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Haunting Dream
I'm a 14 year old girl. When I was about 6 my mom had a baby boy named Luke. She brought him home from the hospital and I was so excited to have a baby brother. I promised him that I would protect him and love him and all of that stuff that a little girl says to someone or something that she loves. But that night I had a nightmare. The nightmare went like this: I was sleeping when I heard an ambulance outside of our apartment building. I went outside to see what was going on and I saw a man in a paramedic uniform carrying something. I looked in his arms and he was carrying Luke. But something was wrong: Luke was missing his arms, legs, and head. The paramedic was just carrying Luke's torso. In the dream, I knew that someone had chopped up my baby brother. Pretty deranged dream for a six year old girl who should be dreaming about princesses, right? I was terrified but I never told my parents because even when I was young, I never felt like I could talk to them. I never had this dream again, but it still haunts me and scares me and worries me. It's been bothering me for the past eight years. Is there a way that I can get this out of my head?
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Hi there. Right. I gather you are shocked that your sleeping mind could produce images like this? Our mind when asleep is capable of producing any visual imagery. It quite simply has no bounds as to what visions it can come up with. First thing to remember is that dreams are not premonitions or messages. Often actual physical things we are experiencing in real life feature strongly. And things we are feeling come into play to. Our sleeping minds cannot 'see a feeling' so the feelings find themselves represented by objects, events and scenaria. Not directly (that would be too easy, eh??) but through a complex code of symbolism. Some themes are fairly common and we find they are rouglhy similar for all people. But some of the coding is unique to YOU. It would indeed have been a shock to wake up from a horrible dream in which the beloved new baby had been chopped-up and carted about by hospital staff. Shocks have a way of forming an extremely persistent visual memory (it's all linked to the crash of 'brain fluids' that shocks cause...most of us find we are strangely able to recount every detail of the surroundings at the moment we received a shocking piece of bad news for instance..and it does in a way 'haunt' us and we find it impossible to completely forget). So (bad news) its unlikely that you will ever forget having the dream and you'll possibly always be able to re-tell the story, just as you have to us now. Good news (I hope) is that you're now able to appreciate that it was simply your brain 'motoring on' in your sleep and making effectively random pictures out of feelings. You are not and were not deranged or crazy. The dream implied or signified no probability of any horrific event awaiting Luke. It did not show any animosity or desire in you to see him chopped-up. The best therapy is indeed to talk about it. In many ways it would have been better if you had then had a hysterical few minutes crying with your parents tellling them how you dreamed baby Luke had been chopped up in the hospital, and how upsetting and horrible if felt. Gets it a bit more out of the system early on maybe? Though you would still remember it even if you had. Well I guess at 14 you're a bit grown-up for a crying fit, eh? I think you're perfectly mature enough to understand all I've said. Maybe do a bit of research on dream-analysis (proper psychological science websites please...not hocus-pocus spiritual supernatural crap!!)? And perhaps get it out of YOUR system a bit now, with your greater maturity and through knowledge and understanding. You are extremely unlikely to forget completely (look-up and learn a bit about 'seratonin levels' and the effect trauma has on them maybe?). But you should find talking and/or understanding things will help you lay it all to rest. I hate to think of a fine young lady still being haunted and bothered by one nasty dream after all these years! Posting it up on the net at Advicenators was a smart move too. That's getting it out the dark and shadows, and into the open light where things are less scary. X
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By keeping it secret and not bringing it out in the open to share with parents, you are keeping the fear alive. The saying that 'we need to face our fears' had truth behind it for when I have faced my fears head on instead of ignoring or trying to cover up, I always win the battle. There are different ways to face ones fears.
Now a little about dreams. Dreams are mostly symbolism that stand for something else. You were 6 at the time so you would have seen differently then, from a 6 yr olds perspective.
As a 6 yr old you made a vow to love and protect him. I believe that you saw how vulnerable a little baby really is and how they need others to take care of them and look out for them. You realized that at 6 your had many more capabilities than he had. You could walk, write, talk, etc and he couldn't yet. In your dream, his lack of the same abilities as you, may have been why you saw him missing parts of the body, the head missing : brain not as developed as yours yet/not able to communicate in language yet, legs missing : unable to walk or run yet, arms missing: unable to write and grab things, comb his own hair, etc... Maybe you heard an ambulance siren that night before bed and/or had watched something scary on TV. That all combined with the awe you had over how helpless a little baby is and turned out to become the horror dream you had. Dreams very rarely make sense. You can't take them literally, you can't interpret it to mean you would witness him become injured or die as a baby or even a child. What you felt you knew so surely in the dream is your brain coming up with ideas to explain the crazy images you are seeing. I wouldn't worry about that dream any more. And if you feel you still can't shake it, talk to mom or if not her a relative you are close to and have good communication with, like a grandma, aunt. Aunts are really good at this. My girls talked sometimes to their aunt before talking to me and they are just about as close as you are going to get to a mother figure. Good luck dear.
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