Content Warning: this piece contains discussion of trauma, abuse and sexual assault.
Over the past few weeks, I have spent countless hours trying – and failing – to write. I knew what I would be writing for, I knew the exact moment I wanted to capture and explore, but what I didn’t know was why.
Why did I want to share with strangers on the internet the moment I began to believe I wasn’t crazy?
It was a calm evening in Melbourne. We sat on the top step of my decking, quiet in each other’s company. I was glad to feel the last rays of sun on my skin, enjoying hearing birds chirp and not being alone.
‘I had a funny dream last night,’ my friend began, breaking me out of my reverie. ‘But it’s going to sound crazy.’
She began telling me about a close friendship she had as a child. A pure, carefree friendship filled with none of the stresses we’d been trying to forget that afternoon. This friendship had ended abruptly but she couldn’t remember why. ‘That’s what it’s like when you’re a kid, I suppose.’
She couldn’t remember much about her friend’s father, only that he’d been kind enough to leave no memorable impression. He was different to her own father, whose past actions – while forgiven – burdened her with a weight she continued to carry into her adulthood. Their relationship was different now, but in her dreams she couldn’t arm herself with distractions and was reminded of the pain he had put her through. Last night, however, it was images of her friend's father that disturbed her.
‘Why would I dream that?’ she asked. ‘It felt so real. Am I crazy for wondering if it happened?’
***
I had never told anyone about a dream that haunted me as a young teenager. I’d had sleep paralysis dreams a handful of times as a child, where I was trapped inside my body while a dark, unidentified mass lurked in the doorway of my room. This time the sleep paralysis demon was someone who, at the time, was meant to be sleeping a few meters away from me. I didn’t jolt awake when this demon touched me. I was unable to move while nightmarish things happened at the hands of someone who, while violent and manipulative, I deeply cared about.
Flashbacks were nauseating, panic-attack inducing experiences. I told myself I was foolish by being so upset by a dream and I managed to repress that nightmare for years. For a while, I was able to forget what had plagued me. It was cast aside as some silly, messed-up dream just like the others. But none of the others evoked such a visceral response. This one felt real.
Memories of the nightmare reappeared when I began trying to process traumatic events experienced in my adulthood. They spark the same feeling of anxiety that threatens to choke me, the same numbness that overwhelms my body until I no longer feel real. I was torn between thinking that perhaps the nightmare did happen after all and believing it couldn’t have been real since there was no doubt in my mind about the validity of my other traumas.
‘You would know if it happened to you,’ I told my therapist during a session. ‘How could you not know if something like that happened to you?’
A child’s brain has a different way of coping with trauma than an adult’s, my psychologist told me. It tries to rationalise events that don’t fit in with their concept of reality. When a memory is too difficult for a child’s brain to process the memory is often repressed or believed to be a figment of their imagination – such as a dream. The brain tries to do whatever it can to help you function and sometimes people cannot function with the weight of certain traumas bearing down on them.
***
‘Am I crazy for wondering if it was real?’ my friend asked again.
Hearing my friend doubt her sanity due to an inability to distinguish certain dreams from reality made me feel less crazy. It’s an incredibly vulnerable thing to open up to someone about the trauma you’ve experienced; it’s even more vulnerable to admit you’re haunted by events you’re not certain actually happened.
I realise that I will likely never know if what I experienced was a dream or a memory. My psychologist has helped me feel less unsettled by that. If it was a dream it was my child brain processing the anger and violence that was being directed towards me. It reflected how unsafe I felt around that person and I owe it to myself to start healing from that.
Since that conversation on the porch I’ve tried to be more open when it comes to my experiences and my mental health, even if it’s anonymously on the internet. I wish I could share that same sense of understanding and relief I felt when my friend described her own situation to me. It’s a powerful recovery tool to feel understood, to have your emotions and responses validated. I wrote this so that maybe it will help someone else on a personal level, or help you understand the different ways people process trauma. Perhaps, for one moment, you’ll feel less alone with your own troubling experiences.
I like to believe that dreams can reveal something about a person’s fears and desires. So, dear stranger, what do you dream about?
This piece was published anonymously.