Hey! Thanks for reaching out in the forum, and congratulations on your 6 months drug free! That certainly is a huge accomplishment worth celebrating, I’m proud of you!
While my history is a bit different, I did have a period of about 2 years in my life where I experienced frequent and intense unsettling dreams, a few lucid nightmares too.
For a long time I I felt so lost and confused because I couldn’t figure out why I was having dreams like that.
With time and reflection it’s quite clear to me that my dreams were reflecting my mental state at the time.
I was under extreme stress (academic pressure) and experiencing depression. This was in my last two years of high school when everyone was asking me what I was doing with my life. A stressful time indeed. I survived but there was more than one crisis and breakdown.
Depending on your perspective on your dreams, this assessment may or may not resonate for you.
I’m not going to pretend that I know anything about the psychological and physical aspects of coming off drugs, but I would not be surprised if it had an influence on your dreams.
At the very least, I would consider the possibility that your feelings and some of the emotional complexities of your journey may be reflected in your dreams, though.
For me the solution was improving my mental state. No small task. But in time I found the relationship with my dreams actually helped guide me to Recovery (that’s a long story and I digress).When some of the stress in my life passed, my dreams gradually became less unsettling.
Do you have mental health support?
While my experience with therapists have been mixed, it helps some folks with the means to access it.
Of course all of that is long term work. So the question is what to do in the short term to cope?
First off, I want to reassure you that your actions or the role you play in your dreams doesn’t make you a bad person. It doesn’t necessarily reflect how you would act in waking life. The feelings you experience during and after the dream might be worth examining, but be kind to yourself. You’re doing your best and your mind may be in a turbulent place. If dreams are reflections like light in a pond, distortions can happen when anything moves the water. If that makes sense?
Here are some things to consider in the short term:
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Incubate positive dreams. Dream incubation is like planning or even scripting a dream or topic or theme to experience in your dreams. This topic could be a whole post on itself, but consider focusing on things you would rather experience in your dreams instead. If you’ve never explored much with your dreams, it might sound absurd but I think we have quite a bit more influence on our dreams in waking life than most people believe. You can use a MILD mantra, like “I can dream about a peaceful day at the beach.” Or " I feel so nice when I wake up from a relaxing dream."
Write it down. Visualize it, channel the emotions you would like to feel in your dreams when you visit the mantra throughout the day.
Edit: Here’s a post where I talk about both incubation and MILD in a similar context
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Interpret your dreams to help identify what the issue is that’s causing these dreams. Identifying the issue is the first step to treating the issue. This is probably the strategy I would choose, and I talk about this in the post I linked above as well.
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Give lucid dreaming a try. Lucidity is sometimes prescribed as a way to combat nightmares. It could empower you in the moment to change the distressing nature of your dream (this didn’t necessarily work for me but might for you).
Even better it could allow you the opportunity to actively interpret and explore the issues manifesting in your dreams while you’re in them. The drawback of this method is that it’s gonna require you to focus on your dreams which may have a negative effect if your dreams are causing you distress. If you go this way there are numerous resources (and people!) on this site to help you.
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Ignore your dreams. Complete 180 here. While ignoring the situation doesn’t fix it, discrediting your dreams may decrease your dream recall. I’m not sure this is the best treatment, but it’s something to consider. (Edit:) Since it sounds like your dreams are already making themselves known, this may not even work.
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Explore strategies to calm yourself down when you wake up from a distressing dream. I only recently learned that breathing techniques like box breathing need to be done for several minutes to be effective.
Maybe budget extra time in the morning to calm down and create a calming clean environment in your bedroom. Try calming music in the morning? Yoga? Whatever is calming for you.
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Find a healthy way to vent your feelings and experiences. For me I draw, helps me process my feelings and get them out. Consider journaling your feelings. Find a good friend (or therapist, or dream form) to share your experiences with. Helped me validate my experience.
[It’s late where I am and I might find more to things to add or revise, but I’ll take a break here for now] Edit: Cleaned up my formatting and wording from a laptop and added the link as my original post was done late at night from a phone
These things hopefully can alleviate symptoms, but the lasting change comes from treating the source; I can tell you’ve worked hard to get where you’re at right now. I know it’s tough to wake up night after night with your heart racing and your hands shaking. It can wear on you and make every day more difficult. But I also know what it’s like to come out on the other side.
Hold strong, this storm will pass.