BellaOnline Forums Religion and Spirituality Dreams My Scary Recurring Dream

For years I've had the same element that keeps reoccurring in my dreams. I am in between a sleep and dream state. I can see the room I am sleeping in. I am conscious, but I can't move at all. The more I try to move the more frantic I get. In the latest reincarnation of this dream I kept "waking up" and going back to sleep. Although, I wasn't really fully awake. I would end one dream and then go the the "half-awake" state and then start another dream. So, I am having this series of dreams where I seemingly wake up and fall back asleep. I can't remember the dreams but they are troubling and very active. In the final dream I slide into the state where I am conscious but paralyzed and I try to fight it. I start fighting with some invisible force. "You can't hold me down. You're not going to hold me back..." and I'm cursing at this force holding me down. "Let me go, let me go!" And all at once I'm really awake. Out of breath and tired. Help.

It sounds like there is something in your life that you are really struggling against - but are unwilling to admit what it is. Your dream state is willing to fight against it, but your subconcious is still afraid to let you fully face it; which is why you keep hovering in this twilight area where you are fightin something that you just can't quite make out.

This is an area that you are going to need to explore and face head on. If it is a trauma from your past, you may need counseling to help you deal with it. If it is something in your present that you are afraid to deal with - then you can try journaling or writing it out on paper to get your "demons" out of your head and onto something more concrete where you can face them logically instead of in your nightmare world. (It could be something as easy as fighting against a boss who seemes to keep you from getting a job promotion to something as complicated as a mother who is constatntly putting you down for deeds you do.)

Only you can determine *exactly* what this unseen foe is, however.

Thank you for responding. I appreciate your insight. I figured it was something like that but for the life of me cannot pinpoint what is troubling me because I am naturally a nervous person and I am ALWAYS worrying about something.

Journaling might be a great outlet for you then. It would be a way for you to "collect" your worries in one place and see them in a tangible light.

Sometimes worries tend to grow in our minds to catastrophic proportions because we let them fester like an infected wound. We take the road of "ignore them and they'll go away", when actually it works the other way around. An unfaced worry tends to grow in our mind until it becomes a fear or even a phobia. Yours are trying to break out through your dreams.

By writing out your worries you can look at them and see that they are manageable - or at least some of them are.

I wrote an article on fear that I think might be of some help, (If Aisling doesn't mind me putting a Spirituality link in here)

Fear: the Basic Evil

It has an exercise down at the bottom that talks abot how to write out decisions you have been making based on fear (or worry in your case). I think you might benefit from it. I hope you do at least.

Aisling never minds great links, great articles, and exceptional insights!

Michelle, I loved your article--it was especially timely in my own life.

Shelo3, when I first read your post I thought it sounded like sleep paralysis, but after reading about the "stuck" state it sounds more like what Michelle said. I think journaling is a great idea. When you journal you signal the unconscious that you are ready for an answer to a question. Then just relax and wait for the answer to come to you.

If you are having some sleep paralysis issues here is an article I wrote on the subject:

Sleep Paralysis

Thanks again, Michelle--you always have keen insights!

What is really funny, Aisling, is that I came back to read this thread and saw your article on sleep paralysis just as I was getting ready to start a new question thread. (We go round and round).

The past 2 nights I have been having horrid nightmares that I cannot wake from - but I can almost wake from, and I feel like if I can just move my body I could get out of it. I am totally paralyzed, can't move, can't scream - though I feel like I am - thought that I did (my husband said I didn't, normally he will wake me if I start screaming - nightmares have been a part of me for a very long time).

My body is so sore today, because I feel like I have been running in my dreams - I think it is because all of my muscles have locked down the past 2 nights.

Sorry I've been a little absent from the forum, Michelle.

I am sorry to hear about your bad time. What you are describing is, to me, just about the worst dreaming experience. I have, fortunately, not had many experiences like the one you describe but the ones I have had have left indelible impressions on me. I had one only a few months ago during a full on nightmare. Usually when I have nightmares I am able to wake myself up. But this time I was not only having the sleep paralysis but worse, I was aware that I was dreaming, aware that I was in a nightmare and aware that I could not wake up. Worse than the nightmare was the awful feeling that I was trapped in that state and felt like I always would be.

Sadly for me, that dream turned out to be something of a premonition as my waking life metaphorically ended up mirroring that state--I was trapped in a situation that I could next extricate myself from and it seemed like it would never end. Ironically, one of the few things that gave me comfort in my waking life was that dream--I thought, "Well you felt like this in your dream and you did wake up. It did end. This will too."

I think that sleep paralysis/unable to wake/trapped in a state can be a sign that there is something in our unconscious from which we feel we will never be free or will never escape. And I think that all of us have those things. I recently heard something that I thought was quite wise on that subject. I was talking with my therapist about sexual abuse issues and I said, "For crying out loud, when I am going to just get over this and quit whining about it?" And my therapist responded, "Never." At first I was a little angry but my therapist continued saying, "Everything that happens to us stays with us and it isn't just stored as memories--it is smells, colors, sounds and anything can trigger those things. It works the same way for all the wonderful things that happen to us as well. But when it involves something painful we want to make it go away, erase it, and then we proceed to beat ourselves up when emotions are triggered. It's because we equate remembrance of something painful with that event still controlling our lives. But really what is controlling our lives is the belief that there is something wrong with us for being human and touching all the parts of our lives that make us individuals--the beautiful events as well as the ugly."

I understand exactly what your therapist is talking about! I've tried to make this my life philosophy - to be thankful for the bad times in life as well as the good, because the bad times are what truly define who we are as a person.

I'm not sure what caused these dreams exactly. I couldn't remember them cleasrly the next morning (unfortunately) just the level of terror. Thankfully they have stopped, it was just a few nights of them.

I do know that I have been worried about my son's future a lot lately, so it may have had something to do with that.