Nightmares

I've had intense nightmares my entire life. I'm also a sleep walker which just added a bit more terror as a child when I'd wake up in a strange room not understanding reality. Since my repressed memories have come back, the nightmares have been anywhere from Alfred Hitchcock terrifying to waking up and knowing I've had a nightmare, but not being able to remember it.

Sadly I've gotten so used to one form of nightmare or another that they have become my new "normal."  (I have a friend who says, " Normal is a setting on a washing machine." Oh how I'd like settings on my dreams.)

My husband is not used to my nightmares. It's just in the last year I've felt enough faith in our relationship to allow him to see my crazy. In true survival fashion I hid the majority of my nightmares from my husband. Now that he sees how frequent they are, he wants to fix my dreams. Recently, I woke him up saying, NO sternly over and over as I thrashed about. The next morning he asked me what I had been dreaming. I told him I had no memory of dreaming, but I was still exhausted. Later he asked me how we could make the nightmares stop. I thought for a moment and said, "How do you make something stop, you have no memory of? How do you fight that? The bits and pieces I do remember are fleeting memories that don't last long and don't make any sense. How do you fight your unconscious?"

He of course had no answer.

This morning I woke up with a start as I had a dream two men were trying to break into my house. I'm not sure whose house I was in the dream, because I didn't recognize the window I was looking out. In the dream I was a child, maybe nine or so. When the front door came busting open, that's when my eyes came flying open.

After calming down I tried to consciously complete the dream as a grown up. To make myself feel like I wasn't helpless I guess. It wasn't the same. I slipped into that weird place between dream and awake, where I was tormented by new nightmares, which I don't remember at all.

My husband came in and saw I was wide awake and asked what was wrong. (I'm not a morning person and it was 7:30 on a Saturday.) I told him I had a nightmare. He was on his way out the door to go fishing with a friend, but took a couple minutes to cuddle with me. I know if he could will, or maybe even love my nightmares away, he would.

I'm not sure I'll ever be nightmare free. I think the nightmares are directly related to me feeling safe and able to protect my family. Most of the time I feel utterly helpless. Feeling helpless makes me angry  and ashamed.

On a positive note, I haven't had any daymares in a while. Maybe, I just need to hold on to that as progress for now?