Constant dreams about missing flights and the military

[marchvet]

I am a DV for almost 30 years now with severe chronic pain. Over the last 3-5 years, I have noticed that my dreams are all the same now. Its either I am on a vacation (I have not been on a real vacation since 1999) and there is a huge fear of missing my flight back home or I am back in the Army and struggling to cope because of my injuries. Sometimes I wake out of my sleep breathing really fast or my whole body is sweating.

It used to be that my real-life events were never in my dreams, but now they are. It feels like a nightmare to me every night and its extremely difficult to deal with. After seeing a few counselors, they all basically said "hmmmm, maybe you need a vacation?".

Thats the last thing I need to hear because my injuries prevent me from traveling and they are well aware of that.

These same dreams play over and over each night and I dread going to sleep. Why would my real-life events now show up in the dreams? I am so confused over all of this and don't know how to handle it.

 

[unclesirbobbyrobson]

Dreams often have strange stories which do not seem to link to real life. But hidden beneath the symbols a set of emotions will have a great relevance to you. How do you feel when you get these dreams. It is likely that the dream has the sense of urgency and fear that you cannot meet a schedule. The same emotions you get when you miss a flight are relevant in your life in some other setting.

 

[PaulKH]

Dreams often (try to) give you some things you otherwise miss: experiences, capabilities, fun. But, they are always completely limited (subjected to) our own frame of reference, how we are willing/able to consider them, hence why conditioning is so vitally important, because it can be our filter that actively blocks dreams from being able to help us.

Consider this guy/game friend I interviewed recently about his dream time within a coma (after accident/surgeries, they had to keep him in a medically induced coma so he could heal--it was that or die from the overload, apparently). So, while he was *completely* immobilized with tubes down his throat, he would dream in full conversations, both with people he knew and with total strangers, and of course, sometimes a mix of that. He had a perfectly realistic dream of ordering his doctors to let him up and change his diet (or habit), and yet later got verification that he was in no state to have actually done any of those things... Yet, consider that the dreams gave him the authority and the freedom to do just that: have control over his life! In discussing this with him, I could almost *see* his gears turning and the relief as he accepted that help. And it is that level of conditioning that sometimes allow us progress (in whatever way is possible).

I cannot speak to your very individual dreams except to be general--reoccurring dreams can very much be like insistent reminders that you have business unfinished, that emotions must be dealt with and accepted, *made peace with* for those occurrences to stop (because the lesson will have been learned). This has happened to me in multiple forms: sometimes from an emotional need, and once, in two variations of the same thing, because of a tie in to real-world physical needs (my foot arches cramping/beginning to cramp). What I have seen proof of from dreams: the more you open your perspective to them and use them for help/comfort, the more they will provide that. Again, glorious conditioning of us being ready, able and willing to accept such. They can help you grow and heal in such a way as is possible, but I think you have to look for that within them. So yeah, some dreams can be escapes, but others are very specifically trying to help the real-life you (but they can only do so much through your filter/conditioning). Mystical or an amazing mind process, who really knows (hint: no one), yet the results can be the same: glorious progress/relief!

I conquer my dread and those "nightmares" go away; I realize there is no such thing as nightmares in an emotional sense, and completely stop having anything I would consider a nightmare! I know it's not really that simple--of course nothing worth it ever really is!--but I hope that gives you a path to charge down, a goal to set for yourself.

 

[Harvey]

I am a DV for almost 30 years now with severe chronic pain. Over the last 3-5 years, I have noticed that my dreams are all the same now. Its either I am on a vacation (I have not been on a real vacation since 1999) and there is a huge fear of missing my flight back home or I am back in the Army and struggling to cope because of my injuries. Sometimes I wake out of my sleep breathing really fast or my whole body is sweating.

It used to be that my real-life events were never in my dreams, but now they are. It feels like a nightmare to me every night and its extremely difficult to deal with. After seeing a few counselors, they all basically said "hmmmm, maybe you need a vacation?".

Thats the last thing I need to hear because my injuries prevent me from traveling and they are well aware of that.

These same dreams play over and over each night and I dread going to sleep. Why would my real-life events now show up in the dreams? I am so confused over all of this and don't know how to handle it.