Awful dream

[PattiHNC]

Last night, I dreamed that DH tried to convince me to kill myself, to spare me and the rest of the family any more suffering. In the dream, I seriously considered it, but backed out. He then tried to think of a way to kill me and make it look like I did it. I cannot imagine anything like this happening, but it makes me wonder about my mental state! Anybody else have similar dreams, or am I just losing it?

[jreagan70]

Dreams are the brain's way of dealing with fears and sorting out details that can't be worked out in real time. Sometimes the imaginative way the brain sorts through things can be quite scary and alarming, but they're still just dreams.

Dreams are a great way for the brain to give us ideas that it's too cluttered with during the day and during conscious thought. They're also a way for the brain to show us what our fears are without the conscious thoughts of the day putting us into denial.

Even as an adult, I still have those dreams where I'm late to school for a test I haven't studied for. Or I'm naked in public, or my teeth are falling out or something else bizarre. They're just dreams that show me that I'm under stress about something and I need to chill.

I don't think you need to be worried about your mental state. It sounds like your dream life is doing exactly what it's supposed to be doing -- letting your fears out in a safe way. This kind of purpose and action of dreams is one of the reasons our brains (when this function is working properly) suppress our physical activity during dreams -- so we don't actually get up and start acting out these wacky scenarios. Dreams allow us to deal with scary things while we can't get physically hurt (again, when things are working correctly).

If you keep having dreams like this one, it isn't the dream that you should be worried about -- it's the stress that's causing the dreams that needs to be dealt with.

The time to really worry is if you're hearing voices or getting urges to actually hurt yourself or someone else, or you're feeling paranoid, while you're awake and conscious, while your brain doesn't have the same suppressive mechanism active to stop you from acting it all out.

[LaurieB]

nightmares

How uncomfortable and scary!
As my MS progresses, I have more and more nightmares. My neuro calls them night terrors because they feel so real, so present that I scream and yell out loud.
I feel very shook up afterward's and often a family member wakes me during them to help me out.

I'm sorry you had that unnerving experience.

[J-Bo]

Sorry you're having such disturbing dreams, Patti. It's no wonder, though, when you consider the scary things we're facing with this awful disease. I agree with jreagan that it's probably just your mind trying to work through things that are going on. If I judged my mental state based on some of the really messed up things in my dreams, I would have considered committing myself years ago!

[tortis]

nightmares

Wa! J-Bo hits that right on.
" If I judged my mental state based on some of the really messed up things in my dreams, I would have considered committing myself years ago!"
PEACE

Tortis

[PattiHNC]

thanks!

Thanks for the responses, I feel better now. I was kinda worried that this dream might be a result of a subconscious urge to end all this. Consciously though, I would never consider it, and I know DH would never want me to.