Interpreting bad dream - can it have a link to my childhood trauma?

[Tyler Robinson]

I had a bad dream last night. I get this particular dream quite frequently and I don't know how to interpret it. It makes me quite anxious. 

So in the dream, I'm running towards a small building/house. And I lay down on the front porch. My boyfriend comes along and I tell him to sleep beside me. After some time I can see my mother from far, quite far she can't see me, she is looking elsewhere but I see her. I motion my boyfriend to be completely silent and not make any movements so he hugs me tightly from the side and buries his face in my neck. 

After some time, I see my mother slowly approaching me, still not looking at me. My heart beat is going up. She is darn close yet its dark and she can't see me. She is looking up, then she is looking elsewhere, finally noticing the house, she doesn't look down. And then she turns around and walks away. I breathe a sigh of relief. 

My peace doesn't last long. I see her standing at a corner with her back towards me, and then she turns around and directly looks in my direction. I Can see her. And it feels like from the corner of her eye she can see me. She is walking at a steady pace in my direction, as though she knows what she is about to find. She is getting closer and closer. My heart is pounding with fear. Dream abruptly cuts off. I wake up in sweat. 

When I was a kid, I used to see my mother angrily marching towards me and I used to get extremely anxious. My mom traumatized me. 

I don't know how to interpret this dream! 

Is the dream linked to my childhood trauma? 

 

[Jannes]

No dream expert here, but do you worry about that your mother might not approve of your boyfriends choice? In your dream, were you afraid that your mother noticed your boyfriend ?

We always interpret things in our childhood as our own fault. So maybe there is an aspect in your boyfriend that you can connect to unconsciously but have hidden it yourself in your subconsciousnis because you thought it was wrong, because of your mothers reaction. If your mother saw your boyfriend he would reveal that part of you that you have hidden and you expect the same traumatizing reaction form her. 
 

Just speculating … 

[Tyler Robinson]

2 hours ago, Jannes said:

but do you worry about that your mother might not approve of your boyfriends choice? In your dream, were you afraid that your mother noticed your boyfriend ?

She didn't notice him. She has never disproved my boyfriends either. But it's like... I'm afraid of her eyes watching me. Her eyes used to look very mean when I was a kid. She would look at me with anger. So the main context of the dream was that I didn't want her eyes to see me. And I was glad that she didn't see me. But my heart began pounding when she saw me from the corner of her eye. 

There's another piece of information. I used to hide a lot from her. Hoping that she won't find me. And I was afraid of the so called "mother's intuition," that she would use that to find me. In general I used to despise her watching me when I was a kid. 

Did this get translated into the Dream? 

 

[Jannes]

1 hour ago, Tyler Robinson said:

She didn't notice him. She has never disproved my boyfriends either. But it's like... I'm afraid of her eyes watching me. Her eyes used to look very mean when I was a kid. She would look at me with anger. So the main context of the dream was that I didn't want her eyes to see me. And I was glad that she didn't see me. But my heart began pounding when she saw me from the corner of her eye. 

One of the biggest fear of a child is getting abandoned because that would mean death. So it’s very understandable that you fear her being angry at you and fear her being angry at you in the future. If she had a very mean look in her face then that would literally tell a child „I might just abandon you and so you might just die.“ That can of course be so overwhelming that it causes trauma. 

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There's another piece of information. I used to hide a lot from her. Hoping that she won't find me. And I was afraid of the so called "mother's intuition," that she would use that to find me. In general I used to despise her watching me when I was a kid. 

Did she give you free space to express yourself? I feel like children in general want parents near them so they feel protected but not to close that they feel that they don’t do their own stuff. 

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Did this get translated into the Dream? 

For me it sounds like your childhood trauma is getting replayed. Your fear of her eyes that you had and your fear of her finding you when you hide. Of course when you hid from her in your childhood you closely tracked her eye movement and were afraid that her eyes might detect you. So everything you described just seems like a replay. 
 

Maybe you could try lucid dreaming to go deeper into this bad trip.

As a anecdotal story I did lucid dreaming some years ago and in that time I also had a few bad dreams. I gained a lot of consciousness through lucid dream work though so in many of my bad dreams I had enough consciousness to do the counterintuitive thing and straight up confronted the object that haunted me. It took all of my guts to do it but it worked. If I got pursued I ran into my pursuer. If someone became a zombie I just ran into them. The moment the confrontation would have happened I always woke up. I had the same build up fear like from a normal bad dream in my chest but the bad dream stopped before it really happened. I feel like I conquered my fear. If you had the same dream but the moment you saw your mom you would just jump up and run into her the dream would probably just stop right there before you even manage to get close to your mother. I would tell myself that it’s just a dumb dream and not real. If you confront your mom in the dream enough times I think you will loose your fear. But that’s just my take on it.
 

 

[Tyler Robinson]

49 minutes ago, Jannes said:

One of the biggest fear of a child is getting abandoned because that would mean death. So it’s very understandable that you fear her being angry at you and fear her being angry at you in the future. If she had a very mean look in her face then that would literally tell a child „I might just abandon you and so you might just die.“ That can of course be so overwhelming that it causes trauma. 

Yea this. I suffered the feeling of abandoned which in turn gave rise to my BPD diagnosis (Borderline Personality Disorder). The doctor told me that I suffer from overwhelming fear of Abandonment and paranoia due to it. 

 

49 minutes ago, Jannes said:

Did she give you free space to express yourself? I feel like children in general want parents near them so they feel protected but not to close that they feel that they don’t do their own stuff. 

Absolutely no. Literally every little thing had to be her way. Even my hairstyle. She was a pusher and I was a pushover. I began to lose trust in her. So I would eat my favorite things when she wasn't around 

49 minutes ago, Jannes said:

For me it sounds like your childhood trauma is getting replayed. Your fear of her eyes that you had and your fear of her finding you when you hide. Of course when you hid from her in your childhood you closely tracked her eye movement and were afraid that her eyes might detect you. So everything you described just seems like a replay. 

Yea. This sounds like it. 

 

49 minutes ago, Jannes said:

 

Maybe you could try lucid dreaming to go deeper into this bad trip.

As a anecdotal story I did lucid dreaming some years ago and in that time I also had a few bad dreams. I gained a lot of consciousness through lucid dream work though so in many of my bad dreams I had enough consciousness to do the counterintuitive thing and straight up confronted the object that haunted me. It took all of my guts to do it but it worked. If I got pursued I ran into my pursuer. If someone became a zombie I just ran into them. The moment the confrontation would have happened I always woke up. I had the same build up fear like from a normal bad dream in my chest but the bad dream stopped before it really happened. I feel like I conquered my fear. If you had the same dream but the moment you saw your mom you would just jump up and run into her the dream would probably just stop right there before you even manage to get close to your mother. I would tell myself that it’s just a dumb dream and not real. If you confront your mom in the dream enough times I think you will loose your fear. But that’s just my take on it.
 

 

I have confronted her in real life. Currently I'm in therapy. I try not to fear her. 

My mother has NPD and she has bipolar 

 

 

[Jannes]

1 hour ago, Tyler Robinson said:

I have confronted her in real life. Currently I'm in therapy. I try not to fear her. 

I wouldn’t repress the fear. Feel through it until it resolves. You keep it by making it unconscious. 
 

I see. It seemed like you had it pretty though. 
It seems like you came to your conclusion though ??

Is there still something about the dream you don’t understand/ would like to talk about ?

Edited September 26, 2022 by Jannes

[Tyler Robinson]

10 hours ago, Jannes said:

I wouldn’t repress the fear. Feel through it until it resolves. You keep it by making it unconscious. 
 

I see. It seemed like you had it pretty though. 
It seems like you came to your conclusion though ??

Is there still something about the dream you don’t understand/ would like to talk about ?

Thank you 

 

[Tyler Robinson]

12 hours ago, Lila9 said:

Yes. Our dreams are a mirror of our consciousness and subconsciousness, of our emotions, past (or future) events, thoughts, beliefs, fears, desires etc. What I like about dreams is that many times, especially if they repeat themselves, they try to make you pay attention to unsolved issues in your life, in such an interesting symbolic way.

Interesting. 

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I think that this building in your dream represents your soul, your world, your safe place and your BF represents your adulthood, sexuality, independence. You're BF happily welcomed to your world, you ask him to be closer to you, means that you want to explore your sexuality, independence, life, but then you notice your mother and you ask him to be quiet, means that you might be afraid of your mother's judgment of your desires, because if she discover your desires, she will also discover you and your safe place?

 

Yea that makes sense. Fear of her judgment 

 

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 You want to keep your mother away from your personal world and life, you don't want her to disturb your peace. Sometimes it seems like she is about to find you in the place you're hiding in. It brings you so much stress, the feeling that she's going to find you, perhaps even judge you and be angry at you. 

Yes this. I never wanted her to be a part of my life. 

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I think that this dream tells you to pay attention to this issue in your life and find a solution, maybe to heal the trauma, maybe to let go of the fear of her gaze and focus on your life despite that, maybe as @Jannes said try to confront your mother in a form of lucid dreaming? 

This is only my interpretation of course, please share what you think.

Yea I agree 

It's a deep rooted fear that I need to work on. 

 

[The Mystical Man]

Only you can accurately interpret what your unconscious is trying to tell you, because only you can make the right associations and see the personal dynamics, that is, see how the images relate to you personally. I like this Jungian approach:

Consider getting Robert A. Johnson's book.