Nightmares will haunt you until you pay attention to them. And it’s not only about big traumas pushed into corners of the mind and praying they stay hidden. You can be suffering through some low grade stress and trauma that you’d just as soon ignore and are often able to shove into some corner of your everyday mind and it would stay there if it weren’t for nightmares. But the psyche doesn’t like to be ignored. It likes balance, it likes resolution.

When I ignore my everyday dreams on something that’s annoying me eventually I’ll be visted by a night time panic.

Lately the dark knight begins with me wandering out of some hotel conference into a city I don’t know and after a few twists and turns I find myself totally lost with no idea of which way to go to find my way back. Frequently it’s my car that I’m desperately trying to find or it’s the keys to said car. In either case the dream is suggesting a loss of independence, control, escape, or power.

That’s when the panic begins to swell within and confusion sets in. These are all symptoms of my sense of loss and control over my life and the direction that it’s taking. Lately it has been my sense of justice and what is right and honorable that’s being tested in a world that rewards lies and hate and glorifies ignorance. It’s become a world where violence wins out over love and chaos reigns supreme and its all showing up in my nightmarish dreams.

This kind of nightmare often comes to me more than once and will continue to do so until I deal with it. It is nudging me to pay attention to what is bothering me but not necessarily so that I can work to find a solution but to acknowledge what’s going on in me that I’m suppressing i.e., the first step out of denial toward resolution.

As with all dreams nightmares are there for a reason. They too are there for one’s health and well-being.