I had a horrible and weird dream and I don't know what to do.

[JellyCat11]

I'm a namechanger.

I had a dream about two years ago where I dreamt that I was 'practising sexual intercourse' with my father.

In the dream, I could feel the cold wooden floor underneath us and his hands on my back.

My father died a couple of years ago (after I had the dream) and I'm not quite sure how to cope with it.

You know that when you normally have a dream, you forget pretty much all of it within twenty minutes of waking up? Well, this one has stayed with me - it still feels so real.

I'm not sure whether I'm mad, or somehow dirty or what. Sometimes I'm frightened by it, at other times it seems distant.

Goodness, I do sound mad.

Um. Not sure. But didn't want this to go unanswered.

Are you on any medication ? when I went on anti depressants i began remembering dreams that I had had years and years ago in so much detail. Really freaky. Might be your sub conscious messing about and also, if you don`t want to think about something it makes you obsess a little.

Im not sure what you mean - is there any feelings that this actually happened?

if not then I suspect that you are perhaps having a difficult time in a relationship and imagining it was your dad gives you kind of an element of an ideal man whom you feel safe and loved by.

Im certainly not saying its weird to dream sexual dreams about your father im suggesting maybe your father in your subconscious mind represents an ideal man for you?

It feels very real because in the dream you could physically touch and feel a man whom I presume you loved dearly.

OnEdge - I'm not on any medication, no.

nickschick - I'm not sure what I mean, either. I can't usually remember my dreams when I wake up, and this one seems so vivid, so full of feeling that it is odd. I'm not having a difficult time in a relationship as far as I am consciously aware - DH is loving and we have a good physical relationship.

Perhaps you just miss your Dad?

I definitely miss him now. I hope against hope that this isn't a repressed memory but I had the dream before he died.

I have to go to sleep now - thankyou for your help, and if anyone else has any ideas, it would be lovely to hear them.

I have had similar dreams, because they are so awful I think that's the reason they stick with you and then you start questioning yourself, re thinking it, going over it... I had a similar dream about an old landlord too that really haunts me - it so real it made me and still makes me feel sick. I find anything can cause them indirectly - snippet of a film, or even a snippet of something that subconciously triggers a memory of a snippet of a film which is why they seem to come from nowhere.

It's not a significant dream in itself - it's just your brain throwing stuff together and on this night those numbers came up. Obviously, consciously, it's weird and unsettling but it's your conscious brain that's investing it with meaning, holding onto it and worrying about it.

I don't know if dreams sometimes have meaning, but I know often they definitely don't. Just your brain flexing it's synapse-muscles. In this case, in the absense of any dysfunction in the normal father-daughter relationship, I'd try to let it go and chalk it up to random chance.

If this is a singl dream you once had I would not be too worried that it is a repressed memory.

It must be disturbing to have this dream but as others have said dreams are often not literal. it is possible to have flashbacks in your sleep but I wouldn't have expected there to be just one in that case.

My advice would be just to accept that you had this dream and not see it as bad or good, it just is. If there is anything you need to remember you will when the time is right.

i remember having a vivid dream once that i had been raped....it was so vivid i thought it had happened,my flatmate nearly called the police!

i have found i occasionally have these vivid dreams,usually around time of period or when pregnant. but only once or twice a year....odd

Thanks.

I think that it must have just been a one off. I sincerely hope it doesn't happen again.

Thankyou again for your help.

Definitely think it's the emotion involved that counts, not the content, that's just your brain picking anything at random that will communicate the emotion. So the important thing is how did it make you feel? What can you draw from that?

I had a horrible dream about a year ago that I let my tiny dd go with a stranger because he gave me £50 (masses at the time when I was skint) and it only occured to me when he brought her back hours later that there was something 'sexual' in it. Makes me feel ill even now thinking about it but it doesn't have any reflection on real life, think it was to do with my feeling that me not having money meant I was letting my dd down and once I thought about it and reminded myself I'd always do what I could to keep her safe and look after her I was able to stop thinking about the dream. Also probably didn't help that I'd recently watched Memoirs of a Geisha!

Would try and explain it in terms of things that might have been going on at the time and the feelings involved rather than the actual actions and try and put it behind you.