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Repeating unpleasant dreams


Night Elf
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My dd had a bad breakup last school year. The guy really just dumped her with no explanation and it devastated her. He refused to talk to her after telling her he was just going through some stuff. Then when she tried to text him or his friend, they just never responded. So she never got closure. So for the longest time she's had dreams about him, usually very pleasant ones where she's so happy in the dream, then wakes up and realizes it's not true. She suffers from depression so this doesn't help her elevate her daily moods. She's in counseling and they talk about the dreams a lot but dd is unable to find a way to deal with them, so I thought I'd check here. In your non-medical opinion, how do you get past a traumatic experience that haunts you? When she has a dream, she cries off and on all day, so it's really affecting the way she's functioning. She's doing well in her classes so she isn't completely shut down but she just wants to lay in bed and sleep but is afraid to sleep because she doesn't want to dream. I don't know what to do.

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He was not who he seemed to be.  That is what she needs to remind herself.

Re. The dreams—if she wakes up and slightly changes position, they should not come back right away.

In general, if she meditates on something else that is really pleasant right before going to sleep, that should help.  Her brain is processing the loss at night, but can be distracted from that.

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15 minutes ago, Carol in Cal. said:

He was not who he seemed to be.  That is what she needs to remind herself.

Re. The dreams—if she wakes up and slightly changes position, they should not come back right away.

In general, if she meditates on something else that is really pleasant right before going to sleep, that should help.  Her brain is processing the loss at night, but can be distracted from that.

Yes.  Dreams repeat themselves because we keep thinking about the dream.  After a bad dream she needs to really redirect her thoughts to something pleasant and everytime the dream or the relationship enters her mind, picture a big STOP hand signal in her mind and redirect the thinking away from the dream....or him at all.  

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