I have very vivid and upsetting dreams about being SAed, and it is hard to tell whether they are dreams or memories sometimes, even if they aren’t real. Just wondering if anyone has the same experience or has advice?
Just like the title says, I 19F, have really bad dreams at least once or twice a month. Most of the time if I have this type of dream I’ll have the same kind back to back, maybe three or four separate ones in one night, which just makes me even more confused and disoriented when I wake up. I’ve always had this problem, but it used to be only like once or twice a year, and now I have a dream like that once or twice a month. They’ve gotten worse and more intense recently too.
The dreams themselves are usually very bad and realistic, and most of them are realistic enough that it isn’t immediately obvious to me what is real and what isn’t. I almost always wake up very upset, crying, or unable to sleep again. My main problem is that it almost always involves places that I know well, or people that I know, so there isn’t usually something that makes it obvious its a dream.
when I have dreams like this they usually stick around, and when I think about it it’s really difficult to know whether or not it’s real, and I’ll find myself sometimes recalling a recent dream likes it’s a memory, or treating the dreams like they’re real subconsciously. Sometimes I recall a dream as a memory and don’t realize it isn’t real until way down the line. It’s really creepy that my brain just automatically treats it like it actually happened, and it doesn’t help to bring it up over and over again.
With almost all of these dreams I have to pick through them and look for things that aren’t quite right, like details in my house, my neighborhood, room, or small details in the setting to get myself to calm down. Sometimes I can’t find anything and I just have to sacrifice sleep for that night, because I know if I have one dream like that and go back to sleep I’ll have other dreams just like it over and over again until I wake up.
Most of the times it’s easier - like there were dinosaurs in this dream, or my house was wrong, or it’s the wrong neighbors or I’m in the wrong place - but sometimes it’s just one scene that plays and I don‘t get any other details to concentrate on except for the assault itself.
I know someone is probably going to say that theres a chance I’ve been assaulted before, but I really don’t think so. If something like that did happen to me, it would have to be during my childhood since I don’t remember much before I was like 12 or 13. Even then, I have no real memories of it happening, and I’m fully grown in all my dreams, so I don’t think it’s me just reliving a memory, especially since they’re all so different. I was also pretty sheltered as a kid as far as sketchy people go. I knew what it was and all that, but I was never around anyone that would do that.
The most upsetting part of these dreams is that I’m almost always lucid dreaming, or I’m still making decisions during it, so I can’t just stay an observer. It’s really distressing and I hate it, and I have no idea why it happens to me.
If anyone has any advice, or has the same problem I‘d love to hear it, thank you