Please help, recurring nightmares for years, recently lost parent

Hi,

43 year old male. Have had nightmares for decades where people were trying to "get me". I've researched sleep paralysis and it does not seem to be it. Generally I will 'fight' rather than be paralysed, I wake finding myself flailing in the air at imaginary beings/creatures. I will turn on lights, I've a bedside lamp I switch on, I also will cross the room and turn on the main bedroom light. Sometimes I will go to other rooms in the house and only 'come to' when I turn on the light. Very often I will shout and roar at the unseen attackers.

Generally I will easily fall asleep but wake around an hour afterwards bolt upright and the terrors will start.

Very recently my father passed away and now the dreams have changed slightly and the unseen are stealing things. My father died very suddenly so it makes sense that my mind sees him as being stolen.

Very simply I'd like techniques to help me deal with these dreams and more especially for the dreams to stop. Right now it seems that they are nightly and they are very distressing.

Thanks to anyone that can help. If more detail is required I will post it.

I’m sorry that you’ve been having this type of upsetting dream for so long and that you’ve been recently bereaved.

Generally speaking, unseen attackers in dreams symbolize parts of our own psychological makeup which for some reason have tended to be cut off from conscious awareness.

As a result, they kind of “haunt” a person until paid more attention to.

Because this situation has been going on for quite some time and the dreams are apparently increasing in frequency, I personally wouldn’t recommend trying to deal with these dreams on your own.

It would probably be best to speak with a trained counsellor or psychologist to help to gradually uncover what the cause of your dreams may be.

It’s also not impossible that there could be an underlying physical cause other than sleep paralysis which may be at work but this would probably be unlikely.

Of course, it can often be difficult to feel comfortable talking with someone when speaking about personal issues but it’s definitely worth a try and to stick with a few interviews before giving up.

Also, if you’re perhaps concerned about being pressured early on into taking medication to solve the problem (although this can be helpful at first in order to allow “talk therapy” to be more effective), you might like to explore the possibility of seeking help from a Jungian-trained analyst.

That’s because psychologists who have been trained in the methods developed by the famous psychiatrist Carl Jung generally try to avoid using drugs as much as possible and try instead to explore the person’s dreams etc. in order to help solve any problems.

I don’t know if you can find a Jungian trained psychologist in your area and whether he or she would qualify for payment by the health care system, but it might be worth a try.

You can also use this link Jung Professional Referral Service | New York Association for Analytical Psychology which is to the Jung Referral Service in New York City.

There you can read about how they might be able to put you in touch with a Jungian analyst in your country.

This service is free and you would just have to e-mail them and outline the upsetting problem that you’re trying to deal with. Within 24 hours they would e-mail you back to arrange a telephone conversation to talk about various details.

If you wanted to go ahead, they would then try to find a suitable Jungian analyst in the general area where you live.

Anyway, I hope that these ideas can be helpful in some way.