Please get the NFBSK out of my dreams!

[Ryda Wong, EBfCo.]

So, backstory. There was a person whom I loved, like that traditional, emotional, irrational "in love" stuff. He was not good for me or to me, but I was obsessed with him, totally and completely. After being with him for a year or so, he left me. I dating someone else for a couple of years. Broke up with that person. Briefly got together with old flame. That ended like almost two years ago. I've not spoken to this guy since then.

But I still dream about him, on a regular basis. It's not even precipitated by anything, like thinking about him during the day or anything. He just randomly pops up in a dream about once a month or so, and the dreams are really intense, and they leave me out of sorts for the entire day afterward.

Argh. Why the heck is my brain doing this to me! I really, really want to totally forget this guy, or, at least, remember it seldom and fondly and without that emotional draining that happens when I dream about him.

How do you keep people out of your dreams? I'd build a fence if I could, or set guard dogs, but my directed dreaming isn't that good, and, since I'm not totally in control in dreams, I think I'd just tear the fence down and call off the dogs as soon as I saw him.

Argh. I'm totally useless this morning. Frackin' dreams

[Lainie]

I wish I had an easy solution for you.

Took me years to get my ex-husband out of my dreams. For years, I dreamed that I was still married to him, trying to get up the courage to tell him I wanted a divorce (in real life, I never did that - he ended it). Just a year or two ago, in a dream, I finally told him (we've been divorced since 1996!). Knock wood, that pretty much stopped it.

[Jay Tea]

I often wish I could pick and chose whomever is set to loom out of my subconscious onto my dreamscape - I find the presence of a few certain individuals to be very hard to shake come waking. These dreams can often leave me wracked with grief, or anger or any number of negative emotions.

Annoyingly, there are people I would very much like to recall dreaming about. Sometimes I dream about an old flame or a lost friend and am filled with a sense of happiness and peace upon re-entering the conscious world, and I wish that I could apply a similar recollection to others that, to my knowledge, I have never dreamed of. That we do not recall the majority of our dreams means I may well have dreamed about them, so maybe they do visit me, but they're not there when I need them...

[Canuckistan]

I had a dream recently about a despised ex. At the end of the dream, I felt bad for him because of what happened in the dream.

I actually woke up and thought about contacting him for a second or two.

The answer is to find your subconsciousness and beat it to a bloody pulp. There is no other way.

[Tootsie Plunkette]

When that happens to me, I comfort myself by recognizing that the person I'm dreaming about is an idealized fantasy version with only good characteristics, the way I wished the real person had been. So I'm not really dreaming about that person; the individual in my dreams never existed.

[Ryda Wong, EBfCo.]

Originally Posted by Canuckistan

I actually woke up and thought about contacting him for a second or two.

I've thought about writing him a letter and posting it to his last known address (I think he still lives there).

Figure perhaps that would shut things up.

Why are dreams so cruel? I mean, my dreams are often upsetting, but put him in one and it's like I'm in a nightmare even after I wake up.

I want to go home and curl up and read dumb comfort books all day long and drink hot toddies and just pretend nothing exists outside the walls of my house.

Oh, yeah, and WAHHHHH!

[Ryda Wong, EBfCo.]

Originally Posted by Tootsie Plunkette

When that happens to me, I comfort myself by recognizing that the person I'm dreaming about is an idealized fantasy version with only good characteristics, the way I wished the real person had been. So I'm not really dreaming about that person; the individual in my dreams never existed.

Sad thing is, the bad parts are still there, but in the dream, I'm abasing myself trying to find a way to get it to work.

[Tootsie Plunkette]

So in your dream, the real you never appears!

[llewtrah]

Originally Posted by Ryda Wong, EBfCo.

How do you keep people out of your dreams? I'd build a fence if I could, or set guard dogs, but my directed dreaming isn't that good, and, since I'm not totally in control in dreams, I think I'd just tear the fence down and call off the dogs as soon as I saw him.

Practice your lucid dreaming. Also, if it's a recurring thing practice a "script" while half awake that you can readily recall in a lucid dream (you don't need to include the actual person in it - imagine old teachers, colleagues etc in his place, it's the script that matters not the character). So if someone I despised regularly popped up in a recurring dream about being at school, I'd script it that he was going to a different lesson. If I was dreaming about being on a bus/train journey and despised person was on it, I'd practice a script that he got off at the next stop. Go for something simple, that way you're less likely to wimp out. Script it that he walks past without noticing you and vanishes rather than elaborate things like building fences/having guard dogs. I find simple works best when I have to control a dream.

[Ryda Wong, EBfCo.]

Originally Posted by Tootsie Plunkette

So in your dream, the real you never appears!

Well, she's a facet of myself, but is all the things I tend to despise about myself: weak, silly, emotional, desperate, slow, vulnerable.

And, sometimes, the more common me tries to show up and do something, like leave the apartment, but, for example, last night I wanted to leave and I needed socks to do so, because it was cold, and I couldn't find any socks anywhere, and, by the time I'd given up and was just going to leave, he came back, and I was paralyzed and just wanted to stay.

yeah. I know. typical dilation. the avoidance of action for stupid reasons.

[Sue Bee]

Perhaps your dreams are a subconcious effort to work these things out? To exorcise your demons, maybe?

[Bryan With a 'Y']

Originally Posted by Ryda Wong, EBfCo.

Well, she's a facet of myself, but is all the things I tend to despise about myself: weak, silly, emotional, desperate, slow, vulnerable.

Sounds like this is much more about her than about him.

[Ryda Wong, EBfCo.]

Originally Posted by Bryan With a 'Y'

Sounds like this is much more about her than about him.

Yeah. I think it's both. I think there's also a part of myself that really misses him.

And, yeah, it's part, too, of confronting the past. I mean, in my dreams, I fight back against my mom all the time, sometimes in a scary, violent, physical way. those always make me a bit upset, but not like this.

This is one of the reasons I tend to drink so much. Drinking seems to either get rid of them, deintensify them, or make me forget them when I wake.

[Troodon]

Something similar happens to me too; the dream seems real (which is unusual because in almost all my other dreams I know that I am dreaming) and I wake up feeling convinced, for a moment, that I've got another chance with her. It takes a few seconds to realize that it was just a dream and then I'm moody for the whole day.

[Minstrel]

Do you think it might help to visualize a protection for yourself as you're drifting off to sleep? If you fall asleep thinking of a privacy fence or a force field or a lovely big protective German Shepherd Dog, it may carry over to your subconscious.

[Photo Bob]

Originally Posted by Ryda Wong, EBfCo.

I've thought about writing him a letter and posting it to his last known address (I think he still lives there).

Figure perhaps that would shut things up.

Good luck with that (sounds snarky, but it's not, I really hope it works for you).

I tried it once. Actually several times. There was a girl I never had closure with, she always left the door open. Everytime I would get into a new relationship she would pop up out of the blue ruminating on how things might be if we had stayed together or met when we were both a little older or wiser. My head tells me I would probably be living in a cardboard box somewhere anxious for my next fix, but there was always that little bit of hope that we could have been happy (she became a heavy drug user though she did clean herself up).

Anywho I finally wrote her a letter or two or three seeking closure. She responded with some psycho-babble that only made me more angry (she took some psych classes in college and had proclaimed herself a therapist).

Long story short (too late, I know), I got a little anger out, but nothing was actually resolved.

Photo "How sad it is that I can still get angry after all this time" Bob

[BamaRainbow]

No real advice to offer since, regardless of the anecdotal evidence out there, you CANNOT CHANGE YOUR DREAMS. You can't do anything to affect them, no matter what you try. We've got all sorts of people out there offering all sorts of "advice" on how to change your dreams or how to influence your dreams, etc, but there's very little absolute agreement even on WHY we dream (or why we can remember some dreams in vivid detail and can't recall the slightest bit of other dreams), so why do we accept the notion that we can do anything to affect our dreams?

I've had many pleasant dreams that get interrupted (largely because of the alarm clock) and I can remember enough to WANT to finish those dreams. I've thought about nothing but the images and events of those dreams as I'm lying there on the road to falling asleep and have had no luck in getting back to the dream. I've had some dreams that I'm really enjoying but, for some reason, they completely shift focus (the effect is similar to watching a spliced video featuring the same characters).

I've read all the stuff about "directed dreaming" and it might work for some people, but it doesn't work for me. I've just accepted that the brain's going to go its own direction when I'm asleep and the best I can hope for is to wake up before a nightmare gets too far along or complete a really pleasant dream before the alarm goes off.

[Lainie]

Originally Posted by BamaRainbow

No real advice to offer since, regardless of the anecdotal evidence out there, you CANNOT CHANGE YOUR DREAMS. You can't do anything to affect them, no matter what you try.

That is not true. Some people can, in fact, change the outcome of their dreams while they are dreaming. I've done it myself -- my mother taught me to, as a nightmare management technique.

Wikipedia on lucid dreaming.

[Ana Ng]

I accidentally refreshed and now I'm annoyed because I lost my whole post.

Reading your OP was frustrating, Ryda, because I know kind of where you're coming from. I'm "lucky" in that my only similar relationship was ten years ago (okay, 11 or 12) and since he's more Reznored about it than I am, I can handle that. (I'm sure if I had romantic experiences to speak of in modern times, I'd probably have bad dreams, too.) But I can and do have dreams that are an emotional punch in the nads, and I often end up how you are today.

One think I'm wondering is like, if I don't consume adequate sexual stimuli, I get overwhelmed with sexual impulses and it creeps into my dreams unpleasantly. Could you be (rhetoric question) feeling unstimulated or lonely feelings-wise and maybe be, for lack of a better phrase, emotionally horny? It makes sense then you might remember a relationship from the past perhaps much the same as you'd remember past sex, at least with my admittedly effed-up rationale.

[Ryda Wong, EBfCo.]

Originally Posted by Ana Ng

Could you be (rhetoric question) feeling unstimulated or lonely feelings-wise and maybe be, for lack of a better phrase, emotionally horny? It makes sense then you might remember a relationship from the past perhaps much the same as you'd remember past sex, at least with my admittedly effed-up rationale.

Hmmm.
I think that's very possible, and I hadn't thought of it. I've started dating again recently after pretty long break (was really doing very casual FWBs only), and I think it's bothering me. It's like, I'm not going to feel that way about anyone, most likely, which is both bad and good, but I certianly miss it in a really weird way. I mean, I don't WANT another relationship like that, but it was glorious in all sorts of weird ways.

And the person I am sorta dating is sweet, kind, etc., but I'm experiencing some stress about the whole thing.