I had a stupid nightmare that I was home alone, heard a noise from a closet, went to investigate and saw the closet door open (yikes!) and a stranger emerge (maybe I watch too many scary movies?). The stranger then ran towards me. In the dream I realized I didn’t have time to access any weapon, and the home invader was on me in about 1 second (probably very similar to the time one would have in a real attack, especially if one wasn’t paying attention). I froze up, paralyzed with fear. Fortunately I immediately woke up, heart pounding.
It got me thinking: if this was the way I responded to an attack in a nightmare, is it how I’d react to a real life scenario? Hoping the answer is “no.”
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Interesting post. Thank you for baring your soul to strangers here.
I am not a licensed psychologist, so I’ll give you my brief two cents.
Dreams are complex. Sometimes they are an attempt by your subconscious to rectify existential or material conflict. Sometimes they are wish fulfillment. Sometimes they are a way for your brain to entertain itself. Since I’m assuming yours doesn’t fall into the wish fulfillment realm, let’s assert that your subconscious is trying to resolve something. Perhaps you have doubts in your own ability to defend from the stranger in the closet. If so, you could take some more training to boost your confidence.
Or, metaphorically, maybe the “stranger in the closet” represents another side of your personality that you feel powerless to stop, in which case some honest self-reflection might be in order.
Or…
Bottom line, I wouldn’t lose any sleep over it, unless it’s recurring. Then maybe you’d be wise to talk to someone who is licensed and specializes in such things.
Meantime, stay safe, sane and happy out there!
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Crazy dream @Gary35 .
If you think too much about such scenarios, they eventually come real in your subconscious.
I was afraid about plain flying and fast cars long time ago and experienced similar dreams.
I always woke up just before my “death”.
My son started being very interested in firearms and recently he had nightmare about being in gunfight.
Hopefully the dream responses has nothing to our real ones. We definitely think in reality.
Human brain is really complicated… Thank God we always survive nightmares.
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Thanks for your input. Fortunately such dreams don’t occur often. One detail I omitted was that the bad guy was wearing some sort of security guard uniform. I’ve never had any encounter with cops or security guards, so this wrinkle seems pretty random.
Since our subconscious writes the scripts for most dreams, I’m always curious what prompted them. It’s simple sometimes, like you watched a scary movie before you went to sleep and had a scary dream, similar to the movie. Other times it’s totally out of left field.
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I got tired on nightmares as a child and taught myself to direct my own dreams if they should turn to nightmares…
Used to dream on a regular basis with my ADD, have a design for something I wanted to build, go to sleep and direct my dreams on constructing it, then troubleshoot possible issues, and redesign it to a final version with bugs worked out…
Didn’t ever get much rest… Have meds now that help, no longer dream, go from lights out to waking up…
In the case of the nightmares, that last moment. When I would start directing them, analyze the dream within the dream, check the various camera angles, assess, and determine other outcomes if this move was made, what would be the corresponding counter move, etc…
Teaching myself directed dreaming while being ADD might not have been the best idea but it did end the nightmares…lol
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Have you ever been so surprised that you are startled? Imagine you are all relaxed and you walk into the bathroom and a stranger is there. You are not using situational awareness because it is late and you are home. It is going to scare the wee bee gee bees out of you! As for a dream, I was going to go out on patrol when I was in the Marine Corps and they would not let me take a weapon, < dream ) I relate this to the talks of gun confiscations, police defunding, and all the rioting.
As for your dream, have you ever watch videos of people scaring other people? Watch their reaction! You can actually train for that.
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That’s a good point about the absence of situational awareness contributing to the startle reaction. Technically, the “situation” of being at home would tend to lower one’s awareness, yes.
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Once in a while I’ve had a dream that was so absurd, I realized within the dream that it had to be a dream and forced myself to wake up.
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Maybe, there’s more to this subconsciously.
Since the attacker was wearing “Security” attire, it could be that you fear becoming comfortable in your sense of security. We become “comfortable” in our lives because nothing happens “to us.” Our view of reality is shaped by our experiences.
Your dream could be a manifestation of fearing becoming calloused to a lack of bad things happening to you. Which is why we train so diligently. So in a moment of extreme exigency, our subconscious and muscles react as a reflex to the danger.
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Maybe you got something there!
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I’ve woke myself up swinging and hitting something really hard. So glad I haven’t hit my wife like that. My dreams are nightmarish. Always being chased. Lots of different scenarios but always some sort of confrontation and evading. Enough. Cant talk too much about them. It’s a trigger.
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Wow, pretty extreme. Don’t sleep with a gun under your pillow!
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Real life nightmare… a female friend came home one night to an uneasy feeling that something was amiss in her apartment. While sitting on the commode she noticed 3 fingers holding a closet door closed. She immediately called a friend quietly explaining the situation while she faked pooping. Her friend rushed to her aid, beating hell out of the next door neighbor hiding in the closet who had a screwdriver ground down to a point in his hand…The police were called and a criminal went to jail…
Of course I left out a lot of detail but this was a nightmare that ended well.
Dreams are not reality IMO however, I believe dreams can impart a sort of wisdom for those who are able to interpret them. Always seek that wisdom and follow your gut instincts.
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You too? The worst part of the evasion is that I’m not armed and whenever I do manage to incapacitate a pursuer, it is in a way where I can’t recover their weapon.
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In the Bible, God used dreams to give both discernment and warn.
Also keep into mind you might have ate too much chicken for supper, passed out, and experienced a nightmare does not mean its from God.
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That can be used to your advantage.
I used to freeze when startled. After replaying these things over and over my brain developed a new response. Now whenever any buddies think it would be funny to startle me they end up the butt of their own prank. The new response of course is to punch whatever started me…hard.
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Imaginary scenarios are part of good training.
I’m doing this as well. But never had bad dreams about these things.
My guess is that nightmares comes whenever we afraid about something.
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OMG, that IS a nightmare! Good advice, too!
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The dreams I consider possibly spiritual are the ones featuring my deceased relatives. Especially when in the structure of the dream I remember that the loved one is gone, yet here she is, talking to me.
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Since Gary was brave enough to post his vulnerability and start such an interesting conversation…I’ve decided to weigh in. I’m a psychotherapist and as Mr.Plastic points out, dreams are complex…and often symbolic. Dreams with themes can last decades until you figure out the message, then - like magic - they stop. We have three reactions to fear/terror/trauma - fight, flight, freeze. The truth is, no matter how much training you have, you can be caught off guard and freeze in an attacker scenario. It’s all about survival and the primitive brain.
Here is an example of the power of the mind… if someone had a phobia usually it is treated with exposure therapy. Slowly exposing the person to the thing feared most. For example, a fear of snakes might be treated with exposure to snakes but…it isn’t necessary to have a live snake tucked away. An image of a snake or eyes closed thinking about a snake can produce the same phobic reactions as being in the presence of a live snake. Guided exposure to the snake in this way, can also activate a tolerance and eventually no reaction to snakes or minor reaction.
The amazing part of this is the capability of the human brain to create a somatic reaction in the body with nothing more than a thought! That is the mind body reaction. That is why we awaken from nightmares in a sweat, heart pounding, screaming. The mind reacts to imagination (or imagery in a dream) the same as real life.
The question is, what does the dream mean to you? What does a closet (for example) or a stranger mean to you? For one person, a closet might be a safe place, for another, a claustrophobic nightmare. Everyday stress and anxiety get replayed in dreams. And there are nightmares and disturbing dreams reflective and caused by traumatic events. This reliving of trauma themes is one of the symptoms of PTSD.
Just a dream, thank God. And then there is the spiritual aspect but that is for another conversation…
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