chowchow

Is it normal to have recurring dreams about the past? I keep dreaming about sad things from my past. Often about my ex-husband. They are really sad nostalgic dreams like things can never be the same.

I don't remember these from my drinking days and they worry me.

RDBplus3

A lot of 'awareness' things happen throughout Sobriety, and especially in 'new sobriety'. All the emotions, day-to-day life-on-life's-terms events, interpersonal relations, awareness of what's going on around us, etc - are New Experiences when we are no longer 'drowning life out'. The 'dreams' we have are a form of our consciousness 'dealing' with the thoughts, feelings, emotions, memories, etc, and for me, yes they are a part of my sobriety.

It is to be embraced, and life is now a 'new discovery' process (and not all rose blooms - there are the thorns in reality to be discovered and dealt with).

IT IS FOR FREEDOM GOD SET US FREE.

I focus on maintaining where I am on the scale of
1. Recognizing we manufacture our own misery / turmoil out of life's events, or we acknowledge them and face them.
2. We absolutely insist on being Happy, Joyous and FREE.

RDBplus3 ... Happy, Joyous and FREE.

ScottFromWI

Yes, dreams are a very normal part of sleep. When actively drinking, a lot of us never actually went into deep REM sleep because we were basically passed out or our minds were too depressed from the effects of the alcohol.

It feels weird but in a sense your brain is "waking up" and you are feeling/thinking/dreaming like you were not able to before.

entropy1964

Well if drinking messes up our sleep cycles, it would make sense that it would mess up our dream cycles too.

I rarely remember my dreams. But the last two days I've had 2 very vivid ones. One that I checked myself back in rehab. It was so real. And then I realized I hadn't relapsed and was trying to get them to discharge me and they wouldn't. last night I had one about my late husband. And those kind are very sad.

I don't put a lot of stock in dreams. They just are. They can be unsettling but I don't think we need to assign them any power.

Mango212

There are times God/Higher Power guides me in healing through my dreams.

I pray for eyes to see, ears to hear and strength to embrace the illogical.

All of alcoholism, recovery and life are illogical. Once I started praying for strength to embrace that, I was able to let go of a lot of "limits" I had unknowingly placed on God and life.

Dee74

Like Scott says dreams are a normal part of sleep. I never dreamt very much when I was drinking, but I do now...often long rambling, but connected, dreams an usually pretty vivid.

I rarely remember details tho

D

Forward12

Dreams were an unknown thing to me,.. as I was always passed out drunk.