According to Merriam Webster:
Nightmare
1. an evil spirit formerly thought to oppress people during sleep
2 a frightening dream that usually awakens the sleeper
3 something (as an experience, situation, or object) having the monstrous character of a nightmare or producing a feeling of anxiety or terror
And:
Full Definition of FLASHBACK
1
: a recession of flame to an unwanted position (as into a blowpipe)
2
a : interruption of chronological sequence (as in a film or literary work) by interjection of events of earlier occurrence; also : an instance of flashback
b : a past incident recurring vividly in the mind
The Mayo Clinic defines:
I have had nightmares pretty much my whole memory. It was recognized in my family when I was 2. Until I was 2 I slept in a crib in my parents bedroom. Some time around 2.5 I was moved into "my own room". Not long after that, in order to get sleep herself, I guess, my mom moved me back to the crib in her room. Even at that age, there are two specific nightmares that I remember having. I was back in my parents room till I was somewhere over 4.
Time line of other events in life. 1959, I was born. Life was normal, till one day my mother takes me in to the doctor for some of my baby shots, I believe the 6 month shots. The doctor looks at my sister who is 4 years older than I am. He tells my mom let him look at her too. She is diagnosed with Leukemia. Life changes. I turned 2 in October and on New Years Eve, we loose her. Do I remember her? Yes, I actually have memories that we have traced to about the time I was 9 months old for sure. There are others that are more nebulous and could be earlier or later.
1963 I have a birthday. November 22, my mother is in the kitchen cooking lunch while I am watching tv in the livingroom. I am watching a procession going through Dallas. Who knows what influences children some times, but for what ever reason I apparently adored JFK so I was watching. My mother didn't have any idea what was going on until I suddenly became hysterical screaming, "THEY SHOT HIM< THEY SHOT HIM!!!!! Short version here is that I was glued to the TV through every event that came after that.
Nightmares expand. We have no idea there even IS such a thing as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder back then.
In college, when a friend was taking a class on dream therapy, and I was her guinea pig due to several life long reoccurring dreams, we figured out that the men in dark suits with wires coming out of their heads and rifles and hand guns at my door when no one else was home, were secret service men. She got an A on that paper and those dreams pretty much went away, only to rear their ugly head once or twice in the last 30 years.
It was the family joke that I slept with all of my toys in my bed with me. You know that scene in ET where he is in the closet surrounded by stuffed toys so no one realizes that he is there? I was doing that way before ET. If everything was in my bed with me, no one could see ME. Well, the only toy NOT in my bed was my clown. His name was Guckenheimer. He laughed at me sometimes and it made me mad.
I always tell people that I am the person who doesn't have abandonment issues as I figured out that people leave you when I was 2 years old. This really is true, over all I had a very normal upbringing and things rocked along fine. However, I also learned at a very early age to not make friends with people who you know to start with are going to only be around a short time. That was pretty tough in a small military based town. So I learned pretty early to take care of myself and be happy in my own skin. I learned to be a "watcher".
If things in my formative years had been different, would I be different? In some ways probably, but I was also what was called PAINFULLY SHY. I hid behind my dads legs. My first grade teacher called my parents in, I kid you not, to ask them if they didn't allow me to talk or what? (Yeah I cover that part of me pretty well now) But honestly, I am still very uncomfortable in most group situations.
Many of my nightmares have always involved groups of people and being lost, or everyone else going somewhere but being unable to join them or groups of people being in attack mode. (No NOT zombies)
As I go back and read over this, I am sure it won't seem to be that big of a deal to most. I still am not sure of the connections between these events and my subconscious. But its there.
You would also think that by the time I was an adult I could just let things go, like practice what I preach to others. The thing is, in my sunshine world, I CAN let it all go mostly. Its what happens when the shields are down and I am asleep. And after a while when I am in what I refer to as a dream cycle, I get to be afraid to try to sleep and to let those shields down.
And I am in a cycle, so now I am off to read a book for a while before I try to catch a couple hours sleep. I will return as I have just scratched the surface of my emptying my brain. I just hope this helps.
2 a frightening dream that usually awakens the sleeper
3 something (as an experience, situation, or object) having the monstrous character of a nightmare or producing a feeling of anxiety or terror
And:
Full Definition of FLASHBACK
1
: a recession of flame to an unwanted position (as into a blowpipe)
2
a : interruption of chronological sequence (as in a film or literary work) by interjection of events of earlier occurrence; also : an instance of flashback
b : a past incident recurring vividly in the mind
The Mayo Clinic defines:
I have had nightmares pretty much my whole memory. It was recognized in my family when I was 2. Until I was 2 I slept in a crib in my parents bedroom. Some time around 2.5 I was moved into "my own room". Not long after that, in order to get sleep herself, I guess, my mom moved me back to the crib in her room. Even at that age, there are two specific nightmares that I remember having. I was back in my parents room till I was somewhere over 4.
Time line of other events in life. 1959, I was born. Life was normal, till one day my mother takes me in to the doctor for some of my baby shots, I believe the 6 month shots. The doctor looks at my sister who is 4 years older than I am. He tells my mom let him look at her too. She is diagnosed with Leukemia. Life changes. I turned 2 in October and on New Years Eve, we loose her. Do I remember her? Yes, I actually have memories that we have traced to about the time I was 9 months old for sure. There are others that are more nebulous and could be earlier or later.
1963 I have a birthday. November 22, my mother is in the kitchen cooking lunch while I am watching tv in the livingroom. I am watching a procession going through Dallas. Who knows what influences children some times, but for what ever reason I apparently adored JFK so I was watching. My mother didn't have any idea what was going on until I suddenly became hysterical screaming, "THEY SHOT HIM< THEY SHOT HIM!!!!! Short version here is that I was glued to the TV through every event that came after that.
Nightmares expand. We have no idea there even IS such a thing as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder back then.
In college, when a friend was taking a class on dream therapy, and I was her guinea pig due to several life long reoccurring dreams, we figured out that the men in dark suits with wires coming out of their heads and rifles and hand guns at my door when no one else was home, were secret service men. She got an A on that paper and those dreams pretty much went away, only to rear their ugly head once or twice in the last 30 years.
It was the family joke that I slept with all of my toys in my bed with me. You know that scene in ET where he is in the closet surrounded by stuffed toys so no one realizes that he is there? I was doing that way before ET. If everything was in my bed with me, no one could see ME. Well, the only toy NOT in my bed was my clown. His name was Guckenheimer. He laughed at me sometimes and it made me mad.
I always tell people that I am the person who doesn't have abandonment issues as I figured out that people leave you when I was 2 years old. This really is true, over all I had a very normal upbringing and things rocked along fine. However, I also learned at a very early age to not make friends with people who you know to start with are going to only be around a short time. That was pretty tough in a small military based town. So I learned pretty early to take care of myself and be happy in my own skin. I learned to be a "watcher".
If things in my formative years had been different, would I be different? In some ways probably, but I was also what was called PAINFULLY SHY. I hid behind my dads legs. My first grade teacher called my parents in, I kid you not, to ask them if they didn't allow me to talk or what? (Yeah I cover that part of me pretty well now) But honestly, I am still very uncomfortable in most group situations.
Many of my nightmares have always involved groups of people and being lost, or everyone else going somewhere but being unable to join them or groups of people being in attack mode. (No NOT zombies)
As I go back and read over this, I am sure it won't seem to be that big of a deal to most. I still am not sure of the connections between these events and my subconscious. But its there.
You would also think that by the time I was an adult I could just let things go, like practice what I preach to others. The thing is, in my sunshine world, I CAN let it all go mostly. Its what happens when the shields are down and I am asleep. And after a while when I am in what I refer to as a dream cycle, I get to be afraid to try to sleep and to let those shields down.
And I am in a cycle, so now I am off to read a book for a while before I try to catch a couple hours sleep. I will return as I have just scratched the surface of my emptying my brain. I just hope this helps.
1
: a recession of flame to an unwanted position (as into a blowpipe)
2
a : interruption of chronological sequence (as in a film or literary work) by interjection of events of earlier occurrence; also : an instance of flashback
b : a past incident recurring vividly in the mind
The Mayo Clinic defines:
I have had nightmares pretty much my whole memory. It was recognized in my family when I was 2. Until I was 2 I slept in a crib in my parents bedroom. Some time around 2.5 I was moved into "my own room". Not long after that, in order to get sleep herself, I guess, my mom moved me back to the crib in her room. Even at that age, there are two specific nightmares that I remember having. I was back in my parents room till I was somewhere over 4.
Time line of other events in life. 1959, I was born. Life was normal, till one day my mother takes me in to the doctor for some of my baby shots, I believe the 6 month shots. The doctor looks at my sister who is 4 years older than I am. He tells my mom let him look at her too. She is diagnosed with Leukemia. Life changes. I turned 2 in October and on New Years Eve, we loose her. Do I remember her? Yes, I actually have memories that we have traced to about the time I was 9 months old for sure. There are others that are more nebulous and could be earlier or later.
1963 I have a birthday. November 22, my mother is in the kitchen cooking lunch while I am watching tv in the livingroom. I am watching a procession going through Dallas. Who knows what influences children some times, but for what ever reason I apparently adored JFK so I was watching. My mother didn't have any idea what was going on until I suddenly became hysterical screaming, "THEY SHOT HIM< THEY SHOT HIM!!!!! Short version here is that I was glued to the TV through every event that came after that.
Nightmares expand. We have no idea there even IS such a thing as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder back then.
In college, when a friend was taking a class on dream therapy, and I was her guinea pig due to several life long reoccurring dreams, we figured out that the men in dark suits with wires coming out of their heads and rifles and hand guns at my door when no one else was home, were secret service men. She got an A on that paper and those dreams pretty much went away, only to rear their ugly head once or twice in the last 30 years.
It was the family joke that I slept with all of my toys in my bed with me. You know that scene in ET where he is in the closet surrounded by stuffed toys so no one realizes that he is there? I was doing that way before ET. If everything was in my bed with me, no one could see ME. Well, the only toy NOT in my bed was my clown. His name was Guckenheimer. He laughed at me sometimes and it made me mad.
It was the family joke that I slept with all of my toys in my bed with me. You know that scene in ET where he is in the closet surrounded by stuffed toys so no one realizes that he is there? I was doing that way before ET. If everything was in my bed with me, no one could see ME. Well, the only toy NOT in my bed was my clown. His name was Guckenheimer. He laughed at me sometimes and it made me mad.
I always tell people that I am the person who doesn't have abandonment issues as I figured out that people leave you when I was 2 years old. This really is true, over all I had a very normal upbringing and things rocked along fine. However, I also learned at a very early age to not make friends with people who you know to start with are going to only be around a short time. That was pretty tough in a small military based town. So I learned pretty early to take care of myself and be happy in my own skin. I learned to be a "watcher".
If things in my formative years had been different, would I be different? In some ways probably, but I was also what was called PAINFULLY SHY. I hid behind my dads legs. My first grade teacher called my parents in, I kid you not, to ask them if they didn't allow me to talk or what? (Yeah I cover that part of me pretty well now) But honestly, I am still very uncomfortable in most group situations.
Many of my nightmares have always involved groups of people and being lost, or everyone else going somewhere but being unable to join them or groups of people being in attack mode. (No NOT zombies)
As I go back and read over this, I am sure it won't seem to be that big of a deal to most. I still am not sure of the connections between these events and my subconscious. But its there.
You would also think that by the time I was an adult I could just let things go, like practice what I preach to others. The thing is, in my sunshine world, I CAN let it all go mostly. Its what happens when the shields are down and I am asleep. And after a while when I am in what I refer to as a dream cycle, I get to be afraid to try to sleep and to let those shields down.
And I am in a cycle, so now I am off to read a book for a while before I try to catch a couple hours sleep. I will return as I have just scratched the surface of my emptying my brain. I just hope this helps.
If things in my formative years had been different, would I be different? In some ways probably, but I was also what was called PAINFULLY SHY. I hid behind my dads legs. My first grade teacher called my parents in, I kid you not, to ask them if they didn't allow me to talk or what? (Yeah I cover that part of me pretty well now) But honestly, I am still very uncomfortable in most group situations.
Many of my nightmares have always involved groups of people and being lost, or everyone else going somewhere but being unable to join them or groups of people being in attack mode. (No NOT zombies)
As I go back and read over this, I am sure it won't seem to be that big of a deal to most. I still am not sure of the connections between these events and my subconscious. But its there.
You would also think that by the time I was an adult I could just let things go, like practice what I preach to others. The thing is, in my sunshine world, I CAN let it all go mostly. Its what happens when the shields are down and I am asleep. And after a while when I am in what I refer to as a dream cycle, I get to be afraid to try to sleep and to let those shields down.
And I am in a cycle, so now I am off to read a book for a while before I try to catch a couple hours sleep. I will return as I have just scratched the surface of my emptying my brain. I just hope this helps.
