Please Help Me!

[sloth]

I know this post is long, but I am begging you guys for your help. A few years ago, my grandparents died. These people raised me from age five, and were the only people in my life that truly treated me right, with no alterior motive. After they died, I would dream about them. My dreams made it easier to cope with their deaths, as they would come visit me in my dreams, and I could see them again. It made me feel better when I woke up, knowing that there was a chance that they were still with me somehow. As time went on, these dreams turned sour. Now, they terrify me, and I am seriously in distress. I cannot continue having these dreams. They are seriously messing with my head. I have to know what they are trying to tell me. A little background: A few years ago, I was diagnosed as being very much insane. I am okay now, but in my latest dreams about this, I see my grandparents, and I know that they are dead. Therefore, in my dreams, I believe that I have gone insane again. This is the scariest feeling I've ever felt.. To think that I have lost my mind again. I have built up the nerve to write these out for you guys for a long time. This is personal stuff.. but I have reached a point where I have to. I have to stop these! Please help me! I have had literally dozens and dozens of these dreams. Always non-lucid. Each one is every bit as disturbing as the ones here. I have had about two to three of these every week. The ones here are just the ones that I ended up writing down afterward. Dream #1 I am there again, and they are there. My father is there as well. I was just beginning to realize that they were dead, so I asked my father. ‘Are my grandparents dead?’ He grinned. ‘Everyone here is dead. Here. I will show you.’ He briskly walked over, and began repeatedly beating my grandmother over the head with a board. As her limp body hit the floor, I woke up. Dream #2 I finally built up the nerve to ask one of them, so I found my grandmother in the living room, and I asked, ‘Is it really you, that is in my dreams, grandmother, or am I just dreaming ABOUT you?’ She looked at me with an evil in her eyes like I have never seen before. She grinned evilly, and as I watched, her grin formed a laugh, and she cracked up at me, as I cried. Dream #3 I am there again. My grandmother is alive and well, but my grandfather had died. I asked grandmother about it, and she says that even though he’s dead, he still wanders between the house and the pond out in the woods. I went to check on him. He wore ragged, torn, and dirty clothes, and drooled everywhere. He stumbled toward the house. He was your typical zombie. When he reached the front door grandmother warned me. ‘Make sure you don’t let him in the house.’ As I woke up, he was eating a dead animal. Dream #4 This was when I began to realize that I should not be seeing my grandparents alive. I knew they were dead, and that they shouldn’t be there. I lived in the old house, and I was 22 years old. I handled the expenses, and paid the bills. My grandparents did not live, so they did not have the ability to do these things, but they gave me advice, and helped me with issues that I faced. But when company came, I had to hide my grandparents, and pretend I did not see them. I knew that they weren’t supposed to be there. I was scared that someone might find out that I was actually seeing my grandparents walking around. It occurred to me that perhaps I had gone insane again. Then, it was dark. I could not see anything. The house kept changing, and falling apart. I would turn on lights, but they could not cut through the darkness. Like the lamps were on full brightness, but the light only stretched out a few inches before the darkness took them over. In the living room the ceiling had caved in, and the hole that was left over opened up to an infinite dark abyss. The boards and rafters were jagged and resembled teeth, like the ceiling was about to eat me. I ran, afraid of everything, to my room. The floorplan had changed, but I finally found it, and tried to shut the door, but the door did not fit the doorframe any longer. By the time this dream ended, I was terrified. Dream #5 I am there again. My grandparents are there, and we live on the fourth floor of the house. My house really only has three stories, but in my dream it has four. It is in a beautiful condition, and I live a quite happy life. My sister’s boyfriend lives on the third floor. My sister lives on the second floor, and my father lives on the first floor. These are the three main people that have lived on my bottom floor at one time or another in my life. In my dream they are all living there at the same time, on different floors. Since they live on these floors, I don’t go onto these floors at all. I only stay on the fourth floor, and the hallway that leads downstairs and out the front door. Lately, grandfather and I have been going to his friend’s house to borrow Christmas ornaments. ?? In the dream we take a trip there. I drive there. I always drive. And grandfather sits in the passenger seat. When we arrive he gets out, and walks toward the front door of this house, but I don’t actually see him go inside, because I am getting my seat belt off. I walked up to the front door, and rang the doorbell. Soon, the door opens and grandfather walks out of the house, carrying a box of Christmas ornaments. He leaves the door open, and I wait by the door. As I stand I hear something. Very, very faintly, in the back of my mind I hear someone say, ‘May I help you?’ Suddenly I know that something is wrong, so I stand and stare at the open, vacant doorway. Then, the door closes by itself. Now I know something strange is going on, but I haven’t figured it out yet. Momentarily, the door opens by again, by itself, and I hear the voice again. The voice of a lady just barely, and faintly echoes in the back of my mind. She says, ‘I don't know you. Please leave. You’re starting to scare me.’ And then the door closes by itself. I return to the car, and see grandfather sitting in the passenger seat. I drive back home in silence… When I get there, my consciousness flies out of my body. I see the scene from an aerial view now. Now I am seeing things as they really are. I see myself get out of the car alone. I watch as sloth walks up to the remains of what used to be the house. There is nothing left but the front door, and the top floor. The bottom floors are completely gone. Most of the house is burned, or rotted away. There is no ceiling. There are few walls. The fourth floor is supported by small beams, and the remains of the bottom floors. It begs to fall over. sloth smiles, and helps grandfather out of the car, though grandfather is not really there. As I watch myself, sloth laughs and talks to grandfather as he almost skips up to the front door. sloth unlocks the door, even though there are holes in the walls surrounding the door that are so big one could walk right through them. He strolls into the house, and walks up the staircase. I watch myself run up the staircase, and I see a step break off, but sloth doesn’t notice. He runs back and forth on the top floor, laughing. The hallway he runs across has no walls, and no supports underneath. Nothing is keeping him from stepping in the wrong place and falling four floors to the ground, but somehow this doesn’t happen. As I watch, sloth ignorantly strolls around the remains of what used to be my house, and laughs, and plays, and lives a perfectly happy life. As the dream comes to an end, I am eating a bowl of soup. It is raining, and with no ceiling over me, the rain is watering down my soup, but I don’t notice. I smile, as I pass the pepper across the table, to no one at all. Dream #6 (Last night) I am in the car with them. We are talking and laughing. We are having a good time, but then I look at my grandmother. Suddenly the vision of my grandmother dying on her hospital bed flashes into my head. Suddenly, I remembered the last time I saw her. Blood all over her, dripping to the floor. Her rib cage jutting out from her side. Her skull was dented in. Her face was so bruised and swolen, she looked like a fat African American man. I saw her in my head, exactly the way I had seen her in real life… and I suddenly remember that she is dead. I decide to test her. ‘Grandmother, what happened 7 years ago? Do you remember?’ She looks up at me ignorantly. ‘You don’t know, do you?’ and I turned to my grandfather. ‘What happened to you the same year!?’ and he is clueless as well. ‘You died!’ I shout angrily. ‘Who are you two!?’ because they couldn’t have been my grandparents. ‘And where are we!?’ ‘We are dead. So are you. We are in the cemetery. It was a nuclear bomb, sloth. It went off and killed everyone in town. We are all dead.’ -scared sloth

[Erfeyah]

Hello Sloth As i see it you can use the reocuring situation as a dream sign. You can find information of how to use dream signs to induce lucidity on old posts or in the book 'exploring the world of lucid dreaming'by stephen Laberge. As far as I can recall here is the technique: During the day imagine that you are in the dream with your grandparents but this time you realise that you are dreaming. It is better to plan an action for when you really realise it and act it out in your imagination. Then before you go to sleep practise the MILD technique using the same imaginery senario. I think that if you follow this, sooner all later you will become lucid inside the dream. Hope that helps Dionisis

[sloth]

I must first know what they mean, before I consciously manipulate them. I've had LDs for twelve years now. I don't need another dream sign. I need to know what is bothering my subconscious so badly as to produce these dreams. Thank you for your help though.

[sloth]

...

[3FLryan]

It seems clear that you began dreaming about them because your subconscious wanted them to be there, guide you, raise you, etc., because they were the only ones who ever truly did. But as to why the sudden change in mood of the dream...perhaps you are now dealing with the fact that they are truly gone forever, and a dream is just that - a dream. Maybe your subconscious mind feels completely abandoned and wronged by these people who were always there for you, and now aren't. Like, the first stage, where you dreamed about them to cope (you were in denial of their death), has passed, and now you are in some other stage, such as anger, bargaining, depression, grief, acceptance, you know, the five stages of grief. One thing I don't understand is why you think you could be insane for having dreams like these. It seems perfectly normal to me. It's not clear that your dreams are trying to "tell" you anything, besides the fact that your probably not fully over your grandparents deaths, which is understandable, considering how much they must have meant to you.

[sloth]

I must correct you in that I do not believe I am insane for having these dreams. What I meant was that I was clinically declared insane about three years ago, and in my dreams, I am dreaming that I am insane again, and that is the most terrifying thing I've ever felt. Of course, being psycho wasn't scary at the time. lol I didn't know there was anything wrong with me at the time. But in my dreams, I am aware that I am crazy and it's terrifying. I know I'm not crazy now. I know, because other people agree with me. lol!! But I do believe that I have some issues that are really messing with my head. I have lost a lot in the last few years. A lot. Monetarily, emotionally, sentimentally... I moved here to California, because I could not live in the same state anymore. I can't return home until I work this stuff out. I want to go home.

[Burns]

I'm really sorry to hear about all this sloth. I'd like to be able to say something to help you, but I suck at interpreting dreams (even my own dreams sometimes). What happened to your grandparents? Were they in an accident? That's the feeling I got from how you described your grandmother in the last dream. Why were you diagnosed as clinically insane previously? Did it have anything to do with your grandparents' deaths? Are you currently seeing a psychologist or therapist about these dreams? Sorry for the 20 questions, I'm just trying to understand your situation better - not that I'll be of any use to helping you work out these dreams, but sometimes talking about it to friends can help. I'm a good listener if you ever want to talk or anything, so don't be shy about PMing me.

[Seeker]

I must first know what they mean, before I consciously manipulate them.....I need to know what is bothering my subconscious so badly as to produce these dreams. [/b] This is the perfect application for lucid dreaming, absolutely do not try to force or control the situation though. Next time this happens to you and you go lucid, talk to your dream characters. Ask them what is going on and what your subconcious is trying to tell you. Lucid dreaming is the perfect place, where your concious and subconcious can meet to talk through things. I've seen this help people before and I'm sure it will help you as well.

[EagleEye]

sloth, I'm very sorry you're suffering. The fear in your dreams is palpable My hypothesis is that recurring dreams like these often serve the purpose of forcing some beneficial change in us that we're resisting for whatever reason. I'm not particulary good at dream interpretation, but it seems you're having serious issues with redefining your identity in absence of your grandparents and in light of your diagnosis. You've gone through 3 phases psychologically speaking: from son to orphan, from sane to insane, from insane to...what? It's natural to think that a move from one place to another will solve things (I've done it, believe me). But, the past travels with you wherever you go. I agree with Seeker that this could be a good LD opportunity. A few years ago, I was having recurring nightmares that were related to a mental health issue. I discussed the dreams with a couple of people I trusted and their interpretations made sense on an intellectual level. But, what they said didn't make the dreams go away. The reason was that the meaning of the dream wasn't coming from my own emotional understanding. I still didn't "get it" at some level. Obviously, having these dreams night after night took a toll and it was getting intolerable. Though I'm not a natural LDer, I was fortunate enough to have a spontaneous LD in which I was able to ask the DCs WHY I was having the dreams. It was a breakthrough for me because I finally "got it." What I learned from this experience help me to chang my behavior and got me back on the right path. The dreams stopped for the most part. Now they only pop up if I'm slipping back into old (neurotic) ways of thinking/behaving. Good luck.

[Moonbeam]

sloth, those dreams are truly chilling. The hell a person's own brain can put them thru is terrifying and probably worse than anything somebody else could ever do. The connections I see are that you are dreaming about the two worst things that have ever happened to you -- the death of your grandparents, and the subsequent diagnosis of mental illness; and the fact that you are somewhere that you don't want to be and that you have lost a lot in the last few years. Maybe your grandparents symbolize everything important that you have lost. I just don't know if it would help to try to work out the problems in your life, and hope this causees the dreams to subside, or to tackle the dreams first and hope you can then get your life on track. My own inclination would be to suffer thru the dreams, trying to alleviate them as Seeker said using your knowledge of lucid dreaming; meanwhile working hard to improve your situation and get back some of what you have lost. Then, as you feel better about your life and feel you have regained some of what you have lost, maybe the dreams would fade too. I don't know. The diagnosis you speak of worries me; I don't know how you got thru it before, but maybe if it was with professional help, you should seek that again. I truly sympathize with both your loss and your current situation. I hope talking to your friends here at DV will help resolve some of these issues.

[sloth]

I am so truly thankful for your attention with this. It's not something I'm proud of. It's actually embarrasing having to tell people that you have lost your mind, but at this point I don't even care anymore. I HAVE to know what is going on. Also, the people I have met here at DV are some of the nicest, and most understanding and open minded people I've ever met, (aside from the religious piece) lol. Burns has always been there to talk to. Have you seen her post count? Holy crap. Plus, look at her pictures. *hump hump!* lol Juuust kidding, Burnsy. As for lucid dreaming, I’m still hesitant to try it. I’ve been lucid dreaming for twelve years now, and I am lucid in MOST of my dreams, but I have not been lucid in any of these. That has to mean something. I’m not meant to be lucid in these, or I think it would have happened by now. Plus, I’m not sure that I want to interfere with the natural process that these dreams are trying to take. Whatever they are trying to tell me, it needs to be brought forward in its own way. I don’t want to lose my best chance of solving this mystery, due to my own control over what is happening. Also, even if I become lucid, I would just cry. I know I would. I have many lucid dreams about the old property, or the lakefront property. In all of these, all I do is just cry! I can ONLY cry in my dreams. It’s almost satisfying at this point. Burns, I suck at interpreting too. LOL My grandmother was the first to go. She fell off of my roof, three stories onto a cement patio. Yes, I know what you are saying, ‘What was she doing up there!?’ That’s what everyone says, but she was like that. She was fixing the shingles on the roof. rolls his eyes She broke ten ribs, which had gotten shoved through one of her lungs, and then jutted out of her side. She broke her collar bone, which also stuck out of her body. She broke her leg, and she had three compound fractures to her skull. Her head wasn’t even the right shape anymore. It was my sister that found her. She was seven years old at the time. Nobody knows how long my grandmother had been on the patio, but my sister found her. She had been attempting to crawl towards the front door, and had made it all of four feet towards the door. A trail of blood led from her to a ladder that lay across the patio. I woke up, hearing my grandfather say, ‘My wife fell off the roof.’ And I knew it was bad. Nobody says this unless it’s bad. I came downstairs, and my grandmother was sitting in a chair, in the kitchen, surrounded by the family. I could not see her face behind the blood. Blood dripped from every part of her. Blood oozed from everywhere. She was soaked. She kept raising her head, and then dropping it, as if she was losing, and then regaining consciousness over and over. I took my little sister downstairs and we watched cartoons. As grandmother was loaded onto a stretcher, she repeated, ‘I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe.’ It’s the last thing I ever heard her say. She was alive for a few days after that, but never conscious, and she was almost completely unrecognizable. She died on May 1st , three days before my birthday. Grandfather died the same year, in November, which ruined Christmas, as well. His story is thankfully a lot less gruesome. He had a stroke in the morning. Dad says that he did not see grandfather go out and feed the cows as he always did, early in the morning. It was not until seven o’clock that night that he came in the front door. Grandfather was sitting on the steps. Dad said he knew instantly what had happened, just by seeing the look on Grandfather’s face. He lost muscle control on one half of his body. They said he’d never be able to take care of himself again. He couldn’t talk. I came to visit him in the hospital, and he would look at me, knowingly. As we left, my mother asked if he would like me to come back and see him again, and grandfather shook his head, no. He didn’t want me to see him in that state, I think. Grandfather was a prideful man. I scoffed at this request, and came back anyway. Grandfather should have known better than to ask me not to come back. I think he did. He knew I wouldn’t listen to him. He didn’t want me to see him like that, but he should’ve known that I didn’t care what he looked like. He was still my grandfather, and in my eyes, he will always be the strong, kind, fat man that he always was. LOL I came back, and grandfather looked up at me. He held my hand, and squeezed it over and over. That was the last thing ever said to me. I will never forgot those words. Grandfather was so nice to me that he drove 45 minutes to a supermarket, because I didn’t have milk for my cereal. He bought me twenty five ostriches because I jokingly told him I wanted one. He took me to 40 states, so I could see the country. He split the estate into unequal threes. I received more property and money than my father OR my uncle. Grandfather did everything and anything that would make me happy. The funniest thing is that to everyone else, including his own sons, he was a complete asshole. My father says he HATED my dog, because grandfather loved the dog more than he loved his own son.. just because she was my dog. Grandfather told me once that he was planning on rewriting the will, and leaving me as the sole beneficiary. I would have inherited everything. I would have received over three million dollars worth of assets. Grandfather told me that it was because he knew I was a good person. I was a pure and kind soul. When I played with my toys, the good guy didn’t always win, but the good guy and the bad guy would always become friends in the end. I never hurt a living creature. I would worry about stepping on a bug. I worried about hurting ticks, even after they had sucked out my blood. I would kill them quickly and efficiently, taking care not to let them feel any pain. We had over fifty cats… all strays. Why? Because sloth couldn’t leave them on the side of the road. I brought home every homeless animal I could find. We had 12 dogs. There are a lot of strays in Arkansas. The nurses said that grandfather repeatedly pulled his feeding tube out. Nobody knows if it is true or not, but according to the hospital, he starved himself to death. He didn’t want to live anymore. I scattered his ashes around a tree, near the pond where we always went fishing. As for why I became insane in the first place, as with every good story, it started with the love of a woman. J After living with Jennifer for three years, we both agreed it would be best to take a break, and try things again, once we got our shit together. It was a temporary break up, so that we could try it again later. Less than a week later, my BEST FRIEND, Geoff, charged in and started fucking her. Yeah. There was more to the story, but that was the main part. This is why I retreated to the woods. I wanted to leave civilization and people. I wanted to go where there were no lies, and where there was no deciept. Nature doesn’t lie. When a bear walks up to you and roars and licks his lips, you know what he is about to do. You never have to wonder. Lol But, once in the woods, I found myself alone, and lonely. I just needed a woman to love me. sloth’s woman. J …Whoever she may be. Seeker, I appreciate your advice. I’m thinking that if I cannot find an answer normally, I will become lucid, and just ask. However, I am still nervous about doing this, because I don’t want the meaning behind these dreams to be tainted or mislead by being lucid. I’m afraid that I would inadvertently control these dreams, which would make them unreliable. I’m not sure how to really explain what I’m trying to say, though. Being able to lucid dream gives me an advantage that most people wouldn’t have in this situation, so in a way, it is my secret weapon. But it is kind of a last resort. I appreciate your interest in this. I know you must be a busy man. EagleEye, I haven’t seen you around, before. Blue Meanie is a good guy. Make sure you take care of him. I agree that this will result in a beneficial change, if I can do it correctly. The idea of redefining my identity in absence of my grandparents makes sense to me, as well. When I spent time in the woods, and I was crazy, it was almost as if I was trying to ‘find myself’. Thank you for your help. MoonBeam, you are absolutely right in thinking that these dreams are combining the two worst things that have happened to me. For both of my most terrifying and painful experiences to hit me at once, it is.. painful and terrifying? Lol!! The idea that my grandparents symbolize everything that I have lost is also a very good one. This makes sense for reasons I haven’t mentioned yet. The way I became sane again was by coming to California, and eating food again. I had stopped eating food, because I believed that I no longer needed food in order to live. rolls his eyes. I will post a link of the full experience, since I have posted it before. For reference: Since I was 16 I have lost: Two cars, two trucks, 5 acres of lakefront property, twenty five ostriches, fifty emus, incubators, and brooders, a school bus, a boat, a brand new mobile home worth over 50,000 dollars, every scrap of anything that I ever had to remember my grandparents with, three dogs, 12,000 dollars in unmatured savings bonds, and quite a bit of other, smaller, less important stuff. -sloth

[Burns]

Wow, sloth, just wow. I'm so sorry that happened to you. What an awful way for your grandmother to go, and for you and your sister to see her like that. Honestly, I was shocked that she survived the fall after the injuries you described. What a traumatic thing to have to live through. I wish I could give you a hug, though I know it wouldn't do you any good, but it would make me feel better! I know what you mean about your grandfather giving up the will to live, especially proud people like that. They hate to feel helpless, and they hate for their loved ones who look up to them to see them in such a state. It sounds like he knew the real you, though. He understood what a gentle soul you are. I remember that thread about you going "insane" and living out in the woods. I remember it being a wake up call for a lot of people who read it. Here's the link for those of you who haven't read it: http://www.dreamviews.com/forum/index.php?...30&hl=sloth You know that saying that whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger? As much as it sounds like bullshit, I think you are living proof of that. It's heartbreaking everything that you've been through, but look at you - you are still the kind-hearted, funny, gentle sloth you've always been, though it did seem to me that you've been different since you've been back. Well now it makes total sense. I still can't give you much useful advice about how to stop these dreams of yours other than using LDing to your advantage, but I do think that you shouldn't be afraid of using lucid dreaming to find out their true meaning. I know you say you want them to take their natural course and you will find meaning that way, but I don't know about you, but so far, your dreams aren't giving out any black and white signs in my eyes. People have found meaning in dreams and reliving situations by becoming lucid and simply talking to their dream characters. Just ask your grandmother or grandfather why they keep appearing in these horrific dreams. You never know, they may give you an answer you don't expect. I don't think you have anything to lose by using what you've learned from this community of ours to your advantage. Take control of your subconscious and help yourself recover emotionally. Only then can you feel like you can go back home and rebuild your life. ~Tab

[sloth]

Well... First of all, any attention from you, Burns, makes me feel better. And your hugs just brighten my whoole day. I appreciate your words. Just telling people feels like it has made me feel better. I really didn't have anyone to tell, so it was like I was bottling it up inside. You're right. These dreams are exactly why I haven't quite been myself. I am kind of a bitch now. LOL! Sorry, Dream Views. It seems that everyone is encouraging me to go lucid. I'm STILL going to give it a little bit of time, but seeing as how you agree with them, that's one extra person that thinks that I should go lucid. So, I will. NOT YET, but I will. Who knows. Maybe my grandparents will tell me that there's hidden money inside the wall. lol! Thank you so so much for your help, guys. It's nice to be able to show my vulnerable side. -sloth