Hello,

I signed up for this forum because I'm pretty much desperate for some insight and maybe some understanding.

I have been a very vivid dreamer as long as I can remember. I still remember dreams from when I was very young, and remember the sensations from the dreams as if they were part of my waking life.

Lately (the past 8 years or so, I'm 30 years old) I have been having increasingly disturbing dreams. I've started to think that there is something wrong with my psyche or the chemical makeup in my brain for my subconscious to come up with such disturbing thoughts and have them be so vivid. My dreams often involve animals, usually pets. My friend has 2 dogs that I love to death, and my disturbing pet dreams only used to involve one of her dogs. Lately my dreams have involved my own cat.

I'll give a few examples so you understand where I'm coming from:

Last night I dreamt that I had 2 cats and a dog (I only have one cat). When I went into a Chinese restaurant, someone had murdered my pets and placed their faces (not their entire heads) onto the floor in front of the Buddas on the floor. I was praying that these faces were not those of my pets, and trying to convince myself that they were not mine, but they were. I was horrified, and asked the owner why my dead pet's faces were in his restaurant. He said that they had been placed there by a competitor and he had been threatened with death if he removed them. I ran out of the restaurant, cursing God for allowing this to happen. I collapsed on the street, raised my arms to the sky, and was screaming at God.

I had a dream about 6 months ago that myself and my friends' dog (Daisy) were kidnapped. As we were being driven away in the kidnappers' vehicle, Daisy was trying to jump out of the open window. I was begging her not to jump, because I was afraid she would hurt herself because we were traveling at such a high speed, but she jumped out of the window anyway. When we pulled up to my house (not actually my house), Daisy was at the end of the driveway, and the kidnappers' friends had cut off her front legs. There were blood smears on the driveway where she had been pushing herself around, and I ran to her and held her, crying. (I now know exactly how it feels to hold Daisy in my arms while she slowly bleeds to death and doesn't have any front legs).

About a year ago I dreamt that I was in my old apartment (where I lived with my ex) and a man broke into the apartment. I ran into the bedroom to hide, but he found me. He had a knife, and as I raised my hands to protect myself from his stabbing, he was stabbing me in the hands and arms. (I feel I know what it feels like to be stabbed in the hands and arms now, because of this dream).

My friends think I'm crazy when I tell them about my dreams. My Mom is worried. I'm starting to wonder what's wrong with me.