Thread: Recurring nightmare of someone trying to break in

My thought is that these dreams are about your personal boundaries. Look for things in your life that happened around the time of the dreams where you felt that someone (intentionally or not) was pushing your boundaries. Where maybe you felt you had to say "yes" but wanted to say "no".

If you managed to shut and lock the door, that's great. It means you managed to assert your boundary with that person.

I like Hilary's interpretation, it's pretty straightforward and in symbolic terms doors really are more of a psychological barrier than anything; anybody can realistically break down any door with enough time or dedication, locks mostly makes us feel safe but they can still be bypassed. We trust however that they won't be bypassed because the number of people who are actually dedicated to doing such things are actually relatively few in number. Just before falling asleep last night I had intrusive thoughts about strangers being in our yard and potentially breaking in; I reminded myself that this was a fear that comes and goes, and that if it actually happened, I would deal with it then, not "now", and in a sense these intrusive thoughts do disturb my falling asleep but they also remind me to be alert in the near future.

Are you having this nightmare every night or is it something that comes and goes unexpectedly? I'm asking because the thing with nightmares is that you are generally much more naturally aware when they're happening, versus a regular dream. This means that it's much easier to bring incubated thoughts and intents into nightmares, because nightmares also play heavily on our associative mechanisms. I feel this makes it easier to create new associations when awake for things that are in the nightmare, which I think is why it's so easy for nightmares to get worse and worse things tacked on to them if they keep going for a while.

Part of the thing with nightmares is that because they are emotionally "negative" experiences, we create all the normal extreme expectations about them; obsession, fear, strong urges to avoid anything that reminds us of the nightmare, and so on. We make the strongest associations with so-called negative experiences because they tend to mean much more for survival, in general terms; for most of us and in the most basic terms, we don't have to worry and obsess about positive experiences, say getting a birthday cake or present, which could be part of why sometimes we can easily forget about such things.

While we're on this emotional trip it's pretty easy to forget that nightmares are literally the product of our fears and worst worries, regardless of whatever symbolic content they may have, and so one of the things I feel are most important for dealing with a nightmare is to remind yourself of that; it's a product of your mind, and as such it only has as much hold over your consciousness as you allow it. Yes, some nightmares are indeed very difficult to deal with, I know this from my own experience, but it is totally possible to deal with them once you start trying to change your attitude towards them. Do not fear the nightmare; think of what could be different, think of alternate scenarios that can explain the situation in a more calm way. A very crude example would be something like "oh, the person trying to 'break in' is actually someone I know and love and they forgot something and desperately need it back, I could let them back in and see what they need". Regardless of whether this was true or not for the nightmare's previous occurrences, this type of thinking lets you establish to yourself that you could be overreacting for the duration of these dreams and that sometimes we do overthink (and "overfeel") things too.

I have recurring dreams of people breaking in as well. During childhood I was always scared of burglars breaking into my house during the night and quite naturally as an adult I still am to some extent. Every night before I go to sleep I lock my door to prevent this and in the back of my mind this concern is always there even if it’s only subtle. If I’m ever woken in the night by an unexplainable noise my first thought is always “someones breaking in!” even though it never is. I think this heightened vigilance in the night whilst I sleep may be the reason why I have recurring break in dreams and I think it may be the same for many others.

Thanks all for your thoughts. Darkest- the dreams come and go unexpectedly. I'll think about all your input. It's helpful.