Public shaming as an opportunity to see my own inner violence
I had a dream last night where I was captured during a mass genocide and another woman was bashing my head in with a rock. She would hit me and I would watch my skull collapse in more and more. There would always be a pause - Both of us would watch myself breathe again, wondering how am I still alive? I had agonal respirations like I have seen at the end of many people's lives. I expected myself to die.
If the people in a dream are always the dreamer and it is the language/symbolism of the subconscious... Then that means I am both the killer and the woman dying.
What part of me am I trying desperately to kill? That won't die... that feels more like me than the woman bashing my head in?
I think I am trying to kill my heart, my intuitive self, my true self that may not always fit into this world. The part that may not always be convenient to the world or to my family or to society's timeline. The part of me that needs interdependence and self-love.
I think I have been allowing other people to decide whether my experiences are valid or not, for my entire life... which is INNER VIOLENCE. And I believe them so I invalidate myself. But I shouldn't believe mindlessness. There is without a doubt danger and duality in this world and I think I am killing myself by gaslighting my experiences (for fair reasons - this is what I was taught) but it is not the only option. I don't have to be violent to myself. I can validate my experience and my heart and my intuition without needing to be validated by everyone. People can have different opinions from me. People can tell me I am wrong. People can scream the same inner violence at me that I hold. But it doesn't have to be that way. I can filter it out AND honor how painful it is to see duality.
My heart and my intuition does not need to die for me to belong in this world. It needs to be protected and validated and nourished. I deserve that nourishment. I deserve that inner validation and I deserve to protect myself. Regardless of how my mom reacts. Regardless of what my dad says. Regardless of what society says. Regardless of how personal these attacks are.
Even if someone is speaking from their heart, it can contradict my heart. And I deserve to filter out what reaches my heart.
I deserve to protect and to filter out the noise of a sometimes violent planet. I can expect duality to exist. I can expect people to contradict and to invalidate me. But IT IS KILLING ME TO INVALIDATE MYSELF BECAUSE THAT IS THE TRUE INNER VOILENCE.
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great dream interpretation, consci. i think you might, indeed, be on to something.
self-invalidation really is a true inner violence which can brutally murder our own greatest talents. differing opinions don't have the power to be so violent without our inner collaboration.
stay true to you.
Yeah, interesting way to interpret a dream, ConsciousLove. I'm gonna have to run it by a few of mine and see where that goes. Thanks for showing a way to added insight like this.
Thanks guys! It is so nice to share these possibilities. Please share your dreams I would love to get that discussion going if you're interested. I don't really know what dreams mean but this interpretation was pretty cool considering it did lead me to some insight about myself. When I first woke up I thought, "why the heck are my dreams always so violent - this makes no sense".
What I had learned is that if you see a person in your dream - it is not about them. It is about what that person symbolizes to you. So when I applied this knowledge in my journal, an answer came to me. But I had to sit down and write it out to get anywhere. We'll see if my violent dreams slowdown now. But at the least I can apply more self-compassion and inner validation.
I also learned more about a symptom I have been having since I was a little girl - my subconscious is triggering flashbacks right before I fall asleep, as I am connecting more to my subconscious.
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Yes.. I think it is so much easier to hate ourselves for having any weakness and any struggle. To cry when it is inconvenient to cry. To feel exhausted when it is inconvenient to be exhausted. And especially after all our trauma, we have a heightened nervous system that is easily activated. So that activation leads to mistakes or outbursts or overwhelm. And I beat myself up for having this activation and not functioning at my best. I have not mastered this at all, but I am learning more and more that it just simply is not my fault. It is not my fault that my nervous system is repeatedly activated after years of trauma. And beating myself up is only causing more pain. If I can just relax into the fact that I am triggered and have compassion, I think I will move through them a lot more quickly and ideally my activated nervous system will cease to activate as often or as deeply. (I am referencing polyvagal theory here).
Stay true to you... I love that.
during my early therapy, i used a dream journal to get a handle on the epic, insomnia producing nightmares that plagued me all night, every night. at that stage, i was suffering trauma induced amnesia and those nightmares were among the strongest clues we had as to where the psychic infections were festering.
i often miss the vivid dream recall those years of keeping a dream journal developed in me. these days i seldom remember the details of my dreams, but i still feel like they continue guiding me subliminally through the emotions and senses i wake with.
Oh wow Arfie. I'm so sorry it was that difficult. Thank you for sharing that. I feel empathy for you because I have been having that same sensation since I was little. It is horrible!
I get this immensely uncomfortable sensation where I can't be in my body. It feels suffocating and like a little person inside of me is screaming to get out. To get out of my body.. I pray to leave my body. (Likely why I dissociate so easily). I thought for a long time it was rage only because I hate feeling rage and I hated this sensation just as much as rage. It kept me awake as a little girl and it keeps my awake basically once a month now - the worst being two weeks ago where I was up until 530 am in this state. Normally melatonin can knock me out of it. But this one was horrific.
What does your feel like? Can you describe it? If you feel comfortable.
And how did you make it slowdown? By writing out your dreams?
my epic nightmares were in the 70's and 80's. sleep deprivation was a huge problem for me and most of my dissociative episodes were attributed to the sleep deprivation. remember that the first professional publication of the ptsd theories didn't happen until 1992 and the theories weren't commonly known until the turn of the millennium. by that time, i was no longer suffering an abnormal number of nightmares.
i believe it was the cocktail of dream journaling, talk therapy and support group work which slowed down this horror show. for the dream journaling, i made it a habit to keep a glass of water, a spiral notebook and a pen next to my bed. the water was to chase the aftertaste of nightmares from my mouth. i recorded my dreams, nightmares or not, before i even got out of my bed.
i'm still not a big believer in carnival dream interpretations, but i solidly believe dreams are a guide to parts of our psyche that the conscious mind is not aware of. based on the experience of healing, i KNOW we can know those parts of our mind more thoroughly than is typical of our scientific process.
Ah interesting. Right, considering our society is just accepting mental health I imagine you've seen a lot of changes. It would've been a lot harder to process these things without the knowledge and acceptance we have today.
I am similar to how you were - if I don't have a nightmare for two nights in a row I am excited. They are debilitating. I jump out of bed. I run to the door. I panic. But they are slowly getting better. I don't mind nightmares as much after reading "Why we Sleep". Which is why I said no to taking medication for PTSD nightmares. I think these meds might actually block our processing.
The book said that good sleep is actually helping to heal our emotions so we can deal with them in an awakened state and not be overwhelmed by them. Maybe our overactive nightmares is just a sign we have/had a high "viral load" so to speak of "psychic infections". In the book nightmares become a bigger issue if you are having repeat nightmares and not moving through them. Then for whatever reason you are blocked.
Thanks for the tips! It's really good to know that they do get better. And I could be doing more support group stuff. This website is the only support group I use for now...