nightmares

[Blimblam]

or the longest time I couldn't remember any of my dreams,

Ever since the day before my breakthrough I have had nightmares every night.

did anyone else experience an increase in nightmares during their healing phase?

[LittleMilly]

I had nightmares, usually the same one over and over again. I'd wake up in a cold sweat, too scared to get out of bed. They started a few months after my breakup, and lasted for a while after that.

I found that it was my brain trying to analyse what had happened to me, in it's own (disturbing!) way. I would draw the figures from my dream and try to figure out what they wanted, what it meant.

It turned out that the scary figure was me, all broken and afraid, but I was afraid of 'it', of how messed up I still was. It threw me back a lot, I thought I was doing better, but I really I was just faking it.

Maybe you are moving too fast, missing something important? Take a step back and look at your dreams, is your subconscious trying to tell you something? Don't worry though, you are still healing

[Blimblam]

I had nightmares, usually the same one over and over again. I'd wake up in a cold sweat, too scared to get out of bed. They started a few months after my breakup, and lasted for a while after that.

I found that it was my brain trying to analyse what had happened to me, in it's own (disturbing!) way. I would draw the figures from my dream and try to figure out what they wanted, what it meant.

It turned out that the scary figure was me, all broken and afraid, but I was afraid of 'it', of how messed up I still was. It threw me back a lot, I thought I was doing better, but I really I was just faking it.

Maybe you are moving too fast, missing something important? Take a step back and look at your dreams, is your subconscious trying to tell you something? Don't worry though, you are still healing

Each time I awoke from a nightmare It felt like I awoke from a good dream feeling refreshed and good in my center.

The scary character in my nightmares felt like the negative emotions being processed and expressed through them I acknowleged them but did not feel scared.  It felt like I was embracing the nightmares.  As a child nightmares actually became my favorite dreams after a while those are the ones I would become lucid in and ussualy defeat the bad character.  Recently each nightmare has ended as a sexdream.

[Blimblam]

the nightmares stopped and I have been feeling really terrible throughout the day.  I think the nightmares were a way of processing the feelings in my chest.

[myself]

I've had more nightmares while detaching from this r/s than in my whole life leading up to now. It seems a way to work through how toxic it was. To help sort though feelings in ways the mind, while awake, doesn't get to. Still trying to figure out the puzzle, while asleep.

[Ihope2]

My BPD relationship, short-lived as it was, activated a lot of deep-seated core issues for me.  I have had the most bizarre and confusing dreams, ever since I met by ex BPDh, and even now.  When he was still living with me, I used to dream what I call my "struggle dreams" (always centred around me grappling with something, a task, or arguing with a difficult person) and I used to be bathed in sweat at night. I used to wake up from a dream, soaked through and have to change my clothing.  The night sweats have stopped now that I am divorced and living alone again for the past 3 months and am having no contact with my exBPDh, but the dreams continue. 

At times, I do recall the dream when I awake immediately afterwards, but mostly I just know that I had a profound dream, but cannot recall it.  I think I need to start journaling the dreams to try to make sense of them.  I think Jungian analysis of themes and symbols in dreams is very helpful to understanding ourselves.

[Vatz]

I've had few nightmares in my life, and I woke up from maybe one.

I still don't have full-on nightmares after her, even though she's only been gone maybe 2 weeks, feels almost like she was never even there, but at the same time feels like it was all yesterday. But, I do have unsettling moments in my dreams when she shows up in them.

I've dreamed of her naked. I think for two break-ups it compelled me to recycle.

This last one though, where she showed up naked... .no. Nothing good from that one. What happened in it was just way too unsettling. Too painful. No recycles after seeing what I saw in that dream. It was basically just a summary of how things were, how I began to perceive my relationship with her. There's no going back from that. When I woke up, I knew that it was truly done and I was doing myself no good pining for her. The dream was telling me to move to greener pastures. It also gave a glimpse as to the sort of person I should be looking for, what she did to me was more than just her actions. It was the feeling she stirred up in me, the thing I feared. Someone who wouldn't do that, someone who wouldn't make me feel the way she did.

I learned something from that dream.

Thankfully my dream shifted and I ended up somewhere else. An underground sunset. Really wish I could paint. 

Sorry about all the nightmares, maybe your mind is trying to purge all the horror you may have kept bottled up. All those terrifying thoughts you had when she/he was there. Probably because you were too busy walking on eggshells, or malignantly hoping for the glory days of idealization. Could be you pushed all those fears and awful thoughts somewhere deep down. Now that the person is gone, perhaps your mind is letting it out of it's system.

If it persists, then it's probably time to really examine why.

[claudiaduffy]

or the longest time I couldn't remember any of my dreams,

Ever since the day before my breakthrough I have had nightmares every night.

did anyone else experience an increase in nightmares during their healing phase?

I've had a very active dream and nightmare world my entire life and often saw intense dream activity when things with my uBPDm were flaring up, but my husband thought he never remembered dreams -until a couple of weeks into our marriage. We're in our mid 30s and he had been living with his uBPDm, in his house, his entire adult life until our wedding at which point we moved in together into our apartment. We had not lived together before the wedding. Suddenly, he started remembering his dreams frequently, and as his healing has progressed, he's started to have more and more "bad" dreams about his mom. I say "bad" in quotes because they're often upsetting flashbacks to times he wished he'd stood up for himself, but now in his dreams, he does stand up for himself. So we're both taking this as a sign of his healing.

[Blimblam]

I had nightmares, usually the same one over and over again. I'd wake up in a cold sweat, too scared to get out of bed. They started a few months after my breakup, and lasted for a while after that.

I found that it was my brain trying to analyse what had happened to me, in it's own (disturbing!) way. I would draw the figures from my dream and try to figure out what they wanted, what it meant.

It turned out that the scary figure was me, all broken and afraid, but I was afraid of 'it', of how messed up I still was. It threw me back a lot, I thought I was doing better, but I really I was just faking it.

Maybe you are moving too fast, missing something important? Take a step back and look at your dreams, is your subconscious trying to tell you something? Don't worry though, you are still healing

Wow this is so insightful

I've been having nightmares again.  But I know I still have a long way to go healing wise