Nightmares

I think it is all of that.
I also think that dreaming is a way for your brain to shuffle the cards of the day in place.. make sense of what has happened, store memories etc.

I think that nightmares are a trip in this mechanisim. And when things cant be filed away well, it becomes a problem, a fear, an anxiety that is projected into a night mare.

I am speaking pretty fanciful... but I hope I made sense.

It's just that it was so bizarre - I searched my mind to see if any movie I had watched or any anxieties I might have had recently could translate or be similar in any way to what I dreamed about last night. I generally don't wake up scared shitless and thinking someone is trying to get in to kill me.

I don't know what causes them but I used to get them a lot and by the next night, I was ok again.

loud sounds in the middle of the night can trigger the fight or flight reaction that quickly translates into a dream before it actually wakes you up.

there wasnt anything going on was there?
T-storm? Phone ringing??

No nothing going on, noise-wise.

But, you know as I woke up I thought I really heard a breaking-in noise at my front door, but I soon realized this was the exact moment of the dream sequence I was at when I woke - intruders breaking in my front door, so I put it down to my sub-conscious mind. I am fine today, no worries, just think it's odd that I am having nightmares lately and I haven't made any changes that could be triggering them.

I woke up this morning and my wife was mad mad mad at me.

i asked her what I did and she said she hadd a dream that I moved into an apartment with another woman. When she asked me what she (my wife) was going to do I said... I dunno and shrugged my shoulders.

She knew it was completely irrational to be mad at me (I am not leaving her for another woman) but the dream was so real she was physically mad at me when she woke up.

I think you did the right thing getting up and trying to calm down... but the knife might be going overboard and just feed your fears some more.

I've received the same treatment, jp. Next day I kept getting, "I can't believe you were going to leave me!"

I actually WAS terrified and, while wide-awake, not altogether sure that something was not about to happen. You've heard about people having premonitions about bad things happening. Well this was an unusual enough event for me that it actually did cross my mind that it might be something like that. Not saying it is, but that was my mindset when I put the knife beside the bed. This action was what calmed me so I could fall asleep again.

Now I'd never heard of husband-leaving-wife dream. Never experienced that, but I'd prefer it to the death stuff I've been having.

I don't blame you... sounds freaky. I know what you mean about terrified, not altogether feeling. I've had a few dosies myself that feel so real I wake up not really knowing what is going on.

Your emotions are so much closer to the surface when you wake up suddenly from a bad dream. You don't have your normal (and healthy) defenses up like you do when you're awake.

Whatever it is you were dreaming, can you relate it emotionally to something going on in your life right now.

For some reason, whenever I dream about airports - I realize I'm not "prepared" for something in my life. Like that feeling you get when you suddenly think you're not wearing all your clothes.

I have 2 different dreams about houses. In one type I feel like I'm free and growing and creative.
But there's another type that's terrifying, being trapped, hunted.

I don't believe in those dream books, you have to find your own individual interpretations.

Again - what going on in wake time that's making you feel a tiny bit how you felt in dream time?

No, it doesn't relate at all.

Last night my nightmare began with someone dropping off a large crate/box outside my door. I was not home at the time but as I got home, another two characters were at my door and taking the box away, explaining it has been delivered to the wrong address. I accepted their story (warily) but let them take it since I was sure it did not belong to me. I went to bed that night and woke up to a noise and discovered I had a small dog and another animal (can't remember to clearly, could have been another dog) who was scraping at my front door - inside my apartment (and I have no pets). I got out of bed, unconcerned and started towards the dog. Suddenly the door wasn't wood any more and it became blurrily transparent, showing me that two characters appeared to be trying to break in. I knew that it was the two people from before who had taken the box away and they were going to kill me. I instinctively knew that they did not believe I had not opened the box or knew something about the box that they didn't want me to know. I had no idea what was in the box at all but it flashed that it was probably illegal goods of some kind. One of the guys was using a screwdriver to unhinge my door, kneeling down on the ground. Thing is, I have no hinges on the outside of the door, they are on the inside, plus he was unscrewing from the opposite side that the hinges are actually on. My brain was scrambling to think of an escape and I had decided on the kitchen window. There is a fire escape, which does not go all the way to the ground, so I was mentally preparing for breaking some bones. It was as they were bursting through the door that I woke up, panicked, really expecting to see two men running at me.

I had no experiences recently with mail, deliveries, animals, news on burglaries, anything that figures into the scenario above. I don't feel frustrated, worried or stressed. In fact I feel happy and content at the moment. I had a wonderful vacation in the last month. My job is going blessedly fine for a change - markedly less stress than a few months ago. I am enjoying my relationship with a nice guy and I have nothing worrisome on the horizon, apart from the fact that I chipped a tooth and may need to make a dental appt. I didn't even have any alcohol so it can't be that, plus I'm not a huge drinker anyway.

I guess I'll just have to put it down to 'one of those things'.

Yeah - probably.

Or......do you have anyone in your life that you sometimes feel doesn't believe you, or believe in you?

Call my office and ask my receiptionist to get you in to see Dr. Tea.

Maybe there actually was someone outside your door trying to kill you.

Did you have a lot of chili pepper in your food? or eat only a steak? I'm only half kidding... chili pepper, some alcohol (brandy), and a lot of meat (protein) at once all seem to be able to affect my dreams. Enough so that when I wake up from a weird dream - which I don't have all that often - I quickly think what I had for dinner, that is, after I've figured out I was dreaming.

You sound like perhaps you might find it interesting to read the excellent biography of Freud, "The Passions of the Mind," by Irving Stone.

i wish i could have cool nightmares like you, Heeven!
i mostly have dull work dreams.
there's nothing worse than having a dull work dream, and then getting up and having a dull work day...

I agree with Region. I love nightmares. It's like a rollercoaster in your mind.

I enjoy them, sort of, except for the spiders.

I hardly ever have violent ones, and the intense ones I did were when I was taking Estrotest after having my estrogen zapped by Lupron - back when I need to get a fibroid out of there - and finding myself weirdly libidoless, mentioned it to my md. Thus the wee bit of testosterone, and sure enough I was a happy girl again, except once in a while I had these totally weird dreams, where I was the rapist or killer, or...

so those disturbed me and I put 2 and 2 together and the nurse practitioner said no, dear, we all have those dreams, and the md said, we'll take you off of those.

Luckily my own hormonal system had been primed and I was fine. But I am quite sure some dreams are triggered biochemically, whether by chili pepper, as I jest, or or biochem fluctuations. The bits of scenery that fly forth, to me, are ... the bits of scenery that fly forth, whatever was unleashed in that days bio-process. We make a film of it and some times those segments do hang together, in however warped a fashion.