Nightmares, stress dreams, and how to respond to each.
I’m leaving my workplace at close of business, and I see a man suddenly drop from a tree branch with a noose around his neck. I’m horrified; I begin yelling for help, over and over as loud as I can. I run to him and grab his ankles, swinging over my head, and push up, desperately trying to convince him to use the slack in the rope to remove the noose from his neck; that this is not the way. And then from another tree branch hangs another employee, and then another, and then another. Four men hanging in protest and resignation and hopelessness and I am crying and pleading with them and with others to help and I cannot do it all. Eventually, in the darkness of night, I re-enter the building, crying out in search of Human Resources, to tell them: “I am only one counselor. I cannot help them all. I don’t have the resources.” But no one is there. It is the dark of night and I climb a hill to the back of the property where my little blue beetle is parked, and find it peculiarly covered in snow, inside and out, and I cannot leave. I’m leaning over the hood to brush the snow off the windshield when it starts spinning crazily out of control, round and round and down the hill, and I cling to the wheel well and close my eyes and tell myself, “Just breathe. Tighten your core and hold on and just breathe, slow and deep.” And I breathe and I hold on and eventually the spinning stops.
Dreams, Freud said, are the “royal road to the unconscious.” There are at least a dozen theories of dream interpretation, from the analytical to the mystical to a person-centered meaning making that I favor. Pay attention to your dreams: they will reveal your anxieties and fears, they will illuminate what matters most to you, they may even reveal answers to the questions with which you struggle.
Stress dreams are different from nightmares. Nightmares repeat with small variations on a theme but wake you from the horror without coming to resolution. Stress dreams, barring outside interruption, play out a story arc, even when unpleasant, and you awaken when it is through. All dreams are attempts of your subconscious to make sense of things stressful or overwhelming and to help you process your experiences, but nightmares get stuck, often requiring outside intervention such as trauma therapy to process the block so your mind can return to its natural patterns of regulation.
My stress dream last night had three messages for me:
1. You’re overwhelmed.
2. You need to get away; take a break.
3. Just breathe.
And so I will. I’ll schedule this to post while I’m away, breathing in the breezes that blow across a sparkling lake in my home country, listening to the gentle woosh of the waves rolling in to the grainy shore. I’ll close my eyes and breathe deeply. And then I’ll be back, with greater inner resources. And I’ll take another break, and I’ll return again, and the rhythm of summer and self-care goes on.
What message do your dreams hold for you?
What plans do you have for self-care and rejuvenation this summer season? What plans – large or small – can you implement?