Involutary dreams, anyone else have them?

[Hisaccount]

I haven't been sleeping well, seems each night for weeks now I have been waking up between 2 and 4 am with a dream about my ex.

Often times it is her throwing her arms around me and saying lets try again. Other times it is just driving down the road with her.
Either way I wake up heartbroken and can't get back to sleep.

Anyone else have this problem?
Anything I can do about them?

I can run away and leave everything behind except what is in my head.

[Broken88]

i usually wake up around 5 am, but yes i have the same problem... Not always because of a dream of her tho.

Sometimes i just wake up thinking about her, like i did for so many years.

What you can do? Only quick fixes there are available are unhealthy ones. I think the only choice we have is to wait it out, and work on the state of our mental health. Then i think it will come by itself... I hope...

[Julia S]

I'm going to say something very radical. And I'm saying it knowing there are more rational explanations. However, I already know I'm a very empathic person. I would simply say I'm a people watcher, but others keep pointing out how I pick up on things about people, assuming everyone else does. I have also experimented with telepathic contact when in my teens - I don't mean precise thoughts, just the ability to get into someone's mind - and have found it happened.

After my BPD friend got too close to me and started dysregulating, I started getting bad depressions - OK, I now realise that's what happens when you split up with a BPD, but our situation was in flux, and I didn't fully understand his mental condition then. I also had sudden unexplained highs, and also sometimes a numbing out feeling. These emotions were new to me, they didn't seem like my own.
Basically, I started thinking - and still think - that I was picking up on his moods, even though he was miles away.

If you believe in any form of telepathic contact across distance, you will know such phenomena are notoriously common in very young children. So it makes sense to me that if someone is stuck at a very young emotional age, this is likely to happen. Particularly if their thoughts and emotions are  very intense. Also, many pwBPD claim to experience telepathy, but psychiatrists dismiss it because it's outside their science.

So I would consider the possibility that this person is maybe unknowingly making their way into your thoughts. It doesn't mean you should entertain thoughts of a reconciliation, because this is safe fantasy time, and in reality they are not capable of a healthy relationship. But it might influence how you deal with these thoughts/dreams. I have done so by visualising my higher self addressing their higher self, wishing them well, but asking them to seek healing.

Incidentally, I have stopped waves of depression - which I feel are coming from them - in their tracks by sending them specific healing, directing them to step outside themselves, look at their past, and let go of the hurt. I found this works instantly but is short term, and would take too much energy to do constantly.

Having done these things, I sometimes simply instruct them to get out of my mind.
 

[Hisaccount]

That is radical, I love it.

Hey I will try anything.

[bus boy]

HI hisaccount, I can relate to those dreams. I use to have those dreams that she would put her arms around me, kiss me and say she loved me. When I would wake up I would be confused and heart broken. I can say, with time and working on detachment I don't have those dreams anymore. It was probably my inner wants and feelings at work. For the 12 years I knew my Xw, the 3 years we were together and the 9 years we were separated but still carried on a sexual r/s I yearned for her to say she loved me or give me a random hug. None of witch ever happened. My dreams might of been my inner desires that were never fulfilled by Xw.

[Julia S]

You could also try lucid dreaming, where you plan your dream in advance - very good for anxiety dreams which don't resolve.

Decide how you would like your dream to play out - in a way that's healthy for you - and plan it in your mind. Eg as soon as your ex appears you might suggest she gets therapy, she agrees, and you wish each other well and she goes off to her appt.
Play through the scenario just before you go to sleep.

[TyroneWiggums]

i usually wake up around 5 am, but yes i have the same problem... Not always because of a dream of her tho.

Sometimes i just wake up thinking about her, like i did for so many years.

What you can do? Only quick fixes there are available are unhealthy ones. I think the only choice we have is to wait it out, and work on the state of our mental health. Then i think it will come by itself... I hope...

I don't know any Jedi mind tricks like some of the other posters (which sound kinda cool), so I'll just leave it at this:

My therapist had asked me to keep a dream journal just as an insight into what I was preoccupied with.  I don't know if the two are related, but between the visit where I was given my homework assignment and the next, I had 31 dreams about my ex.  31.  In a week.  It was brutal.

My T immediately declared my dream journal counterproductive and I stopped, but I continued to dream about my ex. 

Now, I don't dream about her any more.  Period.  No contact has played a huge role, as has focusing on myself and my work, but it's nice to know she's not visiting me in my sleep any more.

Give yourself time.  It will happen.  It's awful, and it suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuucks.  But, it will happen.

[JerryRG]

I had a dream about my ex last night, she started working in the same place I am employed. We talked and she started insulting me and I walked away.

I deliberately told my employer some things that I knew would get me fired and I lost my job. I would do anything and I mean anything to avoid my crazy BPD/npd ex.

She's a living, breathing, evil nightmare

[michel71]

I have been blessed with no dreams of her for the last 5 weeks until... .last night. I had a dream about her dating someone and making plans with our former mutual friends and leaving me out of the fun. I can't remember the details now but only the feeling: MISERY and HEARTBREAK.
You might want to look at it this way. The day to day trials and tribulations with these BPD are worse than any "bad" dream could be.

[Keef]

Hello  

Hisaccount: Dreams, you bet. My gf broke up with me in an ice cold way 3 w ago. I've had vivid dreams nearly every night since then. So many things to process.

In one of them I saw her standing in a glade packing things in a rather small box, saying, "I'm bundling up these good things [as in 'positive'] before I leave and die". I woke up crying.

In another (we were still together then) she attacked me with a pair of scissors. I woke up crying. Didn't tell her what I'd been dreaming. She said I needed therapy.

The day before yesterday she was there again, this time sitting on my bedside in my dark bedroom. As soon as I woke up she left, almost evaporated. Very eerie and it made me cry again. Julia S: you hit a spot there. It could very well be she was "there" atm, so to speak. I am a very receptive person. It was as if she was watching me. Mind you, she had some uncanny stalking behaviour.

I usually wake up around 4 or 5 in the morning since the break-up, even if I haven't been dreaming anything significant. Hate it.

[Keef]

I can run away and leave everything behind except what is in my head.

Sorry for how you're feeling. I know exactly what you're going through. I changed the locks to my front door (think she's got one of the old keys), sent her the few belongings she kept at my place, etc. Can't send back my feelings for her though. Not yet.