My Past Love Is Hunting Me In My Dreams

**needdreamhelp** · 10-05-2013 08:08 AM

I am seeking answers to a dreaming problem I am having and have been having for the past several years. I wish to be unknown and do not want to share my identity.

PROBLEM: I am having recurring progressive evolving dreams about a person that was in my life but is no longer involved and has been out of my life for years. a better description is its as though he is hunting me and will not leave me alone.

HISTORY IN A NUT SHELL: He was my first true love and first for everything i was madly head over my heels in love with him we lived together and planned on being married and started putting wedding ideas together. His sister who was also my best friend was brutally murdered and he abandoned me immediately after the murder. I moved to a different state for a few years, 2 weeks after the murder and after he left me. i lived out of state for 2 years i had no dreams but when i moved back to my home town the dreams started and he started to appear. At first he would just be a face amongst others in my dreams never interacting. since then it has now progressed to where i talk about current events with him in my sleep even if its something i had learned about that day while i was conches. its an unwanted relationship on my part and a painful one that i wish to end.

WHAT I HAVE TRYED TO DO TO RID MYSLEF OF THEES DREAMS: I have tried talking to multiple therapists with no help, i have tried hypnosis with no help, i have talked to loved ones and confronted my fears and feelings about him and what had happened. In my actual dreams i have literally fought him and tried throw him out, i do mean literally grabbing him and throwing him out of my house yelling "leave me be get ...out of my life and let me move on" and still there he is waiting for me in my sleep. i have also tried forgiving him in my dreams. and i have also talked to the dream him about what happened to us in my dreams, not him the actual person but the person in my dreams.

WHAT THIS IS DOING TO MY LIFE: Is making it very hard to heal from my past and move on with a healthy life and I don't understand why he wont simply go away.

**Tarvus** · 10-05-2013 01:01 PM

Are you lucid during these dreams about your past lover? If so, when lucid you might try ordering him to go away and never come back. If not, perhaps you can work on becoming lucid with that objective in mind. Good luck in ridding yourself of an unwanted dream character!

**NowAwake** · 10-05-2013 02:00 PM

next time instead of ordering him or throwing him try talking. may be he is just a symbolic representation and he may hold the answer to your current problem. read the book of robert waggoner " lucid dreaming gate way to inner self" in it he have a large chapter devoted to dream characters, give it a go.

**JoannaB** · 10-05-2013 02:17 PM

That does sound very disturbing. In addition to trying to learn lucid dreaming if you are not already lucid, and either ordering him out or asking him why he is there, etc. I would also suggest focusing your waking life thoughts as much as possible on the current moment. Are you familiar with Buddhist mindfulness practice? The idea is basically to focus on the here and now, and be aware / pay attention to what is happening now, not worrying about the past or the future. Also the idea is to change one's attitude toward the current moment, and be more positive and calm about it, letting go of negative emotions or redirecting them into more positive ones. This type of mental discipline can be practiced by anyone, one does not need to be Buddhist (I am not, but I find this useful). By focusing your waking consciousness more on the present in a more positive way, you should be able to redirect your dreams from their current negative focus on the past.

Furthermore, your past love in your dreams may not be about him at all. This may be about a part of your personality or a current issue that reminds you of him. Is there anything about you in the present that is like him or like your issues with him?

You know the fact that his sister who was your friend was brutally murdered was a traumatic event. That kind of trauma leaves emotional scars. And I would think that this may be related to your having these dreams now. Perhaps you are haunted by what happened to her, and your mind does not want to go there, so it turns to him instead?

Since the dreams restarted after you moved to your home town, if anything else fails, can you try relocating again? It could be that the place holds too many memories that also involve him. For example, maybe you pass a store during the day where you used to go shopping with him together, or stuff like that, and that could be happening often enough that your subconscious gets constant reminders of him, which translate into dreams of him at night. If you lived somewhere else, he would be less on your mind because the places would not hold memories of the part of your life you spent together.

**StephL** · 10-30-2013 02:30 AM

I am not sure, if this is the right approach at all - but if I was you - after suffering from this for years on end - I would try to contact him.
You tried psychotherapy - so you were working on facing up to what happened - did you hear this suggestion from one of your therapists as well, or did the advise strongly against it?

As you say it - the cause of the break-up back then was the death of your best friend and his sister, which obviously traumatised him a lot.
The danger of course is, that an actual meeting and the direct confrontation with this whole topic in real life might make it worse for you.
It could also disrupt his eventually reached peace of mind.

But maybe it could also hold the potential to overcome the probably suppressed and therefore lingering emotions.
Making peace with him in reality.

Depends of course on the type of person he is - if he would be willing to meet you - how he might react from how you judge his temperament.
And it depends on how you think you feel towards him - do you maybe fear you might want a reunion with him, and being disappointed?
That might or might not be an argument against it - if you do, and it is not possible - you might well run around with this mess in your head while awake - at least for a while.

Does he still live there as well?
Do you know anything about what he is up to today?