Shalom. I have been plagued with reoccuring nightmares since childhood, but in the past 2 years they have tappered off a bit I only have them about once a month or so, compared to multiple times a week in the past. I usually have very violent and disturbing nightmares that involve me being murdered, but this nightmare last night was very different and I'm wondering if someone can help me figure it out So it starts out with the police knocking on my door. They come in and say you're under arrest for the murder or so and so. I am thinking to myself "yeah I know I killed those two guys, but I had a good reason too... I wonder why the police are here?" I have distinct memory of murdering two men in the ghetto like it is nothing (I live in the ghetto here). I ask them "let me make some calls... please" and they are very nice and are like "sure make calls". this part of the dream is weird because I am not fond of police and they hassle me often in my neighborhood. I call my mom and beg her to help me but she just laughs at me and hangs up the phone. The police say "come on lets go". I get in my truck and the officer (only one now) rides beside me as we drive to jail. I am frantic and trying to call my best friend, but for some reason I just can't dial the numbers. I notice I am so busy on the phone I am driving on the wrong side of the highway. The officer says "its OK just get over the median". I get on the median, and am steady but all of a sudden the truck flips over and crashes upside down in the middle of the highway. The officer is dead and truck on fire. I run out the truck frantic to get away. Police and ambulance are coming. All of a sudden a bus pulls up and my husband gets out. I run to him and we hug and cry and I am saying "I'm going to jail for murder, I won't be bakc for 25 years Oh my G-d baby I just want to be with you!!!" He disapears. They are taking me to jail and I realize I can run. I call a friend and tell them to meet me on the hill. I see the friend on top of the hill with a getaway car and wake up What is weird is how disturbed I was by this dream... like I said I usually have horrible grotesque dreams... but this one barely any violence aside from car wreck. I have been encarcerated before (in juvie though) and the overwhelming emotion of going to jail was VERY STRONG in this dream and very terrifying. But the weird thing is when i saw my best friend this morning he said I called him at 2 am! I don't remember calling him and its kind of weird... I know I woke up around 1:40 am from the dream and tried to message him... he wasnt online so I went to bed. When we met up this morning I guess I called him. I was very distbured by this dream and I am not sure why I have had a few significant deaths within my family in the last week, but I am not sure that is entirely related. I am really plagued with these nightmares.... many of them involve my friends murdering me. In particular, I have had a recurring dream where my best friend (the one I mentioned above) slits my throat very graphically and stabs me to death. I don't understand why this would be because he and I have never had any animosity towards each other . Please help!
Hi and Welcome to the forum. Because you have experienced these types of dreams since childhood, you most likely experienced a trauma when you were a child. Did you witness a murder or accident when you were a child? Something recent has triggered this dream. Did someone discuss going to jail or juvenile detention, or did someone you know go there? That could have triggered this dream. Since you live in the ghetto, this increases your exposure to risk and violence. Do you have the resources to move to a better neighborhood? If so, think about it. This may help to also curb the nightmares.
Thanks for the response. I am not sure what caused me to start having these dreams in childhood. I did go through a wide variety of very traumatic and violent events in childhood, and have been surrounded by lots of death as well growing up, so it is hard for me to pinpoint anything exactly. But this dream was different. The part where the police officer gets killed and where I murder the men and the fear of death was completely secondary to the fear of going to jail, which was so strong I felt like I was gonna have a heart attack when I woke up. The environment I live in is violent to an extent... but not in the sense that I see people get shot or anything. There are lots and lots of fights, but only a little murder and gunshots in the neighborhood occasionally around here so its more just something that I accept as normal surroundings in my mind rather than something that bothers me if that makes any sense, and I don't fear the violence here in any sense My dreams in childhood were always very very violent and they started around the age of 5 or 6 as far as I can remember and usually involved someone murdering me or a bomb being dropped in my room (I know that sounds weird but I think thats just because the gulf war scared me as a kid). Last week there were a couple people in the family that died, and I think maybe thats why I had the dream, a fear of being seperated from the people I love in reality through death but in my dream by going to jail. I didn't think so at first because the dream wasn't really about death but that does make some sense now that I think about it I would do anything to get rid of these nightmares.... they are like a plague to me and make me uncomfortable with myself. Sometimes it really makes me think there is something bad about me that I dream such horrific dreams and I'm not sure why I do. Because what is weird, is that the most traumatic death I have experienced is when my best friend was killed when I was 15 years old in a drug incident. It was a very very hard experience for me and really altered my life for a few years, but I didn't ever have any nightmares about it. In fact, I had dreams where I was talking to him and they were very fullfilling and good dreams. I had this weird one where he was talking to me about what it felt like when he died and all he said was "I have this really heavy weight on my feet". But none of my dreams about him were ever scarry. I just don't understand any of this sorry for such a long message . This dream just really got me worried because it apparently bothered me so much I called my best friend in my sleep!!! And I knew he had to go to work at 6 am so I never would have called him that late if I were cognitive.