I don't think I'm the only one here, but maybe I am. One, why do we get nightmares and two why are mine so funky? A recap, I have gotten nightmares my whole life. People trying to kill me, being stuck in a tornado, ghosts and even some nightmares that are legit to real life experiences like trauama. The thing is when those nightmares come inmay wake up but I tend to pass back out quite quickly. Then I get nightmares where I am stuck as my birth gender and oh my word, do I wake up alright, and can't get back to sleep (as opposed to any other dream). The freak out from those dreams are unlike any others. Not sure what triggers this however, I get dysphoira still and sometimes bad, but even after having a great day and connecting to my dreams (like my college application or new job) I get these horrid nightmares. What's wrong in the brain?
Past hurt and subconscious fears will drive bad dreams.
I still have dreams of being at old schools, old jobs. I had a dream a while back where I was young again and pretty, BUT still trans. Even dreams can be dysphoric.
Dreams like that are actually normal. I've had the dreams of being in my old body, as well as dreams of school, places where I lived, etc. Every once in a while, I still get dreams that wake me up so bad that I cannot go back to sleep, for fear of having the dream recur. Right now, fire is the worst, since my most recent trauma (13 years ago) was when the mobile home I was living in was fire bombed.
Thanks girls!! So how y'all cope with it? The good news is I'm going to see a psychologist soon for my ptsd related symptoms. Didn't realize that being forced male for most of my life was actually that traumatic for my brain (according to those I talked to and now beginning to agree with)
Funny Josie, I recall waking up on November 4th 2015 around some reasonable time after having a dream that I was in 8th grade and I just came out as female and was living as female and was actually accepted. Random dream but that for me was a good one in any way a random dream can be xD . I have had dreams of being female and they are great! But the other ones not so much!
As for the fire, I still get worried when I see smoke on my way into town. My mother and I occasionally have olfactory hallucinations in which we smell smoke that aint there. It gets less intense, and less often, but only time will heal it.
I prefer the dreams in which I am undergoing SRS.
I have a few nightmares fairly regularly. One is that someone is breaking into the house or IN the house and I'm asleep and cant wake up. Another is an animal is chasing me and I'm trying to get home. The instant i get to the door and reach for the door handle it pounces and rips me apart. Another that I get even when I'm awake is the world shifting from 3d into 2d, zero depth perception. The first two I get from stress, and surprise, being trans you've got more stress than most. The second is fever. When I'm sick my brain dies weird things to my thoughts and vision.
I think it's normal to dream and have nightmares. How you let it affect you after can determine if you let them be harmful to you. Use logic, and a little humor. Let them slide off you.
Bari Jo
You're right. But why do nightmares even happen? I couldn't even get to sleep really last night due to anxiety over then
Quote from: SailorMars1994 on March 08, 2018, 08:18:14 AM
You're right. But why do nightmares even happen? I couldn't even get to sleep really last night due to anxiety over then
I have nightmares of being naked or becoming untucked in public. I always wake up feeling freaked out.
Quote from: Julia1996 on March 08, 2018, 08:51:45 AM
I have nightmares of being naked or becoming untucked in public. I always wake up feeling freaked out.
I have had similar. I'm not sure what it is but it recent weeks I have had dreams of master bating as a male (which is odd because I don't even do that nor enjoy it) that wakes me up in panic, and I feel that sense of panic while nightmare is taking place. I also had funky dreams of walking in to a wall of mirrors and seeing something that would resemble birth gender and wake up in panic and then last night around 3 am I awake from a dream that involves my felllw transgender roommate saying that she "can't do this" anymore and would stop transition which made me feel sick and then someone how i turn into birth gender. Same result I began to feel ill and sick and couldn't go back to sleep, and my insomnia has spiked as of late