Hello all!

I am new to this forum and have decided to post here out of concern for what I've been experiencing lately.

Basically, I just broke up with my fiancee who was a chronic cheater and emotionally abusive. This has been an on-and-off rocky relationship that I finally put a final end to about a month ago.

During the course of our relationship, I began to have really vivid nightmares...sometimes out of body experiences...and sometimes weird unexplained phenomena that happened while I was awake and trying to fall asleep.

I somewhat believe in curses, spirits and bad omens. By "somewhat" I mean that I never really thought about it until it happened to me and still don't know what explanation I have for it.

Perhaps someone can help me? I must add that before I met this guy, the ONLY nightmares I ever had were after watching a horror movie (I'm a bit sensitive).

At the beginning of our relationship, when I moved in with him and his parents (we started having problems right away) I couldn't fall asleep at night. One night I was wide awake and felt extremely anxious. I woke him and he freaked out on me because he had work the next day and the minute he started to yell something hit the window really hard... we blamed it on wildlife but it was very strange.

Fast forward a few months...during this time I was having trouble falling asleep at night but nothing serious... we move into our own place. He finally bought a house. The MINUTE I stepped foot into this house something didn't feel right. I almost felt vulnerable...I can't describe it. Weeks go by and our relationship kept getting worse and worse. We would fight a lot and I would go to my mother's at least twice a month. I started having trouble sleeping at night again but I blamed it on our problems. Summer time came and we started getting a weed infestation. They were GIANT weeds and they were everywhere...they even destroyed the patio and the stone bbq unit that him and I build together when we first moved in. We spent an entire afternoon ripping all of them out from the root and spraying tons of poison and within days...it was a forrest of weeds again! They all grew back so quickly. One night, I had an outer body experience. I literally jumped out of my body and could see us sleeping in the same position I woke up in afterwards. I stood in the hallway and saw a dark shadow travelling towards our bed and ran back to our bodies and tried with all my might to wake us up..when i woke up it's like something took my breath away and I shook him like crazy and started crying hysterically...it took me a long time to fall asleep at night after that incident. He went to a European naturopath doctor who told him that his ex-girlfriend was an evil presence in his life and that she cursed him...he also looked at a picture of me and told him there is someone in my life that's very jealous of me. I kept bothering my ex to take me to talk to him in person so I could tell him how I feel hoping he would sense something from my presence...when my ex finally agreed to take me in, we found out that the man had just died in his sleep. At this point I started to get spooked out..

Eventually him and I broke up and I moved out. Eventually, he sold his house and moved into a condo closer to where I lived. Since then, we tried working on our relationship but every time I went to his new place, the dreams would start and I never slept well. Last fall we gave our relationship a final go. (all the times we broke up in the past it was because I either cought him cheating, or because I suspected him of cheating) Things started to go very well and I hadn't had nightmares in months. Just a month ago I caught him cheating on me again! I broke up with him (for good) and since then I've been having terrible nightmares. A week ago...I dreamt that something evil was sucking the life out of me and I yelled at it that I wasn't a virgin and it disappeared and a wedding band fell on the floor and burst into flames. I woke up drenched in sweat but blamed it on the break-up and the fact that I was supposed to get married so maybe it was a symbol of what our relationship had become...? I haven't slept properly since. Every night I feel a strange presence.. the nights that I miss my ex, I feel that presence even more. Finally last night, I wasn't even thinking about him but I felt restless again and I couldn't fall asleep so I turned on the T.V... all of a sudden I started to doze off and for some reason I abruptly woke up almost like I made myself wake up ...I gasped for air and for a split second I saw a girl laying beside me in bed!!!! It freaked the heck out of me especially since I saw her while my eyes were open not closed. She looked at me for a split second then disappeared. She almost looked like his ex! Dark har, dark eyes and young. But I've seen pictures of her and the girl I saw looked a bit different. She kind of resembled his sister a bit too. I dunno...I didn't see her for long enough. I have dark hair and eyes too don't know if that makes a difference?

Thank you for reading and any advice, recomendations or opinions would help. I've spent the last few night crying, worried and sleep deprived. I'm afraid to fall asleep tonight and I don't want this to develop into a serious problem..I can't figure out what last night had to do with? And why am I having these dreams now that he's out of my life? I keep hoping that it's all in my head and that my imagination is getting the best of me because I'm going through a difficult break-up?

So confused... :S

Well, you said yourself that you are under an enormous amount of stress and sleep deprived.

These things can cause lack of sleep, hallucinations, overreactions to stimuli (e.g. something hitting the window hard - these things happen), sleep paralysis, out of body experiences (which are related to sleep paralysis). A shadow standing by your bed is also a common hallucination during sleep paralysis.

Having been in an abusive relationship, you could also be dealing with post-traumatic stress, which will also affect sleep and cause nightmares. It's also possible that after being in this relationship, your unconscious is bringing up memories of past abuse (I don't know if you have been abused before this relationship, but often people who are in abusive relationships have a history of seeking abusive relationships or being abused as children.)

To be honest, the naturopath sounds kind of dodgy. There are good, helpful practitioners of alternative medicine who can help you, for example, with herbal remedies, or with massage or relaxation techniques or visualization techniques, but when someone starts telling you that someone is cursed or that there is an evil spirit in your life, it seems like the next step is for them to try to extort money from you and to get the curse "lifted" or the evil spirit "removed "

People who are dishonest often like to take advantage of people who are in vulnerable states.

Unfortunately, very bad things happen to people in life. That is just fate and people making the wrong choices. It doesn't have to do with evil spirits.

I would recommend that you see someone who deals with people who have been in abusive relationships - whether it is a traditional counselor/psychologist/psychiatrist or someone who deals with alternative therapies (but in a positive way, such as by healing meditation).

You might also want to try taking something to help you sleep better for a short time (not anything that might make you addicted) - whether it is something herbal, over the counter, or something that a doctor would prescribe.

Just getting a few good nights' sleep will help you relax more and think more clearly.

You might also want to have a look at the pages on Out of Body Experiences and Sleep Paralysis in the Lucid Dreaming section of the website.