Thread: Really horrifying dream, struggling to forget about it

I'm of the (unpopular) opinion that dreams have no meaning. You just fell into an attention trap, which is how all nightmares form. Something horrible or scary captures your attention (understandably) and the more attention you pour into it, the more related detail it creates.

The only thing important about that dream is how it hooked your attention, and how that fixation shaped your dream.

I'm with you that there's no real meaning, as-in, I'm under no illusion - I've not just predicted the future!

I've always understood that when you have scary dreams like being chased by an animal, it's a (wise) defence mechanism your brain performs where it does "role-play" of possible scenarios to test itself on different outcomes to better prepare itself in case it has to deal with it for real. That makes sense, but doesn't seem to apply to this dream...

What happened after the main part, the "coming to terms with it" part, is foggy, but I remember having to go somewhere proper, official, like a public event, or famous restaurant or something, and act normal, but being completely unable to, as I was in an ever tightening knot in my mind trying to contemplate what's happened.

This would be much easier to accept and forget about if I had some logical reason why my mind would do that to itself. I could deal with my partner dying, if she was old, and had lived her life, and died a natural death, that wouldn't be a scary dream it's one I've had before, parts were quite pleasant, thinking about all the things she did, etc, but this is totally different, just torturous.

Guys, after having several dreams like this since, and having told my mrs about them, she's suggesting I need serious psychological help.

Has anyone got any other recourse to this other than I'm abnormal? It's getting unbearable and more frequent now. Including a recent dream I was caged and had to watch my two young children go through every single brutal horrific stage of being burned alive in front of my eyes and there was nothing I could do about it.

Guys and girls any advise is really appreciated. I'm getting desperate now. I don't know how many of these dreams I can take of my mind torturing itself.

Is medical help the only way forward?