Sounds like you are ready for some Gestalt therapy roleplaying.
When you dream, you are getting a random signal through your brain.
Your brain, unlike a TV set, cannot render a "picture" based on nothing. A TV can give you "ant wars", or static, but your brain CAN'T. Not won't, but CAN'T. Your brain MUST find order, even if it makes it up, like looking at clouds.
That which is on your mind when you slip into sleep, is the "seed", that your mind constructs the order around, like dust and snow.
Every part of your dream, be it figure or background, represents a point of view of one of what I call, "The Board of Directors." Every part of you has a director, and a certain number of "votes." Majority rule. Real world example.
Example:
You are dressed up in a Tuxedo, and at a wedding with a full bladder. Some Directors want to piss right here, right now, fuck the downsides. The majority, however, want you to wait until your fly is open in front of that urinal. Still, there are two sides or more to every desicion you make, and a vote takes place on an ongoing basis. You are NEVER 100% sue of ANYTHING, but when 99.9% of the other Directors thinks the .1% is stupic/loony, then that director can only let his point be known via dreams.
Every Director gets a voice, even if only when you dream. The ones who ONLY get to talk when you are asleep talk the loudest when you ARE asleep.
Try this. Write down in detail, as much as you can about the main characters in this dream, and what they say and do. Take note of the surroundings
Now the fun. Roleplay.
Example. In a small dream, I was following a stream down a hillside, jumping from rock to rock, when one of the rocks partly collapsed under my feet.
From this, the players are, Me, following the stream. The stream. The rocks.
Playact in the present tense.
Now I am a stream. I am cool, and made of water. Now I am meandering . I am going downhill slowly.
Now I am a rock. I am strong, and solid. I do not move. I am being stepped on, and cracking under the pressure.
Subconsious revelations: I feel I am going downhill slowly, and can't stop. I am going without direction, (meandering) I feel I am cracking under the weight, and I feel I am being stepped on.(at work, and I did, and I was)
Insights about your head from dreams. This was a real world example, done by me, back in '80.
You see how this would work?
By playacting out as "A rock," or "stream", you can "trick" yourself into saying what is on one of the "Directors" agenda. Since it isn't "you" saying these things, you can blurt them out.
Remember, if you have nightmares about things hurting you, to "BE" these things, as they are in fact metaphores or alogories about how you REALY view the world, but are too "Nice, civilised, polite, or good" to allow yourself to realize you feel that way.
Say you have a short nightmare, about Freddy Krueger slashing you in a dark house. You, Freddy, and the house are all roles to be "Played" out, if you wish some insight as to your plight.
Very often, after confronting something about yourself, you will find that, although the problem was too "big/scary/whatever to confront when you burried it in the first place, it isn't that scary in the light of day. That and you have no real choice about confronting yourself, as you can never escape from your own mind and remane sane.
That you are having nightmares is proof that whatever opinion, desire,view, belief, or memory is conflicting you. It WON'T get better by itself, unless the problem you are unwilling to allow yourself to be aware of cures itself.
Like someone you hate and wish to kill (but don't wish to acknowledge because it upsets your view of yourself.) dies without help.
I found many skeletons in my closit this way. Most having to do with a truly sick toxic relative, that at the time, (being a child) WAS beyond my ability to deal with.
You see, there are 3 ways to use denial as a defence.
1. There is no problem. (the elephant in the living room)
2. It's not realy that BAD of a problem. (when I am activly directing my awareness somewhere else.)
3. There is nothing that can be done, so I must live with the situation. (and direct my awareness away fro the problem as much as practical.
Think of it this way. You have the chance the explore a new place, have some fun, and stop you bad dreams in one step. Will you take it?
