Can you prevent the personality familiar to you, your family, and friends from swapping with an unpleasant alter ego?
Disturbing FantasiesMay is Mental Health Awareness Month.
In the comfort of your bed, while drifting off to peaceful slumber, your sane mind is abducted. Sweet dreams allude to you. In a vulnerable state, your mind floods with disturbing thoughts. The personality familiar to you, your family, and your friends swaps with an unpleasant alter ego, as vivid fantasies emerge.
The next morning, still troubled by the mental imagery, you tell yourself, “This could never happen in real life.” That evening, the same counter-personality returns. So you begin staying up later and later, hoping exhaustion will abate the nightly personality conflict. Sometimes this works. But more frequently than not, you find yourself in a recurring loop of violent, erotic, or lawless fantasies conflicting with your normally peaceful demeanor.
Heart and Mind
Are you losing your mind? Are you developing multiple personalities? What causes vivid enactments of improper behavior? Hopefully, this is not a prelude to acting out violent activities where your interviewed family and friends get their 15 minutes of infamy saying, ‘There were never any indications of such tendencies’ or ‘She was such a nice girl.’ Will a mate suffer the heartbreak of a relationship-ending indiscretion? Is this a portent of self-destruction?
Some fantasies can be vivid, uncharacteristic, embarrassing or disturbing.
First, consider whether your conscience is plaguing you because of past conduct. Others may have done something to you or vice versa. You may be reliving actions from which you long separated yourself. Conversely, you may be working hard to suppress unfulfilled desires. Fantasies are sometimes mental rehearsals of future actions.
Fantasy Island
As you progress through the day, it is normal for your mind to process tasks, errands, goals, and responsibilities. Later, while drifting into sleep, poignant past experiences, on the conscious or subconscious level, are more likely to surface.
Your mind is vulnerable as it sifts through daily interactions, entertainment, and emotions before the dream cycle begins. So choose entertainment and conversation carefully. The good news is that since the thoughts are troubling, you have high moral standards.
Some people rise and indulge in such fantasies online or engage in self-destructive behavior like cutting. The line between criminal thoughts and action is something the courts have pondered for decades.
When attempted crimes first became criminalized in the early 1900s, Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes urged caution, asserting that for the defendant to be convicted, “there must be dangerous proximity to success.” What has changed in recent years are the tools used to detect intent—namely, a person’s online activity. This motivated the prosecution of the Cannibal Cop.
Possible Causes
Recurring negative imagery or clandestine pseudo-behavior could indicate a need to improve your mental diet. It may also betray an underlying emotional conflict. An abusive past is manifest in many ways. Hormones also play a factor. Neurological chemical imbalance (remedied with proper prescription) can disrupt normal emotions.
Night terrors may be symptomatic of a new medication or abrupt discontinuation of a longstanding prescription. A trusted counselor may provide the appropriate forum to express troubling tendencies before they manifest into life-altering realities.
Night terrors can also disturb what should be a restful time of the evening. Symptoms of this parasomnia include sudden awakening from sleep, persistent fear or terror that occurs at night, screaming, sweating, confusion, rapid heart rate, inability to explain what happened, usually no recall of “bad dreams” or nightmares, and perhaps a vague sense of frightening images. Night terrors are often misdiagnosed as simpler nightmares or perhaps Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).
Sleep deprivation and diet can affect your restfulness. Some spices have psychoactive properties that may affect dreaming. For example, nutmeg has a chemical composition similar to the street drug called Ecstasy. Of course, you would need to eat massive quantities. (Please don’t.)
One expert says pad thai might bring on nightmares. Others place the blame on nightshades—plants related to the potato, having black or red berries. But meal size may be most important.
Many people get relief from persistent disturbing fantasies through talk therapy. Others find that writing about them is therapeutic. By either vocalizing or journaling, you address the fear of crossing the line, so to speak. By exploring such outcomes, you may be able to put disturbing events and ideas behind you.
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The purpose of this article is not to diagnose or prescribe treatment. Rather, the goal is to stimulate you to action, resulting in feeling ClinicalReads Health. Discuss concerns with your physician. References below provide further insight.
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To support the writing of useful articles about emotions, ClinicalPosters sells human anatomy charts, scientific posters, and other products online. You may sponsor specific articles or remit a small donation.
ClinicalPosters sells human anatomy charts, scientific posters, and other products online to offset expense of the writing useful articles about emotions. Slide extra posters into DeuPair Frames without removing from the wall.
ClinicalPosters sells human anatomy charts, scientific posters, and other products online. You may remit a small donation.
You can support the writing of useful articles about emotions by sponsoring specific articles or remitting a small donation. Visible content is optimized for device size.
