When Fear Follows You Into Sleep: Exploring Fear In Dreams

Fear is a curious thing. Our brains and bodies react to it whether it's imagined or real, to the point that our worries and anxieties can even chase us into sleep. This short talk examines fear, dreaming, and how to work with nightmares (both awake and asleep).

Reviews

That was incredibly helpful. Thank you. In case my perspective can help people, I will share a bit here; something tells me I’m not the only one going through this (and of course if you read this and my experience doesn’t resonate with you, it’s all good, too)

First of all, thank you for explaining the Teeth Nightmare™. I’ve definitely had those before and your explanation makes so much sense🙏

The types of nightmares I have that affect me the most are the ones with buildings, just like you said! I was blown away when you said it. The building is usually always gigantic, has many other people in it besides me, and they are all almost always in a state of fear, with me trying to understand what they are doing, being confused about what they are doing because it doesn’t make sense to me, but also feeling like I am in danger if I don’t follow along. However, when I do attempt to follow along, I don’t seem to get it right.

Tonight’s nightmare this time had my aunt and her husband in it, as well as their oldest son, my cousin, who is very much like me (same zodiac Sun sign). My aunt and uncle were standing behind us, whispering in our ears how we needed to conform to the “people in charge” of “the gigantic building’ because “it’s really good money”, and I remember me and my cousin twisting our faces into grimaces, then looking behind at them as if they were nuts. We knew the whole situation was crazy, yet I still felt great anxiety about the pressure to conform in this nightmare.

This meditation helped me realize that the devastating unhealed trauma in the female and male lines of my family are now in my nightmares. I used to think these dreams were more literal. There is so much generational trauma in my family; so much disordered thinking around personal power, autonomy, and self-sovereignty. I think the women in my family have never felt powerful or in control of their lives or destinies, just completely submissive to their husbands, some of which I have personally witnessed being horrible to their wives. And I think their husbands have felt so pressured to live up to an unhealthy expectation of external performance for validation, so much so that they cast off their dreams because “You Can’t Do What You Want To Do, You Can’t Do What You Love To Do, You Can Only Do What You Have To Do!” - this was my grandfather; he willingly gave up his dreams to create a family, then spent the rest of his life growing bitter and resentful because he wasn’t happy, and therefore treated us all like garbage while simultaneously expecting us to cater to his every whim because of “the sacrifice he made”.

The nightmare sucked, but I’m grateful for the clarity is has brought. I’m sick and tired of the trauma that was blown through my entire existence constantly haunting me. I have been trying to heal the generational trauma but it’s a long process. I’m not going to pressure myself anymore with some imaginary finish line of healing.

That was way longer than I wanted it to be, I just am really passionate about helping others heal too, and sharing personal experiences sometimes helps with that. I hope my wall of text is helpful to someone.

Thank you for this 🙏

Great educational piece and bout dreams and fear. Loss of with kindness along the way. Thank you 🙏

Helpful to calm down after a disturbing dream. Thank you.

Informative, calming, & practical. Like a soothing balm.

Very helpful. Thank you