Cauchemar!

[darkemeralds]

Have you ever noticed how the most shocking nightmares, when viewed through the I'm-awake-now-thank-God lens of Jungian-esque analysis, are the most useful? And how the message is often pretty uplifting?

It's been years since I did any particular dreaming. I had a series of terrifying seizures which always came on first thing in the morning, and always in the context of trying vainly to remember a dream, so I became highly averse to remembering dreams. But just the past couple of weeks I seem to have taken it up again.

The one I had this morning between cat-letting-out and actual waking was a humdinger involving ice and high places and someone falling to her death and me hanging on for dear life so I wouldn't do the same thing. A wake-up-screaming nightmare.

And yet as soon as I was fully awake I recognized it as an ego-death kind of dream. I've been releasing lots of things, and ideas, and goals lately. Part of me falling to her icy death is a pretty apt symbol.

Still...rainbows and non-creepy butterflies tonight, please.

Comments

[kis]

Fascinating. My nightmares usually turn out to be not-so-horrific in terms of content when viewed in the light of day but the fear is very real. Not sure they're helpful ... I can only think of one whose meaning I understood. Possibly in the whole of my life, now I come to think of it.

[darkemeralds]

I'm of two minds about dream interpretation, myself. All in all, I think they mean something--some translation through the sleeping mind of something going on in the body--but as inherently interesting as one's own dreams tend to be, I'm not sure I've ever gotten a lot out trying to interpret them.

You're right, though: a lot of dreams that feel nightmarish don't actually seem that nightmarish on waking examination. Spiders, though...*shudder* I have spider dreams sometimes...

[kis]

**nods** I think they're generally random - maybe synapses firing electrically through something going on the bloodstream. Sometimes they're noticeably more conscious in that I recognize the day's events, even if they've turned into something weird. The dreams I believe actually significant are the recurring ones. I always think they're some deeply wise part of my brain screaming at me something along the lines of "You idiot! Have you not worked this out yet? Here! Have another bloody metaphor and see if you can make sense of it this time!" :)

Eep on the spider dreams. I've had a couple, but not many. Definitely waking up screaming territory, that.