Was it a dream?

I had a nightmare a few nights ago. I have them once in a while, or I should say, I have the same one over and over. It’s the same bad dream I’ve had since I was a child, someone is trying to get me and I’m scared stiff and unable to scream for help, physically unable to make any words come out, I usually wake up terrified, crying, and unable to fall back asleep. I am usually a child in the dream, and I don’t speak of it much to others.

This time my dream was different, not in the sense that the subject of my dream was different but my recollection. My husband noticed I was having a nightmare, I’m not sure if the movement woke him or the words I was able to get out were what alerted him, and he immediately wrapped his arms around me and reassured me that I was safe and no one was going to hurt me. I remember waking up to him telling me I was safe, and I immediately started sobbing, and for the first time someone was there to tell me it was just a dream and I really was safe.

I’ve been reflecting on this dream more so than the other times I have had this experience, because I feel like I’ve stumbled upon something from my childhood. I have actually discovered quite a bit from my childhood in the last couple years after having a falling out with my mom and sitting down with my dad and asking him some questions, specifically some things I witnessed my mom doing to my brother.

I learned my brother was physically hurt more than once by our mother, which opened up a can of worms about something he used to say to me throughout our lives and more so when he was closer to the end of his life, which will absolutely have to be another post.

I’ve often wondered why I had this dream and why it was always this dream, why a bad dream about someone trying to hurt me. My husband asked me questions about being molested and if there was any connection between that and my dream and I really can’t see a connection between the two. This dream is so realistic and whoever is trying to hurt me in it is truly trying to hurt me, and it wasn’t my uncle.

Researching dreams and the unconscious mind, I feel like it’s not really a dream I’m having but a recollection of an event I witnessed as a child. I’m not sure if I will have this same nightmare again or if it will go away because I was able to have a reassuring outcome this time. If I do have it again I hope this time I’m able to see the person who so desperately wants to cause me pain, I feel like my life will make so much sense.