On my blog entry entitled “I Don’t Know If I Have Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID)”, a reader posted the following comment:
Faith, I was wondering if you could do a post about night terrors. Like when u wake up soaked in sweet and thinking its real. You stuck in the past. The cry. The heavy crying. And ‘body memories’ like if u wake up and you feel pain of someone hurting you? But its in your head. And not happening but u think it is. I hope I totally don’t sounds loopy. I’m being serious this happens to. And the feelings feel real and The feelings associated or direct me to a post if uve already done one? ~ Freckles
What Freckles is describing is dual consciousness. On the one hand, a part of you knows that you are lying safely in your bed while another part of yourself feels like you have been teleported back in time and are currently being abused.
I recently had a nightmare where I was being raped again. I could feel everything that I felt when I was raped as a child. It really did feel like I was being raped again in that moment even though I was safely asleep in my bed. As Freckles describes, I awoke feeling as if my body had just been raped even though I was reliving a memory that happened decades ago.
I have heard that some child abuse survivors can become so caught up in the reality of the past that they lose touch with the present during the flashback. When a loved one steps in to try to help, they lash out against the loved one, believing that the loved one is the abuser. I, personally, have not had this experience. I have been fortunate to stay grounded enough in the present to avoid “losing myself” to total immersion in the past while I am awake. Flashbacks in nightmares are a different story – When I experience those, I am only aware of the past, not the present.
Here’s the good news: You can use this dual consciousness to your advantage! As long as a part of yourself is aware of being in the present, you can use that part of yourself to comfort yourself through the flashback. I learned how to pause, rewind, and fast-forward a flashback.
I also learned how to talk my way through the flashbacks. Even though a part of myself was experiencing the abuse as if it was happening right now, another part of myself would walk me through it. I would tell myself that I already survived the abuse, so I could survive the memory. I would tell myself that I am OK, that I am safe now, and that it is OK to remember what happened. I would tell myself that I already know the ending – that I survived and am OK today. I would sometimes even play a song in my head to help ease the anxiety as I worked through the memory.
As for stopping the flashback … some of my flashbacks were too intense to deal with all in one sitting. As long as I promised myself that I would return the next night (and meant it), I developed the ability to “turn off” the flashback for the night once I had enough. I would process what I had relived that night and then be in a better place to move forward the following night.
Photo credit: Hekatekris
Blooming Lotus 
Hey Faith and Frecles,
The method you are describing here Faith reminds me of a technique I read about in a course in miracles… or maybe it was just a Marianne Williamson tape, I forget.
But and I’m not sure if this is a trigger or not, so I will just say POSSIBLE RELIGIOUS TRIGGER
The idea is that God (or Life Force or however you describe the bigger consciousness) can be used as a purifier. You can offer up your bad memories and ask that they be transformed into positive/loving energy. I think it works best with visualizations as well, like a dark color being infused with light till the dark color becomes light… like that. But honestly, I’m not sure that technique is necessarily meant for traumatic memories of this kind. I’m just tossing it out there because, I don’t think it can hurt, and it might help… even if just as part of a personal prayer.
I wish everyone restful sleep and safe dreams.
Peace,
mia
I know only too well about flashbacks and body memories. Mine are from an abusive marriage, but I’m 2 years out of it and STILL wake up shaking from the nightmares. Usually it’s if I’ve had contact with my abuser. In fact, I woke up last night drenched in sweat after a night terror.
I don’t always remember what the nightmare was about. Sometimes I’ll just wake up feeling like I’m being choked or raped or whatever. The physical sensations can be very real, and you shouldn’t think you’re “crazy” for feeling them. The body stores its own memories, and sorting through them can be very challenging indeed. Be patient with yourself . . . this all takes time.
If you like poetry, I have written quite a lot on the subject of remembering the abuse, body memories, and the like on my blog: http://www.shelteredshadow.blogspot.com
Hang in there, I’m told that with time and much therapy we’ll get through this. I currently go for therapy 3 times a week and I’m still struggling . . . but I have hope that it will get better with time.
God bless!
The night terrors and flashbacks which are two separate things for me became my frienimies. An indication that there still was more work and often lead to what work there was.
That being said they were certainly a horror all along and it was hard to trust that staying with them was the only way for me to heal. Oh how I envied those that did not have to process trauma to heal until I decided until they showed themselves as far as I know they do not exist.
On dynamic that is hard to deal with is flash backs of flash backs. There are many of these tied into each flashback. They seem to get processed willy nilly. They may come first before the memory comes into my consciousness or they may come afterward. It is like a partial having your life flash before your eyes. As this happens I kinda look in and see. It might be like many films or it might be a bunch of snap shots. I am used to it and know that it is healing. Still not fun.
One weird one was hammers. I saw every hammer that I ever saw or used and it took a week until the images stopped coming. Another one was every coat I ever wore.
It seems that my brain got better at it and now it does not take as long. There are no short cuts just the brain healing.
Hi Faith,
Thank you so much for your blog – it is encouraging, inspring and uplifting and has helped me in many ways!
I was wondering – how did you learn to pause, rewind and re-play your flashbacks? And how did you learn to talk yourself through them and be able to be concious and aware enough to do that? Is that just with your waking-flashbacks or can you do this with your nightmares/night-terrors as well?
Sorry for all the questions in one go! 🙂
I’m not sure about the concept of ‘dual consciousness.’ It seems to me like you are either conscious or your not.
–noun
1. the state of being conscious; awareness of one’s own existence, sensations, thoughts, surroundings, etc.
2. full activity of the mind and senses.
When I am having the ‘night terrors,’ or nightmares, I DO NOT realize that it isn’t happening right now! I think that is right now, I believe that it is right now, and I FEEL like it is right now! That is a big difference between remembering that it happened in the past, and believing that it is happening to you in the present.
What if you can’t (or haven’t learned) how to walk yourself through it? What if you don’t know how to ‘turn it off?’
The idea of “dual consciousness” would be a matter of having an observing part of yourself that is aware the present environment while at the same time realizing you are experiencing memories so forcefully they are happening as a full sensory experience. Just because you don’t seem to have that observing part of yourself during these flashbacks or night terror times, doesn’t mean that you don’t have it at all. There are things you can do to help develop it, and that would include things like using your observing self (your day to day consciousness) in a more mindful way. Like a running commentary as you go about your activities. It just involves noticing and describing things in your experience. You can check out basic material on “mindfullness.” It might help developing that part of your observing ego so it would be there for you during times of flashbacks.
Also what Faith mentioned about being able to pause, rewind, and fast forward a flashback is a good thing to do with any memory that is painful. It is actually a technique used in NLP (neurolinguistic programming. There is something about rewinding a memory really fast that helps to separate the emotional response from the actual memory. So then it is like a “healed” memory. You remember it, but without emotional impact and intensity.
Now I realize everyone is in a different place in healing. If you are not in touch with your emotions, the goal is not to separate them from you even further. But if you are having flashbacks with all the emotional and physical sensations, then it is OK to use techniques to separate the two. You are not dissociating yourself from your personal history, but taking the overwhelming pain away from the memory.
My comment could be triggering.
Over the past 48 hours I had overwhelming flashbacks to being orally raped as an infant or toddler. I was sick over one hundred times and could not stop myself being sick, it was as if my gag reflex had become totally overactive. I also had flashes of severe pain down below, flashback body memories. It’s very hard for me to make sense of what causes what – was I physically sick first e.g. food bug and then this triggered a cycle of vomiting as I entered flashbacks, or did flashbacks cause all the vomiting? All i know is that over the years I have been investigated for so many stomach conditions, including ulcers etc, and every time the only thing that has helped me is to reconnect with my inner toddler and calm the memories down. I can’t teach that inner part of myself to tell the choking penises to get out because she is preverbal, all i can do is rock and try to breathe more steadily, also I will need to make my hands and feet warm because they enter a deep chill trauma state. This vomiting has happened so often to me, I just wonder if there is any better way of processing these earliest memories or divining their trigger so that this doesn’t keep going on and on. I’m really fed up of being so sick as it is totally incapacitating.
I do have dual consciousness in this situation but found it really frustrating that when i explain to medical professionals that i am having flashbacks they still think it’s more important to address physical causes than the emotional stuff that is going on. What a wonderful day it would be if you went to a GP with this terrible vomiting and shaking and pain and you explained it is your inner toddler reliving her memories (as I do) and they responded to the toddler not just the adult, with either toddler medication or care, instead of disbelief and dismissal.
I have tried to tell medical professionals that I have the paediatric disorder, called abdominal migraine, because I am the child again in this sickness, but they have dismissed this and said an adult cannot have a child’s disorder. I truly believe that i can and that this is what needs treating, I just hope science sees this too one day.
Ax,
It has been my experience that medical scientists ego will not allow them to accept what they can not cure which gets in the way of their understanding.
I threw up often. I stayed with it and did not think it was safe and it has gone away. It is hard as there is also the throwing up when the body re-processes trauma.
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I do not use the concept that things are safe is there is not further injury. If it is painful and disruptive I do not experience it as safety even thought the end result is healing.
I never accomplished processing my trauma not being an overwhelming experience. I think it is caused by the trauma and not any deficiency of mine.
I am working on a new concept and that is that the memories were processed and we are re-processing them. The concept that I avoided the pain as an infant and child is not credible. That I somehow magically did not feel it other than when my body was so brutalized it could not feel it anymore is insulting.
We stay away from we now can process “correctly” or “better” we just go with process for the now just like we always did. The now has changed.
I do not find it possible to take away the pain of re-processing trauma. Nice concept.
My traumatic memories were stored where they should be. It was the trauma that should not have been. I had no average consciousness as I did not have an average life.
Staying present as a multiple had two effects. One was to further put off the re-processing or to prepare ourselves for the reprocessing. There was not the peace that it seems a person who does not have trauma that needs to be processed expresses experiencing.
I have noticed that I those that claim to be present seem to be easily become un-present if they face adversity. They seem to be able to stay present as long as their environment is controlled. Pretty much I could stay present in a monastery where I knew I was going to be fed everyday for the rest of my life.
All that being said when I re-process the memories and accept the pain and disruption of the re-processing I have a past. Once I have a past I experience things differently which is better for now which changes my future. When I accept there will be pain and disruption and plan for recovery time than there is less pain and disruption. I learned to re-process trauma by re-processing trauma and this was hard as my life did not have much learning by experience that was positive.
Thank you so much Michael. I am still online and your words brought so much comfort; you have accumulated wisdom in your healing.
I think I agree you cannot not be overwhelmed. In recent months, I recovered my memories of giving birth to baby girl and her being taken, don’t know if anyone really believes me, but I did. When the memories came back, I went through flashbacks of labour actually more powerful and painful than the birth of my child who I am raising now. The only good thing is that I know because of my body and afterwards I felt that a weight had lifted from my stomach.
I have had suspected endometriosis for years, which in layman’s terms is menstrual blood flowing backwards and clogging up organs instead of outwards. However I have proved a puzzle for Drs because there are no signs of endometriosis other than the wrong blood direction. I KNOW this is because I tried to hold the baby in my body, not let her out to be taken/ unsafe, it is very sad but that has had the effect of reversing the bodily process of menstruation. That symptom is easing now that I have acknowledged the pain of letting the baby be born.
That memory unblocking has been opening the floodgates to many ritual abuse memories that were repressed behind that one.
If I try to talk to Drs about this, you are so right, all I see is their egos, their disrespect of me, I am sure there must be one Dr who would be open to humans as unique, complicated and mystifying besides scientific but I haven’t met that one yet.
Thanks, Michael.
I once told a Dr. I think the problem is that you think you are the smartest person in this room and there are indications you may be incorrect.
I do not know the specifics of your baby being taken from you. I do know people who had this happen as part of cult activity and where Dr sold the baby.
I am sorry.
Thank you Michael. A ‘sorry’ for me is a rare and very gratefully received blessing. It did happen.
I have most of my flashbacks at night, even though my abuse happened in the day, and I do still feel “there” when I wake up and have lashed out and hit a friend who came into my room to check I was ok as I often shout out when I have flashback dreams. I felt awful but she was ok about it – her being someone who knew when I was a kid but her mum didn’t believe her I think on some level she feels guilty. I cannot stop flashbacks, possibly because I’m usually unaware they are flashbacks or if I am they are not visual or audio, more emotional or body memory, but I am able to trigger them with particular music. That is something I taught myself to do as a child, I chose a song that I liked and was “sad” and would listen to it over and over immediately after abuse and relive it, now I can trigger myself when I feel like it’s all stuck and trying to sort itself out in my head. Unfortunately if that song is on the radio I have to stop the car as I get very overwhelmed even if I don’t flashback. Thanks for this post, really helped me think it through and understand the flashbacks more