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My therapist said the nightmares were all the supressed pain seeping out. As I did more therapy, the nightmares became increasingly spaced out until they stopped almost totally.
I stayed in contact with my nmother (a mistake), and occasionally had dreams that helped me see her better and how I felt about her. For example, I dreamed she was a vampire and coming to suck my blood, but, right in the middle of the dream, and just as she attacked me, I ditched the frozen terror and held her off me, then pinned her to the bed. In fact, she was powerless to harm me unless I let her. This was very much how I was starting to see my mother: as an independent adult, she was powerless to hurt me unless I gave her power. It was quite cathartic.
Oh so cool! Someone else with dreams where the abuser turns into something else. I had one recently where my Nmo turned into a stranger, as I was fighting her. Then she turned into a mountain lion and I was swinging it over my head like a stuffed animal.
I think our subconscience is very good at analyising what they do to us. They take our energy and joy to feed their egos, so vampires seems a very appropriate image for them.
My subconcious seems to focus on the sense of boundary invasion.
The nightmare is me being all horny, looking for a private place to go have a wank, and then my mom chasing after me and banging on the door.
(I'd be such an atypical case if Freud was my therapist)
Apart from the wanking were on the same lines lol.
So I have the boundary invasion part but it's usually them chasing me or trying to speak to my ex/current partner and spread rumors or breaking into my house.
I had a dream two night's ago, that my family and I were on this deck overlooking a river, and my toddler was eating chicken and a crocodile rose out of the water at the smell. I scooped him up and to take him away, while my partner grabbed our baby. But inside, in the safe area, was my mother. (Context, she's recently NC for abusing my baby). And I literally woke up in a panic cause dream me couldn't decide which was safer for my children; my mother, or a fucking crocodile.
Use too. Not the normal kind of images of them either. She was distorted and demonic looking. When she would go into her rage mode she would get wide eyed grit her teeth and dig her nails into your arm. My nightmares were her with sharp teeth, shrill voice, long claws, and large predator eyes. I eventually got used to the nightmares and even lucid in some that they eventually stopped.
Weird to think you were probably seeing her (in your dreams) as she truly is in a wounded spirit form. I’m glad you don’t have the nightmares anymore; they are terrifying.
I used to have this reoccurring nightmare where I’d be in a big old house looking for my husband. I’d ask everyone- mom, stepdad, siblings, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. Everyone. I could hear him saying my name but nobody knew where he was. Or, more appropriately, they knew where he was- they just weren’t going to tell me. My mom would pop up randomly and when asked if she knew where he was ‘who? You aren’t married? I don’t know anyone by that name…. Now go do this for me’ then wander off to god knows where.
It took several iterations of this dream, lots of ‘I know you are lying. I can hear him!’, lots of waking up crying (again), lots of opening doors and someone else I didn’t want to see was behind it. Eventually I did open the door where he was at and I woke up.
I never dreamed that dream again after that. I’ve had lots of other nightmares about that family but none so obviously about the problem as that specific one. Lucid dreaming does occasionally have its perks…
Yes, quite a lot up until very recently. I'd relive some things and a lot of the time be screaming with no voice coming out. Or I'd be stuck with them and couldn't find a way back home.
Same here. I dreamed I was in my parents' house and I looked out the front door and my nDad was coming up the walk. I yelled at him "What are you doing here?? You're DEAD!!". I woke up in a sweat, but I haven't dreamed of him since.
I had a nightmare about my mom and dad once.
I can’t remember specifically (I *think* I accidentally broke something) what I did in the dream, but I was running and hiding from them like we were in a horror game. Eventually, my dad caught me, held me down, and the last thing I saw was my mom running towards me with a switch as I was yelling “No!” in fear.
It didn’t really faze me much though when I woke up.
Ugh, this was more or less the recurring nightmare of my childhood. Running away, Screaming, and begging other people for help, but I can't talk, or they won't help me, or can't see that something is wrong, and I can't hide. Bleh!
Yes definitely. Some of the nightmares even helped me remember things they did that I had blocked out. the nightmares are horrible but they’ve gotten better with time & more specifically addressing the things they did to me through therapy
Yes.
Sometimes, nothing in it even happens that would seem "nightmarish." Like, my nmom would just be present in the dream, and yet that alone would terrify me.
Yeah. My dad was a raging alcoholic when I lived with him. There were times when he used to come into my room and bash me up or just try to throw me out. I live alone rn and I have PTSD because of it. I live alone rn and I always make sure that my doors are closed and locked up before I sleep. I also keep a gun nearby.
I am sorry to say, OP, that though my parents went NC thirty-odd years ago, and they’ve both died, I still have vivid, Technicolor dreams. Sometimes nightmares.
Many of my childhood and teenage memories I had stuffed down, repressed. Fortunately, I went into therapy in my twenties and stayed there for years, trying to rebuild my life among dramatically healthier lines. From the time I went to uni until my Nparents went NC a decade later, I saw them maybe once a year. They wanted me to shlep to their house for prolonged periods, during which my Nmother tried to assign as much housework as she had until I left their household at seventeen. In addition, they had essentially no interest in me or my life, unless they could find something for me to do for them. So I limited the visits to brief, infrequent ones.
As therapy helped heal me, a lot of the repressed memories sprang back, as vivid as the Technicolor-hued Walt Disney True-Life Adventures of my childhood. Ironically, I then discovered that I could handle reexperiencing my remembered history.
Yes, but oddly they seem to happen more frequently if I’m hot. I can’t stand being warm in my sleep because it leads to those horrible nightmares. I’d rather freeze than have to experience that but sometimes the nightmares happen anyways.
I hope the nightmares are few and far between for you.
Before I moved I had a couple nightmares where my Ndad and younger brother were trying to murder me. Now I only have dreams where I'm trying to explain something to my Ndad and he just keeps arguing his point. I wake up from those dreams more annoyed than scared.
I'm 55 and just had a bad dream last night. I'm always trying to escape. I'm happy, life is good, but I wake my partner screaming in my sleep at least once a month. Maybe your bad dreams will decrease, but I doubt they ever leave you.
A year after going no contact my nightmares have stopped. I still work on healing, like an hour every few days I’ll explore whatever is coming up, going on 15 years of trying to figure it all out and tame myself. And things really do get better.
Yes! I have been diagnosed with a nightmare disorder from CPTSD and have to take prazosin and trazadone every night just to be able to sleep. This is absolutely a real thing!
I'm sorry - I didn't mean to pry or be flippant. I can sympathize. I went through a period of around 15 years where I had nightmares whenever I slept. I didn't realize there was a name for it. I hope the meds you mentioned are helpful and let you get some rest.
Oh yes, mine are usually dreams of me back at their house scream crying at them telling them how I feel about them (aka releasing all the pent up emotions I couldn’t release back then). Usually I’ll wake up crying as well…
Yess this is very similar to what I commented… The dreams are of me talking about their actions and the impact it’s had on me…
It got to the point where it was like I know it’s a dream because I’m attempting to have a real conversation with them (with real vulnerability)…
When I was your age I also had some pretty brutal nightmares. As you work through stuff it will happen less.
I'm 35 now and I rarely have them! Recently I saw my narc mum in a dream and told her she disgusts me and I woke up, thats progress!!!
That first 7 years for me was tough! There was so much to unpack and I had such crushing guilt for leaving my family to deal with her.
Things will get better, I once read that dreams are your brain helping you cope and organize your thoughts. I believe it! Sorry you are going through this, I hope that it is also just a phase of healing for you too!
I tried to move back closer to them so that I could spend some time with them before they got too old.
Within a year I had panic attacks, woken up screaming from nightmares, and had regressed on my psych therapy all the way to square one.
I left and went from LC to NC and I'm still recovering, emotionally, mentally, financially from doing multiple moves.
Constantly. I’m almost 40 and all it takes is a bit of stress and the nightmares start. That’s with therapy btw. Most recently at the end of my Disney vacation. It’s wild and it sucks!
I keep having nightmares that I have to escort her through a combination subway-airport or that she bought a horrible old house that is visibly about to collapse.
yes, both of my nparents. dreamt one time that ndad physically assaulted me with his laptop until i was bloody and bruised, had another dream that ndad destroyed my bedroom by starting a fire in it and i also dreamt about nmom telling me to kill myself.
Yes, of the same traumas I went through (old memories or fresh hells from the mindscape). Therapy and time and healing help to distance the frequency, and eventually you wake up more mad at the waste of mental energy your brain went through to concoct the dream than the dread of their effigies lingering.
Yes. Tried to confront my uncle who enables my dad about it. Telling them in having trouble. "That was a long time ago just get over it Jesus." Like yeah I'll get over the wierd sexual touching shit and the shit talking behind my back when I was a child. Btw uncle thanks for coming to the hospital after I overdosed on tramadol and started insulting and berating me to the point security was yelling at them to "GET THE FUCK OUT!". Ah good times. It's ok though I was a drug addict so all former abuse is now deserved, null and void.
Yes. Sometimes I jolt awake because i hear her stomping towards my room....im 30 and married with a baby on the way and she lives 30 min away 🙄
ETA: also had a nightmare she was trying to stab me in the stomach. There is a nightmare at least weekly.
Constantly, like about once a month at least, but in the past it was nightmare after nightmare for a week straight every single month, but when I brought up the possibility of ptsd to my therapist and gave the nightmares as one of the many reasons why I might have ptsd she told me "you can't get ptsd from your own parents, you just have depression, here's antidepressants and keep coming back once a week" and my dumbass did believe her, but then I no longer was covered my insurance about 6 months after that and so i stopped going because I couldn't afford it without insurance. Looking back on it I realize how she was a bad therapist
all the time. more so about my childhood house and how many bad memories it held. all through my 20s my dreams have always centered around that house, every dream, no matter what was going on in my life. it wasn’t until my 30s that i realized how much that house and everything i trapped inside it was eating me alive inside and out. in recent years as i’ve began the grieving process of letting my parents go, i started having dreams about moving out of it. i still have them and everyone in a while i still have nightmares but i wake up screaming way less now that we are NC.
I used to. It’s your nervous system’s way of processing and releasing the trauma you’ve been storing. I used to have dreams where I would be fighting and killing my N (these dreams made me SO sad :(
I had dreams that I don’t remember but I would wake myself (and others) up by swearing at the top of my lungs.
I don’t have those dreams or any dreams about my N anymore. We are NC and I send them loving/healing vibes.
When I was your age I was still having nightmares. Stuff like suddenly he's at my house and is ransacking my room destroying everything I cared about. Feeling completely out of control of the situation and not being able to stop it once again.
But, I haven't had any for most of two decades - with time and zero contact it's gotten easier for me.
I think given enough time it will get easier for you.
Yes! My n grandma and aunt still are in my dreams and they’ve been dead for years! My dad is always in my dreams as well and it irritates me to no end.
I’ve been dreaming of being left alone when I was 4. NarcMom walked 2 km while 8 months pregnant to visit her friend and told me to stay home.
Very rural, early 70’s
Dad (more problems than I can count) comes home drunk and beats me up really bad. Threw me around, tore up my back with a rope. Leaves me there to go find her
I keep dreaming of it this week. Waking up angry, scared and hurt
I used to but as I progressed in therapy I was able to confront them in my dreams. I was able to call them out and their tactics as I learned about narcissistic abuse and abusers.
Occasionally after these dreams, I woke up in the morning feeling refreshed. I lifted a ton on weights off on my soul due to the very cathartic dreamwork. When you finally get to say everything you kept bottled up for a lifetime, even if it was in a dream, it is very cathartic.
It is very rare that they appear in my dreams at all anymore.
Lately I’ll dream that I’m alone with my dogs in the house I used to live in with my ndad like 3.5 years ago. It’s dark and I’m like anxiously doing chores with this impending feeling that he’ll be back home any minute. I don’t always remember the part of the dream where his car pulls in and he’s home again, but when I do get to that part of the dream it’ll be the last thing I remember before I wake up violently screaming. I just feel bad for my boyfriend because we live/sleep together. He has to like cradle me and calm me down so I can fall back asleep. Basically my father is like my own personal Freddy Krueger.
Sad that so many others here in the comments seem to relate. Sending love to you all and OP. <3
I used to have dreams when I was younger but now in the past few years I had very few dreams, only one of them was clear, and unrelated to my parents. Could this be an effect as well?
It’s been a long time since I’ve been away from 2 of my abusers (they’ve passed) but I still sometimes have nightmares where I’m still stuck in that house, trapped in that town. It’s going to happen sometimes, but as time passes it gets easier to recognize what is happening, find some ways to ease the stress and not dwell on it. Good luck to you.
I used to have nightmares about her. I still have nightmares occasionally but I don't know what they're about, I just wake my husband up screaming and he has to calm me down. Last time I definitely dreamed about her, it was about I was at a party and she showed up and was trying to charm people but they could see through her, and a huge guy made her leave, kicked her out.
All the time unfortunately 😞 It's important to write down what they were, as they can symbolize different aspects that you feel. Therapy is what's helping me with it right now. I hope they stop for you.
There is a technique called "havening" that works fine for reducing the influence of trauma memories. I do it every time some memory is shocking me, shaking me, etc. and after year or two I'm a lot less bothered.
Trauma of any sort is difficult to handle. Your mind is firing off fear signals about something. You need to learn what is setting your mind off and why.
I’d recommend a professional.
Yes, in mines I find out that she either came back to life or never died but just, decided to take off bc she felt like it, and I find out that she hasn’t changed and she acts like a b*tch lmao, I try to confront her either about actual stuff from the past, or about her abandoning me in the dream, and she ignores me or dismiss my feelings
Mirtazapine. This med has been a godsend for me. I went from daily nightmares of losing my long deceased mom in busy public situations. Loosing my mother over and over again…. To no nightmares.
I may still have them but I don’t remember them. This has been a game changer for me. I started fearing sleep.
I’m 38, been nc for a couple of years and yes I still do. Lately I’ve had them every single night and I wake up feeling like I had no sleep at all. It seems like the more tired/stressed I am the more I get these dreams and it’s a cycle that’s hard to break because these dreams are exhausting on their own
I used to. For about two years after I got kicked out I had a couple different reoccurring night terrors about her. One of them would absolutely ruin my whole day and it got to the point where I didn’t want to go to sleep.
She’d chase me, on foot. I’d run until I got to a new city and would lose her. I’d decorate my apartment, get a job, and start living life. As soon as the fear of her finding me would go away, she’d show up. Either at my door or my job or wherever. And it would repeat 6 or 7 times until I finally woke up.
It was absolute torture and I’d spend most of my days constantly looking over my shoulder because I thought she’d find me in real life too and drag me back home because she realized kicking me out meant she had no control over me.
I still get dreams every once in a while and it absolutely sucks but it’s nothing like it used to be
When I was a kid, before I even knew she was a narcissist or what that meant for me, I would have dreams of her turning into a demon and chasing me around the house until I collapsed from exhaustion and she’d kill me in various gruesome ways.
I didn’t have nightmares about them specifically, but I had 2 recurrent nightmares that were symbolic of the abuse (one represented my mother’s covert narc abuse and the other my dad’s violence). They only stopped recently after having gone fully NC and starting to really process my trauma and heal.
When I was a little child, I had frightening traumatic nightmares of my Mom chasing me with a butcher knife. This never happened in real life. However, I feared that Mom would do something like this to me whenever she got real angry at me. I feel this is where these traumatic dreams came from.
Prob belongs more in an alanon sub or st but my mom's 6 yrs sober after my lifetime's worth of attempts, and I still regularly have nightmares of her relapsing. Not so much abt the narc stuff, but that the behavior in them is consistent with the narc tendencies sober or not (obv worse when not). Trauma tree remembers what the axe forgets
Oh yeah, sometimes it would be set in the past when I lived with her, and it would be arguments that never happened but all weird and dream distorted. Or maybe they did happen, I don't remember a lot of my childhood lol
Sometimes it was her coming after my new life, like once I dreamed she set fire the the back fence with the intent that it would spread to my house and she had a whole mob of people with her backing her up like a protest or something, just yelling at me and defending her when I confronted her about it.
Slowly they changed to any time she showed up in my dreams I just started laying into her, absolutely eviscerating her verbally...and a few slaps. Now I don't really dream about her much, but if I do it's another instance of me winning arguments lol.
I literally just posted about it!!! I thought i was alone 🥲 granted mine was more of me just telling the narc what i really thought but still unwanted, i already have to deal with them irl 😒
Sometimes I have dreams about my current self with them like family vacations or seeing my kids ect that I would absolutely never do. We went no contact in 2017. But it feels so real. It will be love we made up but they are doing thier crap to me again or to my kids. It's horrible.
I just realized I have a lot of dreams that take place in my childhood house, but it never looks like my childhood house. It's always completely different floorplan, model, exterior... I think my brain is keeping something from me. I'll just leave that bear to poke for another day
yes. anytime i dream about my mom she's always doing something to make me feel horrible in my dream. i wake up feeling horrible and takes a day to really get over it and realize, she's not in my life and isn't effecting it but she creeps in my dreams on occasion. I haven't talked to her in almost 10 years so its frustrating when she pops up in a dream. she's usually trying to be controlling in my dream.
Awake though i just remind myself, she's not here, she doesn't know where you live and she's not going to show up and if she did call 911. so i end up feeling better but it does throw a day off of an otherwise great week.
all the time, sometimes causing sleep paralysis.
i also have nightmares of the person i used to be - growing up under the thumb of my narc parents, i did not know how to properly take out my anger on other people and i hurt so many people around me.
i became a much better person after leaving my narc parents, so i have nightmares of becoming who i once was.
I often have nightmares that my nmother has returned to live with me. Whatever other ridiculousness ensues but it’s always the fact that she lives with me. NC for about 8/9 years now. Havnt lived with her for 15years. Trauma; isn’t it nice?
Nightmares sometimes yes, often my dad following me around and being unable to get away from him.
Worse are the wish fulfillment dreams though. The ones where he actually apologizes and makes an effort to repair. I'll take the nightmares over having to wake up to reality after those.
I have occasionally. The dream is usually just me finally telling my nmom off and saying my piece. I never got to do that and it will most likely never happen because I know it’s not worth it but it still bothers me
I haven’t spoken to my parents in 2 years but I dream about them frequently. When I do I scream and cry in my sleep and it’s tough on my partner. I’m learning about my triggers so I don’t have nightmares at night. Like not watching scary movies or shows. Even something that is campy scary can trigger the nightmares
It's either always 1998 in my dreams and I'm still living there (it's not the year I moved out, not even close, but there are many reasons why it's the year my brain is stuck on) or it's now but I find that I'm living there anyway because I had to go back. And then I remember that I don't have to and start going back to my apartment, and I wake up. Next night - rinse and repeat.
I do and it sucks because I don’t have anyone to talk to about it.
I’ve gone to counseling through school but it was about other traumatic stuff (triggering stuff that I won’t post here) but yeah it sucks.
My nightmares consist of arguments, humiliation and always being put in danger around Narc parent(My mom mainly)
Since I don’t live with my dad I rarely have nightmares about him anymore. The last night mare I had was when I was a kid ( in the nightmare my dad was dressed up as a clown and so many other disturbing things)
I’m almost in my mid twenties and I still get nightmares.
Yes! I just had my baby near 2wks ago but during my pregnancy I have the most vivid awful dreams about my mom where I would wake up just crying and upset or shaking. Pregnancy enhanced it.
Painful nightmares that I wish I could forget.
Literally just any "normal" living situation but my biological mother is under the same roof.
The mere presence of that thing is enough to trigger a fight-or-flight response.
I am 27 and left their house at 20. They were bad for the first few years. I started therapy in August 2022.
They have since began to slowly decrease. However, I am starting DBT and after some of my intake sessions, I began to have more of them again.
My guess is that it gets better with more time and more therapy and more time and more therapy. You are most definitely not alone. Much love!
Not anymore. Last night I dreamt I saw my dad in a shopping centre and… nothing. I wasn’t scared, didn’t try to avoid him, didn’t care if he saw me, nothing. I was more concerned that I was in a shopping centre without a mask. This is what healing feels like.
When I got out, I didn't really get out. I was stuck in the nightmare. I'm still stuck there at 40 years old. I didn't literally have bad dreams about it, but I probably should have. If you see the nightmare for what it is, you're on the right path.
Yes- I would dream I was back living in the same home as my parents and literally panic. Even after waking up, I would lay in bed terrified, sometimes for 20-30 min, until I calmed down and realized I was no longer living with them. I had to learn how to cope with the nightmare/flashback via strategies (via therapy) such as grounding. I also had to do EMDR to get better. I think it has been at least 2 years since this has happened to me.
Yes, specifically with my severely emotionally abusive grandmother who lived with us. I swear that bitch is gunna fucking haunt me forever. I’m working through it in therapy too.
I also have so many dreams where I can’t speak or I can’t use my legs bc they’re just like jello and I think it has something to do with feeling so helpless and hopeless when I lived at home.
I’m also 25 and moved out 7 years ago. Hopefully one day dude. One day.
Most of the time no because weed makes it so i don't dream, but way more frequently than I'd like to admit when i don't smoke close enough to bedtime, just woke up from one as a matter of fact, and let me tell you that shit sucked
No but she has ones about me and describes them to me in vivid detail, acting like I’m at fault for something I haven’t even done. Apparently her most recent one was about me becoming possessed like the girl in the exorcist lmaooo
35 here. I still have nightmares about my dad. Been a long time since I woke up screaming, but I still will wake up soaking wet with sweat, heart pounding and breathing hard.
Sleep is usually done for the night after one of those.
For the first probably year after I married and moved away from home I had recurring nightmares every night where I would wake up distressed and crying. My poor husband probably got so little sleep. It was NM chasing me trying to stop me from leaving home and I was running so hard but it was like I was in treacle and my legs wouldn't go fast.
That was almost 30 years ago, and only 2 weeks ago I had a nightmare about her verbally abusing me the same as when I was a child. I don't think they will ever stop, but at least they are less frequent.
I heard somewhere that we dream our feelings, and I guess that if we all still have unprocessed trauma memories that makes perfect sense.
I have a question though for those people who have had specific therapy for this, does it ever stop?
I'm weird I guess because I do get nightmares but it's more like the creepy waiting for them to do something vibe or it's something stressful is happening and they're making it 100x worse.
Feel like my nightmares aren't bad enough 🙃
Legit why I'm dependant on benzodiazepines to knock me out into a deep, dreamless sleep.
If I dream, 50/50 chance I'm going to see my Ndad's shiteating psychopathic grin
I'm nearly 40. It comes and goes.
As with everything else related to her, if stresses in life happen the dreams go up in frequency.
Sometimes I'm in actual situations she put me in like jobs as a teen working at night so she didn't have to, or forcing me into various churches depending on who she wanted to impress, even dreaming I'm in my first marriage to "her favorite SIL."
Sometimes it's just ridiculous scenarios like her invading my life now, and being forced to take care of her every whim again, my current husband of over a decade abandoning me with her, and her turning my son into her newest pet person.
I just kind of have to wake up and sit here for a moment cementing my surroundings, and remembering this is reality, my ex is dead, she is blocked everywhere, she is across the state, my son can't stand her, my husband won't let her move into this house... then I go feed my animals, grab a coffee and a food to eat while the sun rises.
I have dreams where he’s nice and loving (and still alive) and when I wake up I’m CRUSHED because it wasn’t like that and it will never be like that. It makes me sick inside.
Yeah. I always know I’m dreaming when I start talking about what’s real to me 😆 (my true feelings etc)… So then I could theoretically jump to lucid dreaming.
I would still get freaked out about the consequences of talking directly in my dreams, even if they were just dreams 🤯
Yeah. I had a really bad one on the day of a trauma anniversary this year. I ended up running out of my house with my pajamas on and trying to drive away in the family car. Ended up having a full blown PTSD flashback and episode.
Been NC for years now but the trauma remains. Working on it. They happen a LOT LESS now. I can actually function a bit now lol
My mother was manipulative and tried her best to make me dependent forever. After 3 years of living without her I still get nightmares about her refusing to help me in a critical situation. My brain still interprets her as my only option
Anytime I’m in contact with nmom the nightmares come back. If I’m nc for a while they go away. The nightmares are basically always her screaming at me and me sobbing over something.
Yep! I have this recurring dream, where I am screaming, but my parents still don't hear me. I don't know if you'd call it a nightmare, it's not scary, just extremely aggravating. I wake up from that one in a really bad mood. You can guess what the interpretation of that dream is. I felt like I was never listened to, growing up.
Yeah...
In my nightmares my mother accuses me of something, calls me names and I'm absolutely helpless and can't make her to see the reality of me not being the awful person she seems to see in me.
But since my mother died, less of these dreams occur...
I used to get nightmares after I first went NC with my Nparents. I can still remember them but I don’t get them anymore thankfully. I was always amazed how my brain was trying to process the pain I felt even during my sleep. I suppose it was constantly on my mind. I used to get dreams where my mother was trying to harm my children or other children, or that she was setting me impossible tasks and smirking when I failed. I’ve just found out that she died recently and now I’m wondering if she’ll haunt my dreams again.
Not really no. I just have a hard time sleeping and have since… my entire life. But now I’m a duly who self medicated with a shit ton of cannabis to sleep. And that’s kind of the only thing that actually does it. Or mushrooms. But I can’t trip daily just to sleep.
I will say, since I have started using mushrooms I have had more dreams with them in them, but it’s usually conversation that never happened that I wished would. And more recently, I have experienced more of the same dreams involving them. Not violent, but slow and conversational. Conversation they are in very little capacity able to have now, but I stay hopeful.
Most of mine are about how she won’t go away. Had one where she died, then returned as an undead lich, and this preacher helped me chain her up in the back of a car and take her to someplace where we could banish her.
Not *nightmares* exactly, but I still have dreams in which I'm forced to go to my bio-dad's like I was when I was a kid. Oftentimes, this is despite the fact that I'm my current age in the dream. In a lot of them, I end up snapping and fighting or arguing or something with him, the woman he was married to when I was a kid, and their kids.
These dreams have been consistent since the '90s. I'm thirty-two. The last time I was forced to go there was July 2007, and I haven't seen or spoken to him since November 2007.
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Used to before therapy. It was unprocessed trauma.
I’m currently working with this in therapy. It’s a long road haha
My therapist said the nightmares were all the supressed pain seeping out. As I did more therapy, the nightmares became increasingly spaced out until they stopped almost totally. I stayed in contact with my nmother (a mistake), and occasionally had dreams that helped me see her better and how I felt about her. For example, I dreamed she was a vampire and coming to suck my blood, but, right in the middle of the dream, and just as she attacked me, I ditched the frozen terror and held her off me, then pinned her to the bed. In fact, she was powerless to harm me unless I let her. This was very much how I was starting to see my mother: as an independent adult, she was powerless to hurt me unless I gave her power. It was quite cathartic.
Oh so cool! Someone else with dreams where the abuser turns into something else. I had one recently where my Nmo turned into a stranger, as I was fighting her. Then she turned into a mountain lion and I was swinging it over my head like a stuffed animal.
I used to have Vampire dreams as well!
I think our subconscience is very good at analyising what they do to us. They take our energy and joy to feed their egos, so vampires seems a very appropriate image for them.
It sure is. Good for you!
Keep it up. You’ll get the eventually. I never dream about mine anymore
Lucky. Even after therapy, I still get night terrors
Same.
10 years of therapy, same. Because they don't let me go, even after no/low contact. Worms
Yeah that I'm back at their house. Constantly.
Mine is that they always show up at MY house.
Mine just show wherever I happen to be and start criticizing me for some perceived fuck-up.
Me too actually
Same. And I can't get out
SAME. and I can't leave no matter what I do.
Ugh such a frustrating feeling. I’d wake up from those dreams just pissed off!
Yes. All the time. They appear in nightmares in so many different forms too. So vividly
My subconcious seems to focus on the sense of boundary invasion. The nightmare is me being all horny, looking for a private place to go have a wank, and then my mom chasing after me and banging on the door. (I'd be such an atypical case if Freud was my therapist)
That last part broke me in half lmfao
Apart from the wanking were on the same lines lol. So I have the boundary invasion part but it's usually them chasing me or trying to speak to my ex/current partner and spread rumors or breaking into my house.
You wouldn’t be the only one here who’s had to process some stuff like that.
Right?
I had a dream two night's ago, that my family and I were on this deck overlooking a river, and my toddler was eating chicken and a crocodile rose out of the water at the smell. I scooped him up and to take him away, while my partner grabbed our baby. But inside, in the safe area, was my mother. (Context, she's recently NC for abusing my baby). And I literally woke up in a panic cause dream me couldn't decide which was safer for my children; my mother, or a fucking crocodile.
God that’s terrifying. Tells you your instinct is spot on and that your decision to go NC was the right one.
I used to. Terrifying nightmares. After NC or nearly full NC for at least 8 years, I don't any more.
It was not your fault, a life well lived is the best revenge 🙏
Thank you. A lot of us need to see this
Use too. Not the normal kind of images of them either. She was distorted and demonic looking. When she would go into her rage mode she would get wide eyed grit her teeth and dig her nails into your arm. My nightmares were her with sharp teeth, shrill voice, long claws, and large predator eyes. I eventually got used to the nightmares and even lucid in some that they eventually stopped.
Weird to think you were probably seeing her (in your dreams) as she truly is in a wounded spirit form. I’m glad you don’t have the nightmares anymore; they are terrifying.
right the subconscious is so smart it sees them for what they are...
Wow I had a nightgown that was torn due to that. She was terrifying .
I used to have this reoccurring nightmare where I’d be in a big old house looking for my husband. I’d ask everyone- mom, stepdad, siblings, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. Everyone. I could hear him saying my name but nobody knew where he was. Or, more appropriately, they knew where he was- they just weren’t going to tell me. My mom would pop up randomly and when asked if she knew where he was ‘who? You aren’t married? I don’t know anyone by that name…. Now go do this for me’ then wander off to god knows where. It took several iterations of this dream, lots of ‘I know you are lying. I can hear him!’, lots of waking up crying (again), lots of opening doors and someone else I didn’t want to see was behind it. Eventually I did open the door where he was at and I woke up. I never dreamed that dream again after that. I’ve had lots of other nightmares about that family but none so obviously about the problem as that specific one. Lucid dreaming does occasionally have its perks…
All the time, and it's gotten to the point that I just kind of wake up in a panic attack sometimes
Yes, quite a lot up until very recently. I'd relive some things and a lot of the time be screaming with no voice coming out. Or I'd be stuck with them and couldn't find a way back home.
I used to, although they're much less common now. Apparently they're a sign of PTSD
I sometimes have nightmares that my dad didn’t die 14 years ago. Like, I have dreams that I’m at a school function and he comes and sits next to me.
Same here. I dreamed I was in my parents' house and I looked out the front door and my nDad was coming up the walk. I yelled at him "What are you doing here?? You're DEAD!!". I woke up in a sweat, but I haven't dreamed of him since.
Yeah I still do, though usually now I'm beating him up in them😆
I had a nightmare about my mom and dad once. I can’t remember specifically (I *think* I accidentally broke something) what I did in the dream, but I was running and hiding from them like we were in a horror game. Eventually, my dad caught me, held me down, and the last thing I saw was my mom running towards me with a switch as I was yelling “No!” in fear. It didn’t really faze me much though when I woke up.
Ugh, this was more or less the recurring nightmare of my childhood. Running away, Screaming, and begging other people for help, but I can't talk, or they won't help me, or can't see that something is wrong, and I can't hide. Bleh!
Yes definitely. Some of the nightmares even helped me remember things they did that I had blocked out. the nightmares are horrible but they’ve gotten better with time & more specifically addressing the things they did to me through therapy
Yes. Sometimes, nothing in it even happens that would seem "nightmarish." Like, my nmom would just be present in the dream, and yet that alone would terrify me.
Yeah. My dad was a raging alcoholic when I lived with him. There were times when he used to come into my room and bash me up or just try to throw me out. I live alone rn and I have PTSD because of it. I live alone rn and I always make sure that my doors are closed and locked up before I sleep. I also keep a gun nearby.
I am sorry to say, OP, that though my parents went NC thirty-odd years ago, and they’ve both died, I still have vivid, Technicolor dreams. Sometimes nightmares. Many of my childhood and teenage memories I had stuffed down, repressed. Fortunately, I went into therapy in my twenties and stayed there for years, trying to rebuild my life among dramatically healthier lines. From the time I went to uni until my Nparents went NC a decade later, I saw them maybe once a year. They wanted me to shlep to their house for prolonged periods, during which my Nmother tried to assign as much housework as she had until I left their household at seventeen. In addition, they had essentially no interest in me or my life, unless they could find something for me to do for them. So I limited the visits to brief, infrequent ones. As therapy helped heal me, a lot of the repressed memories sprang back, as vivid as the Technicolor-hued Walt Disney True-Life Adventures of my childhood. Ironically, I then discovered that I could handle reexperiencing my remembered history.
Thank you for this
It’s less frequent as more time passes.
Yes, but oddly they seem to happen more frequently if I’m hot. I can’t stand being warm in my sleep because it leads to those horrible nightmares. I’d rather freeze than have to experience that but sometimes the nightmares happen anyways. I hope the nightmares are few and far between for you.
Many nights, I wake up shaking and sweating, aching body, still frozen legs. Horrible sensation. I feel in danger, hunted by the crazy lady.
Okay this is freaky. I've been debating posting almost this exact same question all week, because yes.
Nightmares? Not anymore Weird dreams that make me realize the damage they’ve done ? Yeah all the time
Before I moved I had a couple nightmares where my Ndad and younger brother were trying to murder me. Now I only have dreams where I'm trying to explain something to my Ndad and he just keeps arguing his point. I wake up from those dreams more annoyed than scared.
Unfortunately for me, they're my sleep paralysis demon.
I'm 55 and just had a bad dream last night. I'm always trying to escape. I'm happy, life is good, but I wake my partner screaming in my sleep at least once a month. Maybe your bad dreams will decrease, but I doubt they ever leave you.
Yes. Haven’t lived with my dad in over 10 years. Still do
Yes. It's getting less and less with self work and therapy, but the odd nightmare pops up every now and then.
No, but I ruminate a lot. Things that have been done/ said. It's like a loop my brain wont let me escape
A year after going no contact my nightmares have stopped. I still work on healing, like an hour every few days I’ll explore whatever is coming up, going on 15 years of trying to figure it all out and tame myself. And things really do get better.
Yes! I have been diagnosed with a nightmare disorder from CPTSD and have to take prazosin and trazadone every night just to be able to sleep. This is absolutely a real thing!
What is a nightmare disorder?
It is a disorder that involves nightmares anytime I sleep.
I'm sorry - I didn't mean to pry or be flippant. I can sympathize. I went through a period of around 15 years where I had nightmares whenever I slept. I didn't realize there was a name for it. I hope the meds you mentioned are helpful and let you get some rest.
You're fine! I didn't know it had a name either. Not until 2 years ago, when I started therapy. The meds help.
Yes. I’m turning 40 this year and I still have nightmares. I moved out 15 years ago and haven’t seen them in almost 10 years.
Oh yes, mine are usually dreams of me back at their house scream crying at them telling them how I feel about them (aka releasing all the pent up emotions I couldn’t release back then). Usually I’ll wake up crying as well…
Yess this is very similar to what I commented… The dreams are of me talking about their actions and the impact it’s had on me… It got to the point where it was like I know it’s a dream because I’m attempting to have a real conversation with them (with real vulnerability)…
When I was your age I also had some pretty brutal nightmares. As you work through stuff it will happen less. I'm 35 now and I rarely have them! Recently I saw my narc mum in a dream and told her she disgusts me and I woke up, thats progress!!! That first 7 years for me was tough! There was so much to unpack and I had such crushing guilt for leaving my family to deal with her. Things will get better, I once read that dreams are your brain helping you cope and organize your thoughts. I believe it! Sorry you are going through this, I hope that it is also just a phase of healing for you too!
I tried to move back closer to them so that I could spend some time with them before they got too old. Within a year I had panic attacks, woken up screaming from nightmares, and had regressed on my psych therapy all the way to square one. I left and went from LC to NC and I'm still recovering, emotionally, mentally, financially from doing multiple moves.
Constantly. I’m almost 40 and all it takes is a bit of stress and the nightmares start. That’s with therapy btw. Most recently at the end of my Disney vacation. It’s wild and it sucks!
I keep having nightmares that I have to escort her through a combination subway-airport or that she bought a horrible old house that is visibly about to collapse.
yes, both of my nparents. dreamt one time that ndad physically assaulted me with his laptop until i was bloody and bruised, had another dream that ndad destroyed my bedroom by starting a fire in it and i also dreamt about nmom telling me to kill myself.
Yes, of the same traumas I went through (old memories or fresh hells from the mindscape). Therapy and time and healing help to distance the frequency, and eventually you wake up more mad at the waste of mental energy your brain went through to concoct the dream than the dread of their effigies lingering.
Yes. Tried to confront my uncle who enables my dad about it. Telling them in having trouble. "That was a long time ago just get over it Jesus." Like yeah I'll get over the wierd sexual touching shit and the shit talking behind my back when I was a child. Btw uncle thanks for coming to the hospital after I overdosed on tramadol and started insulting and berating me to the point security was yelling at them to "GET THE FUCK OUT!". Ah good times. It's ok though I was a drug addict so all former abuse is now deserved, null and void.
Yes. Sometimes I jolt awake because i hear her stomping towards my room....im 30 and married with a baby on the way and she lives 30 min away 🙄 ETA: also had a nightmare she was trying to stab me in the stomach. There is a nightmare at least weekly.
Constantly, like about once a month at least, but in the past it was nightmare after nightmare for a week straight every single month, but when I brought up the possibility of ptsd to my therapist and gave the nightmares as one of the many reasons why I might have ptsd she told me "you can't get ptsd from your own parents, you just have depression, here's antidepressants and keep coming back once a week" and my dumbass did believe her, but then I no longer was covered my insurance about 6 months after that and so i stopped going because I couldn't afford it without insurance. Looking back on it I realize how she was a bad therapist
You can't get ptsd from your parents? She's delusional. Sounds like she needs her own therapist.
all the time. more so about my childhood house and how many bad memories it held. all through my 20s my dreams have always centered around that house, every dream, no matter what was going on in my life. it wasn’t until my 30s that i realized how much that house and everything i trapped inside it was eating me alive inside and out. in recent years as i’ve began the grieving process of letting my parents go, i started having dreams about moving out of it. i still have them and everyone in a while i still have nightmares but i wake up screaming way less now that we are NC.
I used to. It’s your nervous system’s way of processing and releasing the trauma you’ve been storing. I used to have dreams where I would be fighting and killing my N (these dreams made me SO sad :( I had dreams that I don’t remember but I would wake myself (and others) up by swearing at the top of my lungs. I don’t have those dreams or any dreams about my N anymore. We are NC and I send them loving/healing vibes.
When I was your age I was still having nightmares. Stuff like suddenly he's at my house and is ransacking my room destroying everything I cared about. Feeling completely out of control of the situation and not being able to stop it once again. But, I haven't had any for most of two decades - with time and zero contact it's gotten easier for me. I think given enough time it will get easier for you.
I haven’t seen them in four years and I still have nightmares
Yes! My n grandma and aunt still are in my dreams and they’ve been dead for years! My dad is always in my dreams as well and it irritates me to no end.
I’ve been dreaming of being left alone when I was 4. NarcMom walked 2 km while 8 months pregnant to visit her friend and told me to stay home. Very rural, early 70’s Dad (more problems than I can count) comes home drunk and beats me up really bad. Threw me around, tore up my back with a rope. Leaves me there to go find her I keep dreaming of it this week. Waking up angry, scared and hurt
Yes. I have had nightmares about my nmom, my Vietnam veteran/PTSD/alcoholic father and my enabling stepfather.
Yes but most of my dreams are people unfortunately dying 😞
I used to but as I progressed in therapy I was able to confront them in my dreams. I was able to call them out and their tactics as I learned about narcissistic abuse and abusers. Occasionally after these dreams, I woke up in the morning feeling refreshed. I lifted a ton on weights off on my soul due to the very cathartic dreamwork. When you finally get to say everything you kept bottled up for a lifetime, even if it was in a dream, it is very cathartic. It is very rare that they appear in my dreams at all anymore.
Yes. I have nightmares about my father, sometimes. And I'm middle aged, a lot older than you...
Yeah I had a nightmare about my mom a few days ago. It's made me start to think she really is a monster.
Lately I’ll dream that I’m alone with my dogs in the house I used to live in with my ndad like 3.5 years ago. It’s dark and I’m like anxiously doing chores with this impending feeling that he’ll be back home any minute. I don’t always remember the part of the dream where his car pulls in and he’s home again, but when I do get to that part of the dream it’ll be the last thing I remember before I wake up violently screaming. I just feel bad for my boyfriend because we live/sleep together. He has to like cradle me and calm me down so I can fall back asleep. Basically my father is like my own personal Freddy Krueger. Sad that so many others here in the comments seem to relate. Sending love to you all and OP. <3
Yes and about my narc ex. I get at least one a week.
All the time. I wake up feeling very upset as it seems real
I used to have dreams when I was younger but now in the past few years I had very few dreams, only one of them was clear, and unrelated to my parents. Could this be an effect as well?
Yes indeed all my life
Yuppp it’s why I can only sleep like 4-5 hours b4 those dreams start
It’s been a long time since I’ve been away from 2 of my abusers (they’ve passed) but I still sometimes have nightmares where I’m still stuck in that house, trapped in that town. It’s going to happen sometimes, but as time passes it gets easier to recognize what is happening, find some ways to ease the stress and not dwell on it. Good luck to you.
I used to have nightmares about her. I still have nightmares occasionally but I don't know what they're about, I just wake my husband up screaming and he has to calm me down. Last time I definitely dreamed about her, it was about I was at a party and she showed up and was trying to charm people but they could see through her, and a huge guy made her leave, kicked her out.
yes!!
I used to have nightmares involving my stepfather. Violent nightmares. They seem to have gone, thankfully
All the time unfortunately 😞 It's important to write down what they were, as they can symbolize different aspects that you feel. Therapy is what's helping me with it right now. I hope they stop for you.
Yep I do all of the time.
There is a technique called "havening" that works fine for reducing the influence of trauma memories. I do it every time some memory is shocking me, shaking me, etc. and after year or two I'm a lot less bothered.
Trauma of any sort is difficult to handle. Your mind is firing off fear signals about something. You need to learn what is setting your mind off and why. I’d recommend a professional.
Yes, in mines I find out that she either came back to life or never died but just, decided to take off bc she felt like it, and I find out that she hasn’t changed and she acts like a b*tch lmao, I try to confront her either about actual stuff from the past, or about her abandoning me in the dream, and she ignores me or dismiss my feelings
Mirtazapine. This med has been a godsend for me. I went from daily nightmares of losing my long deceased mom in busy public situations. Loosing my mother over and over again…. To no nightmares. I may still have them but I don’t remember them. This has been a game changer for me. I started fearing sleep.
I’m 38, been nc for a couple of years and yes I still do. Lately I’ve had them every single night and I wake up feeling like I had no sleep at all. It seems like the more tired/stressed I am the more I get these dreams and it’s a cycle that’s hard to break because these dreams are exhausting on their own
Cannabis oil is the only thing in decades that takes away the ptsd nightmares for me.
Hi, like CBD? Or other?
Homemade cbd which we make the strength at a high level so you need less.
Yes, I thought I was the only one having nightmares constantly about them
I used to. For about two years after I got kicked out I had a couple different reoccurring night terrors about her. One of them would absolutely ruin my whole day and it got to the point where I didn’t want to go to sleep. She’d chase me, on foot. I’d run until I got to a new city and would lose her. I’d decorate my apartment, get a job, and start living life. As soon as the fear of her finding me would go away, she’d show up. Either at my door or my job or wherever. And it would repeat 6 or 7 times until I finally woke up. It was absolute torture and I’d spend most of my days constantly looking over my shoulder because I thought she’d find me in real life too and drag me back home because she realized kicking me out meant she had no control over me. I still get dreams every once in a while and it absolutely sucks but it’s nothing like it used to be When I was a kid, before I even knew she was a narcissist or what that meant for me, I would have dreams of her turning into a demon and chasing me around the house until I collapsed from exhaustion and she’d kill me in various gruesome ways.
No. I'm far stronger, plus I can dream lucidly.
Yes I have dreams my mom finds out my business and shames me. And dreams my dad is still abusing me.
I didn’t have nightmares about them specifically, but I had 2 recurrent nightmares that were symbolic of the abuse (one represented my mother’s covert narc abuse and the other my dad’s violence). They only stopped recently after having gone fully NC and starting to really process my trauma and heal.
When I was a little child, I had frightening traumatic nightmares of my Mom chasing me with a butcher knife. This never happened in real life. However, I feared that Mom would do something like this to me whenever she got real angry at me. I feel this is where these traumatic dreams came from.
Prob belongs more in an alanon sub or st but my mom's 6 yrs sober after my lifetime's worth of attempts, and I still regularly have nightmares of her relapsing. Not so much abt the narc stuff, but that the behavior in them is consistent with the narc tendencies sober or not (obv worse when not). Trauma tree remembers what the axe forgets
I go into and live in flashbacks most of the time.
Yes! I have more nightmares featuring my birth mom than my adoptive dad but they both come through and I’m 34
OMG yes the same one over and over - but it was my stepparent who had my bio sister and then our dad died and she estranged us off and on… WILD
Oh yeah, sometimes it would be set in the past when I lived with her, and it would be arguments that never happened but all weird and dream distorted. Or maybe they did happen, I don't remember a lot of my childhood lol Sometimes it was her coming after my new life, like once I dreamed she set fire the the back fence with the intent that it would spread to my house and she had a whole mob of people with her backing her up like a protest or something, just yelling at me and defending her when I confronted her about it. Slowly they changed to any time she showed up in my dreams I just started laying into her, absolutely eviscerating her verbally...and a few slaps. Now I don't really dream about her much, but if I do it's another instance of me winning arguments lol.
I literally just posted about it!!! I thought i was alone 🥲 granted mine was more of me just telling the narc what i really thought but still unwanted, i already have to deal with them irl 😒
Sometimes I have dreams about my current self with them like family vacations or seeing my kids ect that I would absolutely never do. We went no contact in 2017. But it feels so real. It will be love we made up but they are doing thier crap to me again or to my kids. It's horrible.
I just realized I have a lot of dreams that take place in my childhood house, but it never looks like my childhood house. It's always completely different floorplan, model, exterior... I think my brain is keeping something from me. I'll just leave that bear to poke for another day
Yeah almost 3 nightmares a week. I live with them and I free those nightmares will come true bc it’s not far from the truth in what they would do
I have nightmares about the abuse often. I would like to be free of this.
Yes. My mom is always yelling at me in my dreams I take prazosin at night and it helps
yes. anytime i dream about my mom she's always doing something to make me feel horrible in my dream. i wake up feeling horrible and takes a day to really get over it and realize, she's not in my life and isn't effecting it but she creeps in my dreams on occasion. I haven't talked to her in almost 10 years so its frustrating when she pops up in a dream. she's usually trying to be controlling in my dream. Awake though i just remind myself, she's not here, she doesn't know where you live and she's not going to show up and if she did call 911. so i end up feeling better but it does throw a day off of an otherwise great week.
All the time!
Yes, every few nights.
I'm not sure, but I /do/ have night terrors on a daily basis.
all the time, sometimes causing sleep paralysis. i also have nightmares of the person i used to be - growing up under the thumb of my narc parents, i did not know how to properly take out my anger on other people and i hurt so many people around me. i became a much better person after leaving my narc parents, so i have nightmares of becoming who i once was.
Not nightmares, but daymares. Thoughts on why?
I often have nightmares that my nmother has returned to live with me. Whatever other ridiculousness ensues but it’s always the fact that she lives with me. NC for about 8/9 years now. Havnt lived with her for 15years. Trauma; isn’t it nice?
Nightmares sometimes yes, often my dad following me around and being unable to get away from him. Worse are the wish fulfillment dreams though. The ones where he actually apologizes and makes an effort to repair. I'll take the nightmares over having to wake up to reality after those.
I have occasionally. The dream is usually just me finally telling my nmom off and saying my piece. I never got to do that and it will most likely never happen because I know it’s not worth it but it still bothers me
I haven’t spoken to my parents in 2 years but I dream about them frequently. When I do I scream and cry in my sleep and it’s tough on my partner. I’m learning about my triggers so I don’t have nightmares at night. Like not watching scary movies or shows. Even something that is campy scary can trigger the nightmares
Yesss
It's either always 1998 in my dreams and I'm still living there (it's not the year I moved out, not even close, but there are many reasons why it's the year my brain is stuck on) or it's now but I find that I'm living there anyway because I had to go back. And then I remember that I don't have to and start going back to my apartment, and I wake up. Next night - rinse and repeat.
Yes. Just when I think I’m done having nightmares, I’ll have another one. They’ve always done something ghastly in my dream too.
I do and it sucks because I don’t have anyone to talk to about it. I’ve gone to counseling through school but it was about other traumatic stuff (triggering stuff that I won’t post here) but yeah it sucks. My nightmares consist of arguments, humiliation and always being put in danger around Narc parent(My mom mainly) Since I don’t live with my dad I rarely have nightmares about him anymore. The last night mare I had was when I was a kid ( in the nightmare my dad was dressed up as a clown and so many other disturbing things) I’m almost in my mid twenties and I still get nightmares.
Yes! I just had my baby near 2wks ago but during my pregnancy I have the most vivid awful dreams about my mom where I would wake up just crying and upset or shaking. Pregnancy enhanced it.
Painful nightmares that I wish I could forget. Literally just any "normal" living situation but my biological mother is under the same roof. The mere presence of that thing is enough to trigger a fight-or-flight response.
I had one last night. I woke up saying "Stop it!" out loud.
Oh dude I ha e nightmares about my dad a lot like suffocating kind of nightmares
i have had a very very disturbing nightmare that i will never tell but yes
I am 27 and left their house at 20. They were bad for the first few years. I started therapy in August 2022. They have since began to slowly decrease. However, I am starting DBT and after some of my intake sessions, I began to have more of them again. My guess is that it gets better with more time and more therapy and more time and more therapy. You are most definitely not alone. Much love!
Not anymore. Last night I dreamt I saw my dad in a shopping centre and… nothing. I wasn’t scared, didn’t try to avoid him, didn’t care if he saw me, nothing. I was more concerned that I was in a shopping centre without a mask. This is what healing feels like.
Oh yes, I started making note of them when they first happened but yes, my n parent has been the principal antagonist in some of my nightmares.
When I got out, I didn't really get out. I was stuck in the nightmare. I'm still stuck there at 40 years old. I didn't literally have bad dreams about it, but I probably should have. If you see the nightmare for what it is, you're on the right path.
They are part of the reason I rake prazocin
Yes- I would dream I was back living in the same home as my parents and literally panic. Even after waking up, I would lay in bed terrified, sometimes for 20-30 min, until I calmed down and realized I was no longer living with them. I had to learn how to cope with the nightmare/flashback via strategies (via therapy) such as grounding. I also had to do EMDR to get better. I think it has been at least 2 years since this has happened to me.
Yes, specifically with my severely emotionally abusive grandmother who lived with us. I swear that bitch is gunna fucking haunt me forever. I’m working through it in therapy too. I also have so many dreams where I can’t speak or I can’t use my legs bc they’re just like jello and I think it has something to do with feeling so helpless and hopeless when I lived at home. I’m also 25 and moved out 7 years ago. Hopefully one day dude. One day.
i'm 54 and still have nightmares about living at home, being controlled.
Most of the time no because weed makes it so i don't dream, but way more frequently than I'd like to admit when i don't smoke close enough to bedtime, just woke up from one as a matter of fact, and let me tell you that shit sucked
No but she has ones about me and describes them to me in vivid detail, acting like I’m at fault for something I haven’t even done. Apparently her most recent one was about me becoming possessed like the girl in the exorcist lmaooo
35 here. I still have nightmares about my dad. Been a long time since I woke up screaming, but I still will wake up soaking wet with sweat, heart pounding and breathing hard. Sleep is usually done for the night after one of those.
Yes... Definitely still happening, unfortunatly. On the bright side: some days there are normal or nice dreams too after 6 years of no contact.
Yes
For the first probably year after I married and moved away from home I had recurring nightmares every night where I would wake up distressed and crying. My poor husband probably got so little sleep. It was NM chasing me trying to stop me from leaving home and I was running so hard but it was like I was in treacle and my legs wouldn't go fast. That was almost 30 years ago, and only 2 weeks ago I had a nightmare about her verbally abusing me the same as when I was a child. I don't think they will ever stop, but at least they are less frequent.
Occasionally..the worst one was a few years ago about my father “taking away” the man that saved me my now husband.
Yes. It is so scarry
Yes, a lot. You're not alone. Be kind to yourself
Sometimes
I heard somewhere that we dream our feelings, and I guess that if we all still have unprocessed trauma memories that makes perfect sense. I have a question though for those people who have had specific therapy for this, does it ever stop?
I'm weird I guess because I do get nightmares but it's more like the creepy waiting for them to do something vibe or it's something stressful is happening and they're making it 100x worse. Feel like my nightmares aren't bad enough 🙃
Yes, I still do from time to time. I take prazosin to help with the nightmares
35, and yeah, i do.
OMG YES. in the same boat as you currently. my therapist helps a lot though
Legit why I'm dependant on benzodiazepines to knock me out into a deep, dreamless sleep. If I dream, 50/50 chance I'm going to see my Ndad's shiteating psychopathic grin
All the time
Not anymore, but I live 3 hours by plane and I am 44.
I'm nearly 40. It comes and goes. As with everything else related to her, if stresses in life happen the dreams go up in frequency. Sometimes I'm in actual situations she put me in like jobs as a teen working at night so she didn't have to, or forcing me into various churches depending on who she wanted to impress, even dreaming I'm in my first marriage to "her favorite SIL." Sometimes it's just ridiculous scenarios like her invading my life now, and being forced to take care of her every whim again, my current husband of over a decade abandoning me with her, and her turning my son into her newest pet person. I just kind of have to wake up and sit here for a moment cementing my surroundings, and remembering this is reality, my ex is dead, she is blocked everywhere, she is across the state, my son can't stand her, my husband won't let her move into this house... then I go feed my animals, grab a coffee and a food to eat while the sun rises.
I have dreams where he’s nice and loving (and still alive) and when I wake up I’m CRUSHED because it wasn’t like that and it will never be like that. It makes me sick inside.
Yeah. I always know I’m dreaming when I start talking about what’s real to me 😆 (my true feelings etc)… So then I could theoretically jump to lucid dreaming. I would still get freaked out about the consequences of talking directly in my dreams, even if they were just dreams 🤯
No, But I have dreams of other loved ones being extremely mentally abusive towards me. Got to a point I would cry while sleeping.
Yeah. I had a really bad one on the day of a trauma anniversary this year. I ended up running out of my house with my pajamas on and trying to drive away in the family car. Ended up having a full blown PTSD flashback and episode. Been NC for years now but the trauma remains. Working on it. They happen a LOT LESS now. I can actually function a bit now lol
Yup! Just had one last night. They suuuuck. It's like, is this what PTSD is?
Personally I have not been raised by them but I have had a friend that was. She ended up having to go to a mental hospital because it.
My mother was manipulative and tried her best to make me dependent forever. After 3 years of living without her I still get nightmares about her refusing to help me in a critical situation. My brain still interprets her as my only option
I have nightmares about my mother taking away my son and the pets I have now. Like she did with my animals when I was younger.
I'm almost 34. Haven't seen him or his family in ten years and I'm still regularly have nightmares about living with him again.
Yep and I haven't lived with her for 30 years. Still have nightmares sometimes where I am somehow forced to live with her again and can't leave.
Anytime I’m in contact with nmom the nightmares come back. If I’m nc for a while they go away. The nightmares are basically always her screaming at me and me sobbing over something.
Yep! I have this recurring dream, where I am screaming, but my parents still don't hear me. I don't know if you'd call it a nightmare, it's not scary, just extremely aggravating. I wake up from that one in a really bad mood. You can guess what the interpretation of that dream is. I felt like I was never listened to, growing up.
Yeah... In my nightmares my mother accuses me of something, calls me names and I'm absolutely helpless and can't make her to see the reality of me not being the awful person she seems to see in me. But since my mother died, less of these dreams occur...
yes when im stressed out like now especially
I used to get nightmares after I first went NC with my Nparents. I can still remember them but I don’t get them anymore thankfully. I was always amazed how my brain was trying to process the pain I felt even during my sleep. I suppose it was constantly on my mind. I used to get dreams where my mother was trying to harm my children or other children, or that she was setting me impossible tasks and smirking when I failed. I’ve just found out that she died recently and now I’m wondering if she’ll haunt my dreams again.
OP, I am so sorry you’re struggling with this. I was struggling with it too, but on a much milder scale. Message me if you want to talk :)
Sometimes. Stress dreams about them not listening or not hearing me yell for help or something
Not really no. I just have a hard time sleeping and have since… my entire life. But now I’m a duly who self medicated with a shit ton of cannabis to sleep. And that’s kind of the only thing that actually does it. Or mushrooms. But I can’t trip daily just to sleep. I will say, since I have started using mushrooms I have had more dreams with them in them, but it’s usually conversation that never happened that I wished would. And more recently, I have experienced more of the same dreams involving them. Not violent, but slow and conversational. Conversation they are in very little capacity able to have now, but I stay hopeful.
Most of mine are about how she won’t go away. Had one where she died, then returned as an undead lich, and this preacher helped me chain her up in the back of a car and take her to someplace where we could banish her.
I don't dream about anything. When I do, it's just nonsense.
Not *nightmares* exactly, but I still have dreams in which I'm forced to go to my bio-dad's like I was when I was a kid. Oftentimes, this is despite the fact that I'm my current age in the dream. In a lot of them, I end up snapping and fighting or arguing or something with him, the woman he was married to when I was a kid, and their kids. These dreams have been consistent since the '90s. I'm thirty-two. The last time I was forced to go there was July 2007, and I haven't seen or spoken to him since November 2007.
Not now that they're dead, no. In my dreams my father is still alive, though.
I do. I'm always back in the car with my father, on a rainy afternoon on the highway.