Several consecutive paranoid nightmares lasting 11 hours

I don't know why I'm writing this or why anyone else would read it. However, it is a forum and there's always fairly insignificant crap that somehow entertains.

Background:
I have a severe irrational paranoid phobia of a former principal of whom I had the pleasure to know for three years until he moved away this last summer. Though he is gone and I've, in general, improved in his absence, he still continues to haunt me. Recently, I've been feeling exceptionally more paranoid with concerns of him returning for whatever reasons, such as a visit to the school (which actually came true a few months ago), though I realize this is fairly unlikely.

However, knowing how my OCD combines with my anxiety to cause me to obsess about my fears, I decided to Google his name and see where he is now. I didn't find anything recent, but I did see some articles and information about some of his past work at other schools and read several stories about him. I saw a few photos of him and that's when I started to shake and feel a bit sick. I realized what I was doing and knew I had to stop it before I induced a panic attack, so I got off the computer and went to bed. Not the best idea in retrospect - even if it was past my bedtime.

(Thankfully I had a snow day the next morning, which I was fully aware of the night before, so I was able to sleep in and not have to go out in public in such a miserable and disturbed state.)

The dream:
I was in an elementary school that I work at but for the dream it served as my high school. In the earliest scene I can remember, I was aware that the principal was in the same hallway as me. I tried to go by unnoticed, like I always attempt, but was not able to, being that I had a skateboard with me (which is very unusual, but then again, anything goes in a dream). So, he sees the skateboard and tells me that I can't have it with me. I walk off to try to escape the situation because any confrontation with that man in any realm is extremely uncomfortable. Because I was fleeing, it made him suspicious. So, he calls after me to stop but I only start to run. I hear him running and shouting my name (which terrifies me). I run faster until I remember that I have a skateboard with me, which I then utilize to get a good distance from him.

However, my skateboarding is not fast enough to lose him and I soon come to an exit of the school. I hop off the skateboard and run outside, thinking, for some reason, that he wouldn't follow me. He continues to pursue me, so I run as fast as I can off of school grounds. At this point, where I am is no longer recognizable. It is purely imagined. I finally stop when I am too tired. So does he. We have an extremely awkward stand off where he tries to yell at me for what I did wrong, but I don't listen because I'm in a state of shock and feel I could faint at any second.

For whatever reasons, he gives up on me and walks back to the school. Feeling like I can never return to the school to face my fear of him, I decide to live as a homeless person, living in the woods and with the charity of my friends who bring me food every once in a while. Here the dream changes course for a little while and forms into another story which I don't recall because of its insignificance, with the exception of spending a bit of time in an antique store (?). Finally, the dream changes back to its original plot of my principal when I find a littered newspaper in my humble abode in the woods. On the front page there is a headline about the principal having died from some unmemorable cause. Seeing this, I feel safe enough to return to the school (I think, to reflect my feelings of coming back to school for senior year without him as a principal anymore).

And so, I head back to the school (which is surprisingly the same physical building as the beginning of the dream) somewhat cautiously but with relative ease. At some point I find out that there is some grade vs. grade and staff vs. student dodgeball game going on (based on an annual event in real life). So, I head to the gym and decide to watch the game for a little while. Soon, however, I become suspicious that the principal might be at the game. I become uncomfortable and go about the gym, trying to see if he is indeed present but fail to find him anywhere. I instead find a friend and sit with him.

While sitting with this friend, I, sure enough, find the principal not too far away from us. He's with another principal from my high school who I've always been on good terms with. I notice they're talking with each other and start to worry that the principal might see me. I try to hide my face but he soon realizes I'm there. I express my concerns to my friend who tries to comfort me, even as the two principals move closer to us. I remember him telling me, "Don't worry. He can't do anything to you. And if he starts staring at you just flick him off."

I listen to his advice but soon realize that the two principals do as well. I see them start to walk towards us so I hang my head in shame and fear, anticipating him to scold us for what my friend had said and for me running away and having skipped school for the time that I had. To my surprise, though, the principal does nothing of the sort and only continues to walk past. However, the principal joking gives us the middle finger behind his back in response to what my friend had said. The two principals laugh and giggle.

I felt terrible to see this and knew it was only the beginning. The two stood not too far from us and continued to joke around, mostly about me and knowingly loud enough for us to hear them. And, like in real life, this principal has just about one of the scariest laughing faces you'll ever see. Soon it became too much to bear and I had to leave. I, in another panic, get up from my seat and walk briskly out of the gym, up the hall, down another hall, and find a place to hide in a bathroom. At this point, the school turns back to the elementary school that it truly is and I find myself in a bathroom with younger children. I come out and find that, though the ages of the students have changed, the teachers have not. Consequently, I now find some of my closer high school teachers as elementary school teachers. I only speak with two of them, briefly (as I feel faint and at the brink of a total meltdown), but each of them express how proud they are of me and how good of a person I am - seemingly to comfort me, though I had not shown them any reason to comfort me.

After speaking with the teachers, I walk off and soon find myself instinctively tending to the children like I would at work. Nothing particularly interesting happens, being that it has once again changed its direction. The End.

I woke up and realized that it was almost two o' clock and finally forced myself out of bed, though I had already woken up several times before noon.

Tonight I plan on utilizing some wake-induced lucid dream methods to try to address this issue. If I can't manage my fears in real life, maybe I can try to stop them by working directly with my subconscious in its purest form.

 

Thank you for sharing your story, I wish you good energy and happy lucid dreaming !

Fear often mantles a deeper issue - one that energizes - without, there wouldn't be that magnetic spell. And often when we're drawn by the victim-culprit role pattern, there may be underlying guilt feelings that don't want to be overlooked, but addressed, and released in order to heal. Then, it's like the feelings of shame and guilt about your own existing turn into joy about existance. Just walk down that road.

In the end, it is about loving - as I believe - and so, the other may help you to tap into your own power once again, to be who you are without getting distracted.

Just some thoughts.

 

Thank you! I'm pretty sure that my meditating should help and hopefully lessen my paranoia eventually. As far as lucid dreaming, I have to work on that. So far I've only made little progress. In my lucid dreams I tend to feel weak within the dream (walking is difficult, I feel faint, usually fall and lay on the ground) and wake up shortly after I realize I'm having a lucid dream. Either way, these methods should help me feel confident about myself and more trusting in general.

However, I'm not sure what you meant by "In the end, it is about loving - as I believe - and so, the other may help you to tap into your own power once again, to be who you are without getting distracted." Yes, I believe the end was of love, but what is this 'other' that you are referring to?

Once again, thank you for commenting on my dream and even reading about it in the first place.

 

No, I ment - in the end (basically, of all things), it is about loving - and any other may help you here - means, each and everybody whom you meet on the roads (and curves) of life.

Just try and imagine what you can do in lucid dreams :

- Design a healing place where you feel safe and fully nurtured, no boundaries here ... where you can faint without loosing the awareness
- Invent a method that enables you to extend the dream state as long as you want, and helps you keep your focus
- Visit your favorite food place in town
- Call your guardian angel for a date (and you may want to take some flight lessons right away)
- Change your past / future
- Exercise funny marshall arts
- Invent a magical mirror that shows all your weaknesses as strength
- Give all those things that you feel frustrated by, a name and a shape, and make a great yard sale
- Design a pill that cures emotional pain, and give it (after you've tested it yourself) to those whom you feel chased by (who knows, maybe this is what they're running after)
- Explore the abundance of life
...
... the list goes on as you see ... just start with your own (in waking life) of all things you really want to change.

Thank you too !

 

Ok. Thank you! Now I can't wait to fall asleep again! ^^