Hi Kim,
Yes, it is normal for adults to have nightmares. But what is a nightmare?
Well - obviously it is a terrifying dream, but the interesting thing is that two people can have a similar dream and one will call it a 'dream' while the other calls it a 'nightmare'.
A nightmare is a dream, like any other dream, but one which the dreamer feels is more terrifying than usual.
Once you begin to interpret your dreams, the old terrifying dreams seem less so. They become more interesting - intriguing - because you begin to realise that they are pictures painted by your unconscious mind to get across a message and the quest then becomes to unravel and decipher that message.
It's more important to focus on why a dream might recur.
Recurring dreams happen when something in your waking life is recurring. Perhaps you are facing an issue, challenge, attitude or feeling that is creating a block for you. We can all be our own worse enemies! Our recurring dreams help us to identify our recurring waking life attitudes (etc) that we could do with solving. In solving them, we open up the road ahead. The recurring dream disappears and so does the recurring waking life situation.
How do we find the solution? First we interpret the dream to identify the block, then we apply one of a number of exercises (dream alchemy practices) to help change the unconscious belief/ conditioning that is blocking us.
(This is all discussed in my new book, Dream Alchemy, where you can look up your recurring dream and answer questions that will help you to identify your personal unique blocks. The dream alchemy practices are also supplied for you to follow.)
So, Kim, what does YOUR recurring nightmare mean?
You say you are not really an angry person "in life" and this is the key.
When we suppress angry feelings (i.e. are out of touch with our anger, past or present, in waking life), those feelings (anger in this case) will come up in our dreams. In the case of a recurring dream, a waking life situation that is happening for you BECAUSE you have not processed or felt anger from the past, is blocking your full-speed way forward.
Think of it this way: sometimes we work at not offending people, not saying that we feel angry (or whatever), not wishing to hurt someone, always wanting to project that we are a 'nice' person. This can result in a life of compromise - not BEING your true self, not permitting yourself to feel, or to do things differently - to stand out.
(Kim, the above was not meant to apply to you -it was just an example.)
In YOUR dream, Kim, you go back to the past to face a ghost of anger - THE ghost of your own anger - what you think you have left behind and dealt with but, unfortunately, as your dream shows, the old anger still haunts you.
You deal with this in your dream with force or with protection. A more healing path would be to embrace the ghost, to accept the anger and help the ghost to put that anger into words. To let the anger evaporate (rather than stay forced down in your unconscious mind wreaking havoc). To let love take the place of the anger. To let love guide you forward, unhampered.
If you get back here with some feedback, I'll post a suitable dream alchemy practice for you to do to put an end to the recurring nightmare and to add a touch of magic to your path ahead.
Jane Teresa Anderson |
