BellaOnline Forums Religion and Spirituality Dreams Chase Dreams

Here's the latest Dreams article - it has some ideas on what chase dreams might mean to you:

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This article really hits home with me Aisling.

Ever since I was a teen I have had horrible nightmares of running and being chased by the faceless unknown.

Then after my rape in college they became a lot worse.

They were coupled with labyrinth type dreams and hiding.

These are still my most prevalent nightmares - even after years of therapy, and knowing why I dream what I dream. They are the ones that will wake me up screaming - or worse, won;t wake me up, and my husband has to.

Well my chase dreams always have to do with a giant. It is a coincidence -not- that after years of not seeing such a dream i had one last night. My dreams always have me trapped somewhere with a giant who is chasing me. Sometimes i "know" it is the devil, others it is just a giant from whom i have to get away. The environment varies from urban/night to hills...last night it was a kind of maze on a mountain side. I was there with other people and i was devising a plan to kill the giant, burn him to be exact. As we are being chased we find out that someone has stolen the oil we would use to burn him. After that i was trying to trap him/ get away while the others betrayed me by pushing me in his path etch.. I think i managed to escape, i usually do....

Chase + Giant + Maze

That makes me think there is some obstacle in your past that you are trying to overcome. And obviosuly a pretty significant one to you in order for your chaser to be a giant and not just some faceless being. You know this thing is huge.

Hi Michelle,

My chase dreams are more akin to sleep paralysis. I will know that something is coming for me but I can't move or cry out for help. I sympathize with the inability to wake up that you described because that's what usually happens in my dreams - I'll realize that I'm dreaming but can't become lucid and take control of the dream, nor can I wake up. I don't have them often anymore and I'm grateful for that because they're pretty icky stuff!

It's interesting that you mentioned your college rape and associated it with your chase dreams. I was sexually abused by a church minister as a child and spent many years in therapy dealing with the issue. The initial abusive incident occurred while I was on a choir trip in New Orleans. For some reason, I decided to go back there as some sort of act of reclamation. Every night I was there I had the most horrendous nightmares about something coming for me while I lay there completely paralyzed. I would finally wake up, go back to sleep, and have the same experience again. It was like this every single night. But after the trip was over, the nightmares stopped occurring so frequently. I think I finally felt like I had "done something" and wasn't so paralyzed by the abuse anymore.

I think the reason I still have the dreams and still lack the ability to gain lucidity or wake up is symbolic of that way in which I still allow myself to be controlled by the past. I think it's symbolic of being aware of the problem but unable to have complete mastery over it.

I think victims of sexual abuse and assault live with an unconscious insecurity - a feeling that no matter how careful they are, safety is precarious. Being aware of the feeling doesn't make it go away! I've had to learn to be nicer to myself and not get so angry about realizing I still have some psychic wounds left to heal.

Lux,

Njtriant,

I don't know how your chase dreams usually go, but it sounds like in this one you're actually confronting the giant. Like Michelle said, it sounds like it's some huge issue. The dream indicates as well that you are enlisting aid to help you confront the issue but in the end, you fear you can't trust them. I would interpret these people as parts of yourself you feel you cannot trust, the attitudes, actions, and feelings that lead to self-sabotage.

It is also interesting that your method of giant disposal is fire as fire is symbolic of transformation. Oil could be symbolic of the energy that is required to get the process going and that energy has been stolen. Is there something important you want to do but feel you can't? Is there some old habit or attitude that keeps leading you into trouble?

Oil lights lamps (among other things) and could be symbolic of some kind of "enlightenment" process that needs completion before taking on the giant task.

Lux,

My biggest problem is a definite,negative,attitude towards....anything. At times i feel like there is nothing "healthy" to make me happy. At times i might laugh my butt off with something bad happening and at others i get all righteous...
I tend to use the "side way", i bring ruin to things i create because i get bored and because i think that everything must have begging-middle-end. I am good at manipulating and i might engage in a "maciavellian" plot just for kicks ( as of yet i have not encountered a person that could get to the bottom of said plot)
The only exception is my Queen. She is my Virgin Mary,she is Holy, Pure and for her i am keeping myself in a very,very short leash.I feel i am becoming a far better person than i am,and i am doing it for her. Ironically because of all of these i keep myself in a distance from her. I will eventually "destroy myself" because i know that i can never be close to her. That will ruin me and i will have to take action before i lose control...

The "I'll get myself before someone else can get me" mindset.

I've been there.

It makes you feel like you are in control of your life, if even in a negative way, if you can be the person that sabotages you instead of someone else.

Of course, this is not what we think at the time. We tell ourselves we are "protecting" or "being realistic". But we are actually robbing ourselves of opportunities for happiness.

I can't remember what book I sa this is - I'm pretty sure it is from one of Lois McMaster BuJold's, "With great opportunity comes grest risk". That is the chance we have to take sometimes.

At this moment i am at a turning point. If it is for better or worse...is probably irrelevant. In the most optimistic scenario i do not get close enough to my queen. Maybe i will get things right, eventually but i feel i am running out of time.