30 days in and having vivid and scary dreams

I’m 30 days without porn now and 16 without MO.

In the last few nights I’ve had some pretty vivid dreams - I’d consider them nightmares - that I feel are telling me things about my emotional state.

1. I had a dream where I was diagnosed with an unspecified terminal illness and didn’t have much longer to live. In the dream I felt anxious and scared, regretful of the behaviours that I had committed in the past. But then there was a point in the dream where I was sitting in a room with my family, and there was a person there who looked exactly like me, except that person was carefree, outgoing, joyful, and talkative. My family didn’t seem to care that I was dying, because the other person they were now talking to was so much more enjoyable to be around. The dream ended with me leaving the room and wanting to break down in tears.

2. I dreamt that in some unspecified fit of rage I killed somebody, and then felt deep shame and regret and worry about the future having to wrestle with that for the rest of my life.

I think both dreams were trying to tell me different things. The first one almost felt like I was processing the idea of the anxious, depressed, resentful person in me dying. I feel the person I saw in the room who looked just like me was essentially the care free and happy version of me that I aspire to be in the future.

The second dream I felt was telling me about the built up frustration and anger I have with myself, and cautioning me to not make rash decisions. I feel this is particularly astute because I’ve found a lot of tension with my spouse on the subject of intimacy that sometimes makes me wonder if we’re just not right for each other. In this case I think the idea of ending a marriage is the murder, knowing you’d have to live with that decision forever and it could never be undone.

I’m curious if others have ever had dreams like this during their reboots they felt were particularly profound or meaningful in some way?

 

I know vivid dreams are the brains way of processing things that you’re holding onto, so while uncomfortable at times I take it as a sign of progress