Hey Quietness! I'm sorry about all of the unpleasant dream content you've had lately, but I actually have sort of a different perspective that I hope will help you. See what you think.

First, nightmares are by definition terribly unpleasant experiences. If you're particularly distressed or ashamed of violent dream content, this could be creating a bit of a feedback loop where nightmares contain more and more of it. Nightmares are fantastic at pushing our buttons, and if you're repulsed by violent dream content, nightmares may be obnoxious enough to give you more of it. For that, I think that the best thing you can do is to simply take your dreams without judgment and consider them, as Dream Yoga would advise, "without grasping or aversion". They aren't you. They simply are. Try not to cling too tightly or push away too aggressively.

Now I'd like to see how you can turn this to your advantage. These nightmares sound like they are very different from your waking life thoughts and patterns. While this makes them feel shocking, alien, and unpleasant, it also makes them world-class dreamsigns. The only way that you can change them is to become lucid. So in a sense, your subconscious is offering you an opportunity to be shocked out of the complacency of dream. If you can translate your natural revulsion into a kickstart of your lucidity, you'll have everything you want.

So I would recommend the following. Any time you think of these dreams (or violence of any kind), give yourself a hard jolt of awareness. Look around you, almost frantically, and make absolutely sure you are not dreaming. You must get used to proving it to yourself any time thoughts or memories of this nature occur to you. You know that feeling of momentary panic when you forget to pay an important bill or forget to feed a pet at the usual time? That is the feeling you want. You need to leave yourself a hard kick of prospective memory that's pinned to these violent dreams. Any time you have an image of violence, you should instantly be thinking, "Holy crap! I forgot to make sure that I'm dreaming!" Habits like this can and will permeate through to the dream world.

Speaking from personal experience, there's nothing like the feeling of flowing from nightmare to lucid dream. You really could have an opportunity here! Ultimately, the choice is up to you, and I wish you luck in whatever you decide. Keep us updated on how you do!