I can't seem to explain it. But I tend to have very very violent dreams. I don't remember very many of my dreams, but most of the ones that I do are extremely violent.

First a little background. I've led a pretty normal life, I've never used drugs, I get drunk on occasion, but I'm a happy drunk when I DO get drunk. I'm 28, married, I have a great job, a nice house, lots of hobbies, and several good friends. I'm about as laid back as they get. I can and will fight back in situations where I think I'm getting taken advantage of (and it's important enough to stand my ground). But overall, I'm pretty laid back.... I don't usually let very many things bother me.. they just don't. I'm very non-violent... and whenever I catch a spider or lizard in my house (I live in Florida), I always catch them and let them go. I'm 6'3" at about 200-205 pounds. I'm in pretty good shape, and fairly confident.... so I'm pretty sure that it's not any kind of a lack of self worth.


But, basically, this is how my dreams typically go...

I'm usually being attacked. When I am attacked, I always end up winning, but it's very brutal. I mean... I always end up going well beyond defending myself. I usually end up tearing people, limb from limb... beating in faces, all kinds of horrible stuff.

And just last night, I had a totally random dream that I was living in some sort of weird Mad Max 2 apocolyptic world. I was standing in some sort of a small colloseum. It seemed to be underground, but it still held maybe 1,000 people? Everyone was filthy... most of them shaved heads, looked like they hadn't showered in months, and they all dressed like they had just come out of the movie the Beast Master, or Conan the Barbarian. So... in the middle of the colloseum were 6 people. It was 3 against 3. It was a fight to the death and most of them had shovels or something similar. At one point, two of the men were attacking this one guy at the same time. (they all looked fairly similar by the way.. in the way they kept themselves, but no one I really recognized) This one guy was beaten hard with shovel. One of the two guys held the injured guy down while the other one forced both of his thumbs into the injured guy's left eye socket... basically destroying his eye and some white puss came out. The guy had this horrible look on his face like he had basically just given up and was accepting the fact that he was going to die.

What the hell kind of crap is that??? And why the hell am I dreaming about sick stuff like that? I like working on cars, smacking my wife's butt when she bends over, playing Atari, hanging out with my buddies... normal conservative stuff like that. Where in the world could I possibly be coming out with this stuff? I mean, some of the dreams I have are so brutal that they make Hollywood gore on the same level as Sesame Street.


If anyone has any idea what the hell is wrong with me, I'd love to hear it. I also noticed that I can't remember the last time I saw a single black person in any of my dreams... that doesn't mean I'm secretly racist or anything, does it? I mean, I have some black friends and co-workers... just an observation I made.


Thanks,

Todd

I think it might be a good idea to talk to a doctor about your violent dreams. I think it might be a hormonal problem.

As for not dreaming about black people; I think it's just coincidence. It would only be important if your dreams obviously excluded black people. For example, if your team at work has 2 black people, and the rest are white, and every night you had a dream about the white people only. I think the fact that you are worried about it says something, though. I think most people don't really think about the races of the people they dream about.

That's very very interesting that you say that. I had never considered anything like that. What makes you think that it might be a hormonal problem? Is this a symptom of hormonal problems? I otherwise feel fine...

I never really thought about it until I was trying to recreate the dream in my head so that I could have a better idea of how to describe it. I was replaying it in my head, and it just occured to me right then and there. It's never really been a thought before either...

Thanks! I'm very interested to hear why you think it might be a hormonal problem. Would it be perhaps too many hormones? Or maybe a lack of?

I thought it might be a hormonal problem because hormones can affect your moods. So at night, you might be producing hormones that make you feel very angry, and then your brain makes up a story to make sense of your feeling angry. Maybe during the day, when you are awake, it doesn't bother you because you are thinking rationally and know that there is nothing bad enough to upset you in real life. Or may be everything in your life is so great that it just balances out the bad feelings from the hormones.

There are loads of different hormones that do different things and they balance each other out, so there's no way to tell what the problem is, if there is one. You would have to see a doctor, and if the doctor suspects a hormone problem, you would be given a blood test.