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Alright... say you did something really regrettable a while back that you're very ashamed of. Something that went against your very essence. After this, you begin to have repeated dreams of the event or something similar, and everytime you wake up from one of them, you spend the next couple hours in a deppressed state.
My question is: how would you make peace with your subconscious to make it all stop?
In this case, I don't think it's your subconscious you need to make peace with, but your conscious self. You deeply regret what you did, so you should do your best to resolve the situation, and I'm confident that when you're happy that you've done all you can to repair any damage you've done, you'll stop having these dreams.
Personally I think the above is your best bet, but there are alternatives of course. You could use these dreams as a dreamsign and a cue for lucidity. If you can teach yourself to become lucid during these dreams you'd then be able to either change the dream to something you're more comfortable with, or try to make peace with the figurative demons in your dream. Some people, including the Senoi (a Malaysian people who were reported to make extensive use of lucid dreaming to ensure happiness and mental health) would have you confront and conquer any aggressive images in dreams, whereas others would have you embrace aggressive images and try to accept them. Either way would probably effectively allow you to take control of the dream, but trying to work out the problems, embracing them in the dream, and resolving them in waking life, is the best way to put an end to the dreams altogether.
Good question.
This may actually have a 2-part solution: (Not that I'm an expert. Simply taking a stab at this one. Heh.)
Now, while awake, I think the most important thing for you to do is to come to a conscious peace with the event. It happened. It is in the past. We all do things that we aren't proud of, but it's in committing and learning from these acts that we grow into the person that we are. Come to terms with your own humanity, in that none of us are perfect. The fact that you feel guilt about the event shows a level of personal growth, displaying a recognition that what you did was wrong. You have learned from the experience, you simply haven't learned to let the experience fade away as just "another lesson learned." I think it would be nearly impossible to find that peace within yourself without completely coming to grips with that. To accept the past doesn't make you any less of a caring person. To accept and to forget are two different things.
While dreaming:
First I think it's important to establish this recurring dream as a dream sign. Remember - whenever you are reliving this event, you are dreaming. Be deligent to make this distinction, because lucidity will be your best way of dealing with the problem head-on. Once lucid, approach the event as if you were a student. Examine it. Embrace it. Realize that this event was a part of who you are, and that you have changed for the better since the last time it happened. Focus more on the positivity and personal growth that you've taken from the experience, and less on the negativity and all-consuming guilt that you felt back when the event actually happened.
Sooner or later it may help to take the power out of the experience. Much like any other nightmare, taking the impact out of it, and becoming more comfortable with it, is the best way to help the subconscious discard the experience as such a crucial element in your dreams.
Hope this helps. :cooler: (let alone makes any sense. Haha.)
[Edit - But now that I've posted, I see that Raylin pretty much covered the same concepts. So I can't be That far off. Haha.)
Thanks guys. Some of the things that have been said have really cleared some things up for me. Especially the parts about dream signs and lucidity. What really confuses me is that I thought I had gotten over it and put it behind me. If it's showing up in my dreams, I guess not. :sweat1: I'll follow your guys' advice. :wink:
To establish a recurring dream as a dreamsign try to create a few sentences that will help you distinguish that dream from the waking life. For example: "That event was in the past, I'm over it now, If I will ever witness such event again or do something like that I will instantly realize that I'm dreaming because it is totally illogical that something like that would happen again". << this is just an example, cause I dont know what your event is. Examine your dream, notice as many details that you can include in this phrase. Make sure you tell yourself how this event defies logic and therefore you must realize that are dreaming.
The important thing is to repeat this phrase every time you go to bed. Every time you wake up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom or drink, or whatever repeat the phrase as you hit the bed again.
Well I don't think you actually need to do anything! Some psychologists have a theory that dreaming is a way of resolving problems (of any nature) during the night. At the start, the first dreams will be the most intense reflection of these problems, ergo, the worst, but as time progresses, the 'problem' (and I do use this term very vaguely) should eventually be resolved. Your problem sounds like an incredibly intense one, and while your conscious is at conflict over it, your dreams will be disturbing, but assuming these psychologists are correct, the 'tenderness' from the problem should dissipate, along with any dreams of it! Hope this helps :)