Why did I dream something so horrible and disturbing?

[Barongreenback87]

I dreamt I killed a family member (who has passed in RL from illness many many years ago), mainly with the help of others, and in order to cover this up I had to kill another family member (who is still alive in RL). It was my immediate family.

It was just am awful terrible thing to dream. And so much detail and vividness. I woke up crying.

Why would i dream such a thing ?

Too much telly, stress and interrupted sleep.

Are you taking any painkillers? Coproxamol was well known for causing nightmares.

There is a superstition that dreaming of a death means there will be a birth in the family.

Im a big believer in dreams telling us something- not in a woo way but just your subconscious processing your experiences. Dreaming of killing someone doesn’t mean you want to kill then literally though. In your shoes I’d have a think about whether there’s something you’d like to metaphorically kill- maybe that family member has a trait you find difficult to deal with or a habit you also have but would like to stop.

I had a particularly disturbing nightmare when I was seriously ill in hospital last summer. So disturbing that it makes me nauseous just to think about it. I was on 24/7 infusions at the time and just hearing the noise of a pump (for infusions) now brings it back to me.

I still don't know the origin of the dream. I remember thinking that the beginning of it was from a film I had seen, a cartoon about recycling in India, but I don't think it can have been.

Got to stop writing about it now. Starting to feel sick just thinking about it.

Dreams are quite often about aspects of ourselves, so the family members could be parts of yourself that are causing conflict in your waking life.

Was it quite warm last night?

Oh, I’m sorry - I have very vivid dreams and they can really alter my mental state for the day if they’re extreme (in either direction).

Dreams are just irrelevant bits of crap our brains put together, and the huge Hall and Castle study that collected about 50,00 dreams over 40 years identified anxiety as by far the most common emotion, followed by other ‘negative’ emotions like fear, anger etc. I wouldn’t worry about your dream or think it ‘meant’ anything.

I have enormously vivid dreams, always have, and often have nightmares and very disturbing dreams, and occasional night terrors. Sleep is never very restful for me!

Dreams are just our brains processing and storing bits of information/ experiences, and I think also just “flexing” some neurons! - I don’t think they tend to “mean” anything (although I do sometimes have dreams that are so clearly my brain trying to “work through” a real problem I’ve had in my waking life - usually with half-arsed allegorical ‘plotlines’- and I do take notice of those. But I spot them a mile off 😂 I’m like, really brain? You thought that was “mysterious” 😁)

Best to just put it out of your mind. It means nothing, like your stomach rumbling when you digest food. It’s just a biological process, no more, no less.

I have nightmares on an almost nightly basis from having ptsd.
I have meant over that they mean absolutely nothing. Even the most horrendous, it just anxiety disturbing every aspect of my life.

Try not to worry what the meaning of them are, I really don’t think it’s anything.