Recurring Nightmares

General
1

I had a dream the other night that I haven't had since I was in my 30's, but the nightmare plagued me throughout my teenage years and 20's.

I am standing at the bus stop waiting to come home from high school. There is a little dog running around in six lanes of traffic -- three going one way, three going the other way. I am trying to get to the dog so I can get him out of the street and cars are whizzing by me. When I get to the median strip in the middle of the highway, I pick up the dog and cover it with a blanket. When I look down at the dog, I realize it is my little brother Danny (who recently died) and I just stand there sobbing and sobbing. Then, I wake up crying.

2

Im so sorry! That is horrible to have over & over! I had the same nightmare over & over when i was a kid and into my teen years where someone came into my home and shot my little sister multiple times and just laughed and told me to deal with it, then he leaves and i wake up. I hated that but the dream finally went away for about 5 years but now i have the same dream just im older and its my husband they kill. Its horrible and it leaves me scared alot but i never tell him. :frowning: sinc have been on xyrem i dont really dream much anymore so that jhas been good, but i daydream alot…

3

That's a tough kinda dream to deal with, don't really know what to say that can make it easier...

I've had some really vivid bad dreams on occasion, and my main problem is that there is a component of precognition to them which I've learned to accept with some degree of validity.

This gets really bizarre and almost superstitious-sounding, but here goes...

I've had vivid dreams for many years, they seem to come in out the blue, a rare dream that only happens at most once or twice a year, but is exceptionally vivid and emotional.

The most unusual was when I dreamed about walking down the streets of New York with my Grandfather. Now, my Grandfather had passed away 11 years before I was born, and I had never seen photos of him, and never been to New York. But, despite being fully aware in the dream that he had passed away years ago, it seemed perfectly natural to talk with him as he showed me around NYC.

He showed me all the places that were important to him, the place where he got married, where he grew up, where he raised my father, and near the end we were standing next to this fence, with green bars with vines on them and yellow stone work underneath, and he told me that's where he and my grandmother were buried, and that's when I woke up.

I went downstairs, and had a indescribable urge to learn more about my grandfather, as I'd never seen him, or photos of him, or even known what he did for a living, or anything. After a long day of digging up photos (and getting some up on display) and my father telling stories, we were sitting around the TV at night and my father suddenly said "Isn't today my father's birthday?" And sure enough, it was! We had to look it up in the family bible to be sure, my father didn't even know for certain.

It doesn't stop there, 10 years later I was doing genealogy work and I found the burial plot record for my grandfather, looked it up on Google Streetview, green metal fence with vines and yellow stonework underneath, completely blew my mind!


A number of years later, my father was battling Alzhiemers. He wasn't "too" far gone, everyone thought he had at least 3-5 more years ahead of him, including myself. I had a really vivid dream that I had woken up in the early AM, got a phone call from my parents house (caller ID) but it wasn't my parents, it was my sister telling me that my father had died.

I woke up at 3AM after that dream, and after calming myself down (my heart was racing), I started reflecting on it and decided then and there to start a DVD slideshow for his funeral, and promptly began working on it in the basement office at 4AM.

I worked on it a few days before I got the idea that his birthday was coming up, and thought it would be great if he could see it then. I called up my mother, and she wasn't planning on having any kind of party for his birthday, just a quiet dinner with the two of them.

After some discussion and convincing, she decided to "invite the locals" for the party if he felt up to it. I continued working on the slideshow, and despite having sinus surgery the following week which took months to recover from had it mostly complete for his birthday.

I played the slideshow for the family, and everyone was there but 2 out of 36 of us (my parents, 8 kids, 6 spouses, 20 grandkids). My father really enjoyed it, as did everyone else. My father had a really great time, and he made an effort to have a private one-on-one talk with most of my siblings and myself.

3 days later, I woke up in the early AM and there was a phone call. I looked at the caller ID, and didn't even have to answer to know what the call was about. It was my sister on the other end, letting me know that Dad had collapsed on the stairs last night and died after falling backwards.


So here's my dilemma, there's some element of precognition to these vivid dreams, but it doesn't *always* prove accurate. And even if it is to be believed, there's virtually nothing I can do to change the future.

BTW, my father's wasn't the only death I foretold by dream, and somehow I doubt the last.

These dreams are more of a curse than a blessing, being able to know to some degree the events that will happen in the future is unbearably burdensome when you can't change it.

Dan O.


4

I, too, have experienced this phenomenon several times in my life. The "precognition" that something is going to happen or that someone is going to die. The subconscious is a curious thing and perhaps because of our sensitivity to signs or the spirit world, we have these dreams that foretell what "may" happen in the future. You know, I truly empathize with what you are going through. I took a quick test once that showed that I am a "highly sensitive person." We may be able to "feel" things that other people don't. Last Sunday, I sent my daughter and my youngest son over to see their grandmother (my husband's mother) to tell her that they love her and say good-bye. I have a premonition that she is not going to last much longer. She has been bedridden for over two years and she recently started to really go downhill. There's nothing "wrong" with her except that she is old and frail. Yesterday, when I went to visit her, I found out that she is refusing to eat anything. I fear that I am going to dream about her death very soon and it will come true.

5

I'm also highly perceptive and sensitive, there's times that I surprise myself, like working on wiring under a desk, hearing something 5' above me "bump" and sticking my hand out just in time to catch a framed photo without ever actually seeing it.

Other times, regarding sensitivity it can be a real curse. If I eat a pizza at the same time as everyone else at the table, it won't just "feel" hot, it will scald the roof of my mouth so bad the gums peel off in sheets. Bumping into an oven rack for a fraction of a second causes immediate blistering, not just a typical burn.

Light, sound, smell, taste, touch, pain, all of these seem to be much stronger than typical for me. I'm the type of guy who can wake up because he heard his furnace *not* running at 2AM, or wake up because of a shift in the pitch with the noise from a fan, because a bug got sucked into my power supply. I can smell when there's a fire in the neighborhood for blocks around, and be able to tell if it's wood, charcoal, leaves, or something petroleum-based.

I feel like many times my physical senses may pick these things up, but my conscious mind is distracted and ignores them. When it's important though, the subconscious mind has a way of letting me know to pay attention.

I had a reoccurring dream that my tooth had fallen out, same tooth, every month or two, for almost a decade.

Long story short, my dentist kept on telling me "no cavities", with every check-up, and then I could see the cavity in the mirror and confronted him. He said it would be too difficult to repair, so he'd just pull it when needed. I got a new dentist, and he repaired it best he could, but apparently it was a bit too late. It became infected in the root, but the surface was fine. So, 5 years after I first could see the cavity in the mirror it broke apart one day, and I had to have it removed.

Within a few months I realized that dream had finally stopped. My subconscious was somehow aware of the infection long before I was, and was simply trying to clue me in.

Dan O.

6

I'm so sorry about your nightmare Coping. Sending positive vibes your direction.