"the only thing that worked to get rid of my nightmares was working through my trauma. It wasn't a quick fix......"

"You rarely have nightmares now because of the hard work you did facing your traumatic fears"




The above statements is why I highlighted “I don’t believe there is one correct way to go about it”

Dream interpretation is the result of dream analysis, but I didn’t mention dream interpretation in my post. Yes, the dream is a representation of another problem (A problem usually stuffed into the subconscious due to fear of facing it). I wouldn’t have known this if I didn’t have the nightmares to begin with. I thought nightmares were separate from my traumas/problems as many people do. You can tell them to work on their trauma, but if they think that the nightmares are different from their traumas, then they will keep having nightmares and worrying about the nightmares, and not the trauma. The cycle will repeat itself. We can tell them all day long to work on the trauma but some are more concerned with their nightmares, so it starts to get pointless.

I started with dream analysis and worked my way into self-awareness, and was able to see that my dreams were a symptom of the trauma. Healing doesn’t have to start off with working on your trauma first IMO, and then the nightmares will stop. I feel either way will work depending on the person.

Some people dream about killing their attacker (I did this) and this scares them. Maybe if they realized that death is not literal in dreams they wouldn’t be so scared of their dreams and would calm down and be able to focus on their trauma instead of thinking they are going to kill someone.

Another example, if some one dreams that they abused their child and as a result they are afraid to be around their child. If they knew that dreaming of abusing a child means that the child they are abusing in the dream is actually themselves they are abusing (by tormenting themselves with guilt over their molestation while awake) they will quit worrying about abusing their child and focus on their trauma. It’s hard to focus on your trauma if you think your going to kill some one or abuse your child…Yes?

So if a person learns that their dreams are not literal, and can quit being afraid of them first, they can then focus on the trauma, which in turn will calm the nightmares down. This is my point. It can go both ways.



Tammy