Napmares?

Ever since I was a very young child I've had nightmares.  I can actually remember some of them in vivid detail, as if they'd happened recently.

There was the one in which we were having a party and monsters were killing all the guests ~ as though it were a party game.  There was the one where a neighbor girl was playing in the snow and something reached out of the drift next to her to rip her head off.  One of the less gory but still creepy involved muppet-like specters drifting in through my bedroom window then down the hall and into my parents' room.

In January 2000, I was robbed at gunpoint while getting my then 3-year-old out of the car.  Very few things are as terrifying as having a gun pointed at the child in your arms.  Thankfully, the assailant got spooked when I subconsciously backed into the clearing of the parking lot where anyone driving by could see us and took off with nothing more than my purse.  I thought he'd gotten nothing that couldn't be replaced.  I was mistaken ~ as I soon realized that peace of mind does not accompany post-traumatic stress syndrome.

As part of PTSS, I suffered some of the most horrific, gory, blood-n-guts nightmares ~ and I dream in color.  It was as if I were sitting in a theater watching a hack-em-up without any power to walk away.  I saw bodies broken in half and stuffed into very small spaces, people blown up or disintegrated in barrels and bathtubs full of acid, adults hacked to pieces by little kids.  Sometimes I was an active participant in the saga, others I was merely a spectator.  But in all of them I was horrified.

Eventually, I ended up in therapy for PTSS and my nightmares.  Therapy was actually very helpful.  Unfortunately, I still suffer periods of nightmares, though the frequency and intensity have diminished over time.  Unfortunately, also, I haven't quite figured out all of my triggers.  Some of them are obvious ~ a scene in a movie or descriptive visualization in a book or conversation.  But other times they come on without warning or obvious provocation.

Over the last year or so, I've had several nightmares involving my late grandmother.  My grandmother and I didn't always have the best relationship, but at the time of her passing I believe we were very much at peace with each other ~ so to have nightmares with her confuses me.  In one she was pregnant, furthering my confusion, but then most dreams don't make much sense in the waking hours.  There was another one in which I was at a family shin-dig and seemed to be possessed my something that caused me to violently scream every time I saw my grandmother.  In one scene I even apologized to her before whatever was inside of me took over, causing me to scream with such intensity that my body levitated from the floor.

I've been wicked tired lately ~ can't tell if it's just the craziness of my life or my chronic fatigue kicking into high gear ~ and I've been napping.  Can a person have napmares?  Or would they be called daymares?  In any case, I had a freaky dream involving my grandmother while napping.  I didn't even think I was sleeping deeply enough to dream.  In the dream, I had just received word of grandma's passing.  I walked into the bathroom of her house, where my mother and sister were sitting staring into a bathtub full of murky water.  After respecting the silence for a moment or two, I asked if grandma was in the tub.  Both my mother and sister said that they didn't know, but they continued to stare with sorrowful expression into the tub as if she were.  Okaaaaaaaaaaaay....?

I love my grandmother, even though she is no longer with us.  I am sure that she was on my mind because I was talking with a friend very recently about people who have passed and mentioned her.  But why I only dream of her in frightening or creepy scenarios when I think of her kindly on a conscious level I don't pretend to understand.  And why I dream at all while napping is also puzzlement.