreams

It's certainly true that it's possible to take control.

All my life I had a horrible dream that I was unable to remember in the morning, I knew it was an individual personal terrifying happening, but I didn't know what it was. It diminished as I grew older, but then, when I was pregnant with my first child it returned with a vengeance, to the point where I was scared to go to sleep.

I determined to 'capture' the dream by trying to wake up even I was experiencing it. I succeeded in this over a number of weeks and named it as an experience of being completely enfolded and squeezed in a deep dark tunnel that I was trying and failing to escape from.

I realised that it must have been a birth dream,and after that it vanished, never to return.

There are also schools of thought that say dreams are more about future concerns - things you are finding hard to face, than the past.
If you don't like your dream you can do things to 'move them on' - like creating a different ending or imagining, in your example, the way you defeat the evil force. Writing them down as suggested above is a good way of becoming more conscious of your dreams & then being able to be aware enough in your sleep or as soon as you wake to carry on the story in your own way. It can be great fun to work with dreams alone or in a group & there are quite a few self-help books to suggest ways of doing this. Rather than taking on other people's meaning of symbols etc, look for your own meaning in dreams, especially those that seem to have a particular impact on you.

I very rarely remember dreams or am aware that I have been dreaming - I tend to zonk out as soon as my head hits the pillow and wake up with no memory of anything having gone on inbetween.

But I do have a horrific recurring dream that suddenly had another outing last week after a break of a couple of years. I'm in a house that isn't mine, but is similar, and I am aware that there are several bodies of people I've killed hidden around it, well wrapped up in plastic sheeting. Last week I woke up in a mad panic because in my dream my daughter visited and asked to use our bath, and one of my victims was hidden behind the bath panel. I knew I was acting suspiciously and was sure she would guess what was going on.

I wake up in a hot sweat, so convinced that this dream is real and I'm going to prison that I have to keep telling myself to calm down, it was a dream, I really haven't killed anyone.

I'm a nice person really - honest!

I know it's bacause I was watching One Born Every Minute yesterday but I dreamt I had a baby last night and it was one of the those really really real dreams [it didn't hurt though] ...

I've been dreaming a lot recently about packing suitcases. I usually have to pack for DH as well in the dream and there's always a mound of stuff that I worry won't fit in and cant. However last night not only was I just packing for myself but everything fitted into the case. I wonder what that was all about especially as I never ever have to pack DHs suitcase!

Last night I dreamed that I was at Elegrans house. (I've met Elegran a few times, but not been to her house.)
Jingl was there. I wanted to give her a gift of some fabric, but I was afraid she might be annoyed.
That's all I can remember.
#workthatoneout

There you go Holly, FarNorth's advice could have come directly from my dream therapist pal

I recently attended a weekend aimed at helping us to develop "lucid dreaming" where you become aware when you are in a dream and can ask your dreaming unconscious for guidance or help of any kind that you need, or can just amuse yourself walking thru walls or whatever you want to do.

Step one is to have a notebook & pen by the bed so you can write down any dream(s) as soon as you wake up.

Since having the notebook, I remember a lot more of my dreams (usually a lot of baffling drivel) but haven't cracked the lucidity yet .

Ooh, that's interesting Iam64 - you might, if you get stuck for conversation ( ) mention that dream and see what your friend makes of it - I was just puzzled why it should occur so many years after the event!

I am feeling miffed with my daughter's behaviour so maybe I'm reliving, in dreams, things I did for her (above and beyond the call of duty imo ) that she needs to remember once in a while. Could be that couldn't it?

Holly - it sounds as though you shut the images out, successfully for a while. I hope that what's happening is that you're processing the experience in your dream life, and that will help you do so in your waking life. Hope that doesn't sound too new agey, my friend is a dream therapist, and it's catching

Holly
I dream a lot and remember those which were repeated often in the past. Mostly they involved roads and hills, houses and, horribly, lifts which whizzed up at speed to the top floor. These days I still dream a lot but can't remember them once I am awake which is strange as I used to bore the socks off the late Mr.M by recounting my dreams every morning. Sometimes, when I put my head on the pillow at night, the previous night's dream briefly enters my head and then disappears. I think dreams allow the brain to sort out all the muddled thoughts which are in our heads, even though we don't realise it.

I used to dream a lot but no so much over the last 6 years or so. However, recently I've had the same dream quite a few times recently.

I dislike my hands being dirty in any way, shape or form and can be a bit over the top about it. About 12 years ago, my daughter rang, crying hysterically, that her cat had been run over and that people were awful enough to still be driving their cars over him and would I go and get the cat for her. She adored this cat and I could imagine how distraught she felt. I am very squeamish but I went, armed with a black bin bag to put him in. When I got there, I found that his stomach had burst open and his intestines seemed to be everywhere. Although I got the cat into the bag, I blanched at the thought of touching the intestines. Luckily, I had some plastic carrier bags in the car so I put my hands in those and had to pick up the intestines (and believe me, that is not an easy task) and put them into the black bag with the cat. I took the cat to her house and left him in the garden and stayed with her until her husband arrived home to bury the cat.

I haven't thought about that incident in years but recently, I have been having vivid dreams about it. If that is a message from my brain, it needs to be more clear about what that message is and find a different dream to relay it!

Same here. Quite often my parents will be in the dream even though, in the dream I know that they are dead. The house/rooms dreams are the most disturbing dreams I have and, although I usually can't remember what actually happened in the dream I can wake up and think to myself 'oh, I had that dream again'. Even thinking about it now I can get the 'feeling' of certain dreams but not the content of them [does that sound a bit bonkers?]. I've always talked about dreams; it's something my family did.

I am always dreaming about houses I have lived in especially the house we moved into when we got married, even though I only lived there for four years. I dream I am trying to buy the house back and want to live there, actually in real life it was a dump and I wouldn't have it as a gift.

It is supposed to be symbolic of the life you currently have as well as your emotional state. So bare empty rooms mean loneliness, too much clutter means you feel overwhelmed, a sense of dread in the house means far, your house on fire a fear of losing all you have, sunny, bright and full of friends means a happy life, etc. So whitewave I expect you are right.

I am happier with DBH than I was with ex, and the house I dream about in Kent is the last one we shared. I think I put together in my dreams the best of both worlds, in a way I know it can never happen in real life. As ex was never there, and I was allowed to spend money as I wished and do it up, it was my dream house. It remains so.

years ago I had successful hypnotherapy for eczema, after everything else had failed. The chap I saw was a sort of "holistic" therapist, and we would often talk about dreams. According to him, dreams of houses tend to reflect the way you life currently is, so on that theory, it could be that you are subconsciously thinking of the cancer that you once had as something (your words) "utterly evil" in the "house" that according to the chap I saw represents your life.

I'm not saying this is right, true or anything else, just relating something that was said to me and probably putting 2 & 2 together and coming up with 5.