Anyone else have bad dreams about friends and family?

[Ladybird69]

I have really vivid and upsetting dreams about my friends and loved ones. I’m having a couple of really bad ones lately. In my latest dreams/nightmares My friend is pregnant and her baby dies. I’m living in my childhood home and then my dear mum who passed away 6 years ago is there as a ghost and crying and hugging me telling me that she never wanted to leave me and I am crying, sobbing. I hate and am afraid of bedtimes now. Does anyone else have these and have any advice on how to stop them 😢

Jumping straight to the nuclear option, there are medications to help with nightmares. I take one. It doesn't stop the nightmares, but stops the intensity. They really are not the first line of help though.

If at all possible then therapy is a better option. Your dreams seem to do with loss, and fear of loss, of people you love. Getting to the root of that and the fears out into the waking daytime world might help reduce the intensity of the nightmares; or, it might help you learn techniques to handle what honestly is a very valid fear.

Has loss been a theme in your life?

Sleep training could possibly also be helpful.

Every sympathy, @Ladybird69 Nightmares cut through your defences in a way that nothing else can.

@ReleaseTheDucksOfWar thank you so much for your helpful and kind reply. I think I need to look into some kind of help therapy/counselling. Without going into detail my life has been one of trauma and loss. I have had counselling in the past but my dear mum passed during Covid and it still feels raw, unfinished iykwim. Once again thank you for your reply.