When our psychic reality is dissociated, split or numbed and how this shows up in dreams

The following quote comes from Elaine Aron. We may be triggered into a flashback to something we have no conscious memory of at all in Complex PTSD.. the feelings are there but the memories of the events that caused them may be split off dissociated or numbed..

Emotions, memories, current thoughts and behaviours, and bodily states related to a trauma can all be dissociated.  Memories may be repressed, literally unlinked from consciousness.  Or your emotions may not be linked to current memories or events.  You may feel numb, lacking all emotion, or all too conscious of emotions that seem to arise for no reason. Your body may be unlinked from memories, so you remember the events of the trauma but have no idea what happened to your body during it.  Your body will still be dissociated from your thoughts, with the result that you are hardly aware of its needs.  Or the body does not link with your actions, and you feel unreal or detached as you go through the day….you do things that make no sense or are self destructive but your behaviour is not linked to its real causes.  You may have stress related illnesses because memories, feelings, or thoughts are pushed down in the mind then arise in the body.  Or you may have recurring nightmares that seem unrelated to anything going on in your life.

The work of healing involves making these things conscious which is where triggers or dreams come in..

If you have trouble working out what a figure or situation in a dream means you can do a practice of what Jungian analyst Robert Johnson calls active imagination. In this process in your imagination or via visualization you can envision yourself back in the dream asking things of this figure.. seeking associations to feelings or past experiences, or trying to see what from the previous days events may have triggered them by questioning yourself may work as may writing down associations.

Often in dreams we try to work through encounters, issues or problems we are having.. Engaging with a frightening figure may work better in the long run than running and avoiding it, after all any figure in a dream represents a part of you that wants you to relate to it in some way… so that it can transform. This is particularly true of the forces that hurt us and then led us to escape in some way or avoid in order to stay safe.. As abused or neglected children who were invalidated this force comes to take up residence inside of us creating all kinds of problems.. In trying to keep it safe it may even organize our suicide.. Aron makes the point that suicidal feelings come from feeling hopeless, helpless and as if you have no way out or solution to the pain or despair or desperation you feel inside.. But if you can make these feelings conscious it may be more likely you can deal with them rather than avoiding, running or rationalizing.