Mind-tripping Panic

Every few months I have a night full of nightmares.  As rational as I am, I wake up several times during the night sweating, in destitution, heart racing and with uncontrollable shakes.  I get lost in past violence where my body is taken from me and discarded as a rag doll.  Once I am awake I can gather my thoughts and try to go back to sleep to then (what seems ridiculously impossible) continue with the same dreams.  Last night was such a night.My ex of 18 years used to wake up, a few times a year, in a panic thinking he was still in a Cuban prison from when he was in his early twenties.  The dreams would replay as if he was at the present time stuck in Cuba and couldn’t leave.  In complete disorientation he would wake up with severe muffles of terror.  He spent three years in a third-world-country prison for trying to flee the island on a tire tube.  He was found ten miles of shore.  This event would forever change him and detach his personality from truly allowing love, especially to himself.  Each time he had these horrific violent dreams I would try and soothe him.  Unfortunately when it was my turn to have my nightmares he would chuckle them up to, “Ay, mija (Spanish slang for dudette or along those lines) don’t worry!  It was only a dream.  It’s not real.”   I never once shared with him what the dreams were about but he never really asked.  He was too self-absorbed with his own head and his double life.But, nightmares are not okay.  They aren’t supposed to be casted to the side immediately when we wake to terror.  I don’t mean relive them, but don’t discard them.  They serve their purpose.  Sometimes the subconscious is desperately trying to reach a place of rewiring.  Your spirit is working the kinks out so the fears of waking moments can find a place in peace.  We fear those things that terrorize us with reasons.  They become scars for life.  They permeate into the voice of paralysis in moments of letting go…such as in dreamland.It takes me some time during the morning to ground myself from such violence and turmoil.  I breathe in.  I say prayers.  I ask God to protect me, and then immediately ask protection for my children.  There are monsters in this world.  There are horrendous events that can either turn us into victims or create us as survivors.  I am a survivor.  I tell myself this when the terror comes to morning light.  I am a better person for having gone through such events.  I am not going to chuckle them to, “It was only a dream.”  I have chosen to better myself because of that past.  We all have choices.  We survive via coping, allowing and faith.We all carry some form of mind trip piggy-backing from the past.  Those are the events that show you how powerfully strong you are.  Surviving anything that forces you to touch the gateways of death pushes you to embrace life…to never take breathing for granted.   Those nightmares serve as a reminder that you are here.  You weathered the storms.  You overcame the inconceivable monstrous and dreadful events. Your spirit soars higher because of your perseverance.  Here you are!  Bravo to you, my friend, bravo!!!