Dream felt so real, I'm actually having to 'get over it'

[misssmithviii]

I don't really expect any advice from this vent... but I need to get it out. If there's any questions in my mind it's how do I get over a dream that felt so real I find myself focusing on it more than what's really going on? Do you think I should confide in my bf about the dream?

 

In my dream, I had found out that my bf had been cheating on me. I heard it from the source, and then when confronted I heard it from him too. In my dream, he went from trying to comfort me and salvage things between us, to becoming apathetic and walking away.

 

One thing that really resounded with me is that the way he was acting in the dream is his personality - it's not like when somebody acts totally different so you know it's a dream. My bf hasn't cheated on me, if I ever had the inkling he did I wouldn't be with him - but his personality and the way he reacted was very much like how he's reacted in arguments we've had so it just felt so real. It even felt real-time, like when I woke up I felt the kind of tired as if I actually lived an entire day all over again.

 

I started crying when I woke up and my bf hugged me, told me (without asking what the dream was), that he loved me and everything was going to be okay, that it was just a dream. But that doesn't change the fact that I'm trying to shake it off. I feel pretty pathetic really...

 

I must add that I don't actually believe this is plausible, I believe he loves me so much and wouldn't ever hurt me like that or at all intentionally. I just hope that these stupid emotions go away!

 

I've gotta start thinking of something else. I think this is the first time I'm actually looking forward to going to work.

[Lucie]

It will go soon, trust me. Spend a night out with your boyfriend and have fun, and you'll realise you never had anything to worry about in the first place

[SpottiOtti]

Sounds like your insecurities coming back to bite you again in dream form . . . You've had people do wrong in the past, and part of you probably still fears the worst.

 

I have dreams like this too sometimes. Usually takes half a day of "normal" activities to shake them off. Hope you feel better soon.

[kalikat]

There are times when I feel like things are going really well....and then I wait for the other shoe to drop (so to speak).

it's almost like self-sabotage. You find fear that something bad will happen because everything is so good right now.

One of the absolutely best things you can do is to write the dream down (which you have now done). Once you can stop it from floating around in your brain, it should no longer pop up in random thoughts.

[gdgfx]

Hey misssmithviii,

let me say - it still baffles the likes of the top psychologists worldwide as to why dreams affect reality. But in hindsight, we are still conscious when we sleep and so does that mean that dreaming is just another form of visualising like we do when we are in our awakened form? Because we shut off from the world, we can then think more and produce more vivid and life-like parallel existences and replicate life depending on situations in our lives or moods? It's a complex subject but I find it very interesting and have read quite a lot in terms of the research that is underway to help to determine why dreaming affects reality.

 

Back to the real world (or so we hope, perhaps we are a duplicate of another existence in another solar system? I'm just messing), I believe that dreams are nothing but dreams, no matter what happens in those dreams it's not paramount to the way we live our lives. I recently had a dream, a similar dream that my partner left me and I actually woke up feeling heartbroken and in despair, why we do that? We don't know. We are human and when we are sleeping, we are more capable of reaching depths of emotions and seamless ultra-realistic zones of our mind and so, if we feel sad in our dream, the chances are we will awaken sad, but does that mean we have to be sad? Obviously not. And it's the same with your situation, just because your boyfriend cheated on you does not mean he has and does not mean you should change because of a dream, if anything that's surcombing to a delusion (if you want to consider a dream a form of delusion/delirium) and that's not healthy. Just pull yourself together and see your life for how it is, we all argue and yes sometimes we are reminded of our loved ones react and sometimes we see that in other people, in different situations, in a different light but...

 

As long as you can put what you think or have pre-conceived and what you know is true into two separate boxes then you will be fine. A dream is a dream after all. It's not true. A healthy way to look at life is to look at life how it really is right now right this second, if you are swapping reality for dreams then really, that's where your problem lies then, right?

[ParisPaulette]

It will fade, but you have to understand some dreams by their very nature linger with you much the same way a particularly moving and/or disturbing movie or book sometimes does. The reason for the dream could be a million different reasons, and in the end it could be nothing. I once dreamed that my ex-husband, who I was still married to at the time, had been cheating with one of my sisters. I was so weirded out by it and I just acted so awful to both of them for a week before they got it out of me. And then they both proceeded to laugh and make fun of me for the next month, pointing out that a) neither of them even so much as shared any interests and b) there literally was no opportunity for them to cheat even if they wanted to. From their reactions I could tell they were not cheating and in the harsh light of day suddenly the dream seemed silly. Like right up there with the sex dream I had about my 8th grade science teacher--who was not physically attractive, kind or any of the things that would even remotely make a teenage girl like me have such a dream. I eventually shrugged it off as just what dreams can be--weird random pictures that get tossed into the mix. Sometimes dreams do mean something, but other times--nah.

 

Given there is no other evidence I'd say you have a random picture tossed into the mix. It will fade and then just seem silly.