Dreams/Nightmares as children.

[Healing&Hopeful]

Do any of you remember any dreams as a child?

I'm not sure how old I was but I vividly remember a dream I had as a child.  I was (and still am to some extent) very afraid of fire.  This is because my bio dad has an irrational fear of fire so I'm sure it stems from stuff he told me as a child, which I can't remember now.  I would be about 5/6 and we'd just moved.  It was very soon after my Mum and Stepdad had married I think.  My bedroom was next to the bathroom.

The dream started with Mum putting something in the bathroom.  It was this black square box and she put it on the corner of the bath, next to the wall that joins my room.  This black box caught fire and soon the whole bathroom is on fire, as is my bedroom wall.  I can't get out because I'm trapped by my bedroom wall on fire and I'm so frightened..... then I wake up.

It is only very recently that I have remembered this dream and I've never really thought that much of it, except I was thinking about it last night.... and I just thought it was really odd that I dream my Mum's put something in the bathroom to start the fire.  Hmmmmm.

[Chicken]

Wow!  Your memory of that dream made me think of one i used to have.  I can remember exactly where i was when i had that dream too...  I dreamt I was in my friends bedroom and someone was trying to get in the window, I tried to scream but no sound would come out, I had completely lost my voice.  I was about 6years old

[Sallying Forth]

Hello Healing & Hopeful,
I had nightmares and dreams throughout my childhood from a very early age.

The creepiest ones were during my early adolescence around age 11 to 15. I used to dream that something was in my room. It was a black box type robot crawling up and down my diagonally designed wall paper. I'd swear it was real. Then frantically fumble for the beside standing lamp and turn it on. The black box robot would disappear. Many of these nightmares were what is known as night terrors (not the sleeping disorder variety   ). I would be fully awake seeing these things crawling up and down my wall paper. The street light out front of our home illuminated the wall enough that I could see them.

For years I thought I was going crazy. It wasn't until I was diagnosed with MPD/DID that I realized this was a symptom of PTSD. A clear indicator of prolonged trauma and abuse.

My Nmother would come into my room in the morning and come unglued over the fact that I left my light on all night. She never asked me why. Never wondered why I couldn't get up on time for school in the morning. Pretty screwed up, poor excuse for a mother she was!

[Plucky]

I often dreamed about murder.  As a teen I had a very vivid dream that my mother urged me on and planned and schemed until I murdered my stepfather.  When I suddenly realised what I had done, I said, what if we get caught?  And she said, 'It'll be you, then."

As a very small child, I dreamed several times that my mother was murdered, and that they came to inform me at kindergarten that she was dead.

As a young adult, I had a very vivid dream that I was murdered near my first flat.

I can still relive the horror of each of these dreams.
Plucky

[Sallying Forth]

I found this while doing some research. I talks about how children deal with trauma if they have developed PTSD.

Following trauma, people may develop Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), which is psychological damage that can result from experiencing, witnessing, or participating in an overwhelmingly traumatic (frightening) event. Children with this disorder have repeated episodes in which they re-experience the traumatic event. Children often relive the trauma through repetitive play. In young children, upsetting dreams of the traumatic event may change into nightmares of monsters, of rescuing others, or of threats to self or others. PTSD rarely appears during the trauma itself. Though its symptoms can occur soon after the event, the disorder often surfaces several months or even years later.

[Hopalong]

My brother was the bully in my childhood (the one at home anyway). I had this dream repeatedly:
I am in a dungeon and there is a terrifying giant coming down the stone stairs to "get" me. Thump, thump, etc. I am very, very afraid. He comes closer and closer until he is looming over me, in my face, and then my fear becomes so intense it wakes me up.

One night, I went to sleep feeling "different". I don't know what it was, exactly, but some slight subtle thing had changed. The same dream started, but it too felt a little different. Thump, thump, etc., and I was feeling...less afraid. The giant came into my cell and started looming over me and I said to him, You can't hurt me, you're just a dream! (His face crumpled in frustration and he roared and turned around and left, and I never had the dream again).

I'll never forget that.
Hopalong