Horrifying Recurrent Nightmare......

I write here in this section of Dreamviews because I keep having a recurrent and horrifying nightmare involving a nuclear detonation, the locus of which is immediately above the downtown area of a major metropolitan city. What scares me about this dream is the fact that I have it night after night, and that the imagery involved is consistent with accounts of what would actually occur should such a detonation take place -- accounts which I only researched after having this dream for the first few times.

I fully understand that this dream may be influenced by movies I have seen, or books that I have read -- but the consistency of the content of this dream, and certain peculiarities involved therein, cause me great concern.

Firstly, I dream that the nuclear detonation in question is thermonuclear in nature -- that is to say, it involves the detonation of a sophisticated, staged fusion device as opposed to the detonation of crude, improvided fission device such as the bombs that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In this dream, the detonation takes the form of an airburst occurring several hundred feet above the skyline of the city (which I do not recognize). There is an instant of brilliant white light, so bright that it bleaches everything in sight to the extent that I can barely make out massive skyscrapers, buses, cars, and people. Within less than a second of the detonation, I see people's clothing catch fire, and then I hear shrieks of pain that die away almost instantly as the thermal pulse quite literally vaporizes the people. The light fades, but is still incredibly bright -- and then I see skyscrapers quite literally blown to pieces as a blast wave rips them from their foundations as though they were made of paper. Then there is no sound -- absolutely no sound whatsoever from the moment the blast wave hits to the moment that I awaken. The light starts to fade, but as it does so, the blast wave ripples outwards, consuming smaller buildings, homes, and other structures...

I am aware, having witnessed the evil of 9/11 from a few blocks away, that this dream could be the product of my imagination having been primed by the events that impacted me on that date. However, no terrorists would be able to detonate a thermonuclear device above a major city -- the most likely nightmarish scenario that could play out in real life would involve the detonation of a relatively small device, taking the form of a groundburst as opposed to an airburst. I do not make light of this scenario -- I contrast it, however, with the contents of my dream. I don't dream of a terrorist attack. I dream of wholesale slaughter on a scale that we all feared could occur in the 1980s, when there was the very real possibility that we could have blown ourselves into the arms of our ancestors.

I wake up with the sheets soaked in sweat, heart racing, and am sometimes reluctant to go to bed for fear of what the night will bring.

Why this, and why now? Why do I dream of such carnage with such monotonous regularity?

Comments would be greatly appreciated.....


Philip

Wow! That is some heavy stuff! It may be relevant that you witnessed 9/11 because it was so surprising and that may be part of it, total surprise. If so the important questions might be how was your life going at THAT time and how is it going NOW?
As for possible meaning, it could be the shocking and total destruction of your old social life with a blinding awareness followed by nothing. And the fact that you feel fear means it hasn't happened yet but you fear it could terribly.
I don't think 9/11 is relevant. It's most likely the dreaded terror of something threatening to hit your life like a bomb of unimaginable scale. The mass destruction is made great by its closeness to the beholder (it resembles a mass scale explosion because it would so closely affect yourself.) That is my mundane little guess.

P.S.
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I understand you, nuclear weapons are frightful because of their extreme power and because running away is useless when they are used.
Have you ever been stressed about possiblity of nuclear attack (e.g. during The Cold War)?
There's nothing to be afraid of. Now none of coutry owning weapons of mass destruction is crazy enought to use it (I hope).

Hi

Well I am certain that this dream is linked to you having viewed the fateful effects of the terror attacks. Dreams are about many things but some nightmareish dreams are symbolic of your own worst possible scenario.

In many ways one nigtmare is liike another. A stabbing is the same as a wolf dream. A nuclear attack is the same as spider. they all refer to our own nightmare emotions. Try to think back to the day beforer the dream. Was there some tricky situation you were in that day? Was there something that COULD have gone dreadfully wrong? Were you particularly worried about terror attacks that day ? did you read something that really made you more aware of the terror threats?

To be honest though the best comparison I can make is with the soldiers from world war one. Some(a very few ) are still alive today having lived life in a living hell with having to walk across no mans land and face almost certain death. When you have witnessed something that is beyond belief you can never totally unlearn that. Those soldiers came back from that war. In the same way troops are coming back from down town fallujah today and they can never truly unlearn the effects of that particular situation. So I gues this is partly post traumatic stress. You never really forget after having winessed this up close. And dreams are more about your fears. So the dream is true. You TRULY do FEAR a nuclear attack. It truly is a possibility.

Precisely what the cause is of your dream is difficult to say. I do believe in premonitions in that I have had these myself. But often a dream will be quite difficult to interpret. A dream does not really distinguish between a a disaster that is personal and one that is affecting the whole of society. So this may very well be about a nuclear explosion that you fear within your own life - loss of a job ? a devastating end to some relationship?

Hmmm...

I doubt that this is a premenatory dream, because lots of people would be experiencing it. What are you doing in the dream prior to the explosion, and how were you feeling? This could be the expression of a fear of your personal world coming apart suddenly, or a personal tragedy arising out of nowhere. Have you felt anxiety over the possibility of another terrorist attack since 9/11?

I know that life can take sudden, dramatic twists and turns - my life fell apart a few months back. Maybe you should start looking at how you would manage if your lifestyle were threatened by a catastrophic event. If there is a broader meaning to this dream, it could well be that sudden changes are headed our way. Global warming and the chaotic climate changes it is bringing might cause this civilization to collapse, and sooner than we think possible.

Happy New Year! :disconcerted:

le_Pew