Recurring dream/nightmare, how do I break the cycle?

Most dreams contain messages that serve to teach us something about ourselves. Unfortunately many a times we forget what we dream about as we go about our daily routine. With recurring dreams, the message may be so important and/or powerful that it just will not go away. The frequent repetition of such dreams forces you to pay attention and confront the dream. The dream is trying desperately to tell you something. Such dreams are often nightmarish or frightening in their content, which also helps you to take notice and pay attention to them. Recurring dreams are quite common and are often triggered by a certain life situation or a problem that keeps coming back again and again. These dreams may recur daily, once a week, or once a month, but whatever the frequency, there is little variation in the dream content itself. It usually points to a personal weakness, fear, or your inability to cope with something in your life - past or present. The repetitive patterns in your dream can reveal some of the most valuable information on yourself. It may point to a conflict, situation or matter in your waking life that remains unresolved or unsettled. Or some urgent underlying message in your unconscious is demanding to be understood.

Following are some tips in overcoming your recurring dreams.

1. In understanding your recurring dream, you must be willing to accept some sort of change or undergo a transformation.

2. You must be willing to look within yourself and confront whatever you may find no matter how difficult it my be.

3. You must be able to look at the dream from an objective point of view. Try to get pass the emotional and reactive elements of the dream and get down to the symbolic images. Many times dreams are masked by elements that are disturbing preventing you to delve any deeper. This is a defense mechanism that your unconscious may be putting up.

4. Be patient. Do not get discourage if these dreams still recur even after you thought you have come to understand them.

5. Learn to accept yourself truly and fully.

Often times, once you discover what your recurring dream is trying to tell you, these dreams will change or altogether disappear.

Emotions expressed in dreams is a way for people to act out their feelings which they would not normally express if they were awake. This provides a "safe" outlet for these emotions instead of letting them be pent up. If you feel panic this indicates a lack of control and power in your life. You may be feeling helpless in some situation or unable to make a clear decision. Dreamind that your alone or lost suggests that you have lost your direction in life or that you have lost sight of your goals. You may be feeling worried and insecure about the path you are taking in life. Alternatively, you may be trying to adjust and get accustomed to a new situation in which the rules and conditions are ever changing. To dream that you of zombies, suggests that you are physically and/or emotionally detached from people and situations that are currently surrounding you. You are feeling out of touch. Alternatively, it may indicate that you are feeling dead inside and are simply going through the motions of daily living. When you dream that you are running from an attacker or any danger, then it suggests that you are not facing and confronting your fears.

Alternativly......you should stop watching films that scare you. Your consious mind is trying to find its way to escape from whats scared you so instead of it just letting go, it reflects into your dreams. The best way to get out of this is to watch something enlightening, adventerous or romantic before you go to bed for a few nights to reset your consious mind into a calm state.

The dreams must be say something about your life despite being triggered by the movie. You must have to deal with disagreeable characters in your real life that are a struggle to deal with or to avoid. Meditation/prayer can help you clear your mind of the negative energy you tend to absorb. Exercise can strengthen your energy, so you can better defend your self from the adverse affect of energy of others. And a healthy diet will keep you more under control. You could also try visualizing more positive dreams to try to get your subconscious pointed in a better direction.

Y'know, that movie scared me too. What works for me is, every time I have a thought that is negative and junk like that, I try to start thinking about something else. Also, I find that journaling helps as well.

Start living in the real world

Nope.

don't eat before bed

It's very hard to shake or control feelings of fear. Most nightmares tend to deal with the brain, body, and subconscious trying to deal with or pigeonhole fear of the unknown. Most of your emotions come attached to specific memories, such as happiness at birthdays or Christmas and sadness at losing soccer games, anger at stupid people in front of you on the road, etc., but fear is the one emotion we cannot control because what we fear most is what we cannot control.

You connected to the movie in relating to seeing so much beyond your control in the movie as well as your real life. You fear that if a disaster happened it would be made worse by things out of control in your life now. For example if you lost your job the credit card companies would come knocking and take everything you own (MY biggest fear right now while I am unemployed stay-at-home mom!) and that's equally as frightening as the end of the world scenario presented in that movie.

What you need to do is take a few nights sitting down with yourself and coming up with a plan. Like scheduled fire drills, plan what to do with yourself and your family in case of an emergency AND your cell phones don't work.

My plan is to have my daughter stay with her friend at school with whom she visits every Monday anyway, and then I will pick her up at that friend's house. We have a lady down the block who will be our "In case of emergency" baby sitter and dog sitter when we travel or go out for a weekend. My husband and I are clearing out our debt by making those credit card payments and reducing our spending or finding ways to get the things we need or want for cheaper (or even for free). We have been learning how to successfully trade items for items with other people in the neighborhood and participate in local freecycle groups learning how to get and find things we need or want locally instead of relying on finding what we need an hour's drive away. We are learning how to grow and preserve our own food so that in time of a disaster we will not completely starve. We are building up a safety network of friends and family so that if a disaster hits our town and our house we have several places we can go for emergency shelter.

You need to sit down with yourself and your budget and do the same. Put your life in order. Start forgiving your friends, family, and enemies and start putting yourself into action. By taking a physical action and putting your life in to order, your fears of a disaster will ease because you have a plan. Learn to camp and catch fish. Learn to make a fire. Learn how to cook, how to purify water, have on hand metal camp cookware (Your greatest tools in a disaster are a Swiss Army knife, a tin cup and clean matches). Learn basic first aid. Learn how to take care of yourself. By learning how to prepare for disasters, by implementing changes for the better, by taking control over your finances, you reduce your fears of a disaster tenfold and you will sleep better at night.

I do.

Good luck in changing your life for the better. Remember that God forgives, and above all, learn to accept death as a natural step in this life. It's very hard to do, I know, but fear of death is a big one - but accepting it reduces your fear of it. Put your life in order now so as to reduce your fear of what will happen to your stuff and family in case of an emergency. Again, by planning ahead of time, your fear of everything being out of control will be reduced and your dreams will change...