Tangled Webs

[ladysprite]

I'd feel a lot better about falling asleep tonight if I could at least figure out why my subconscious has decided to repeatedly barrage me with nightmares about spiders biting my arms. Not just spiders, not just spider bites, but very clearly and specifically large spiders hiding in crevices and piting my forearms until they sting and ache and raise hard round bumps. The scenery changes from dream to dream - sometimes they're hiding in libraries, last night they were weaving webs around the crumbling cemetarial grounds of a beautiful old gothic mansion, but the important details of the dream have been the same.

I'm used to nightmares; that's not the part that bothers me. And the spiders themselves don't disturb me too much - while I'm mildly skittish about them, I've had much creepier nightmares. It's the recurrent nature of the dream that's got me on edge. I haven't had a recurrent dream since I was five years old and an unfortunate combination of my mother's penchant for B-grade schlock SF movies and a rather odd Breyer's Ice Cream commercial left me dreaming every night for two weeks that the president of the United States had been replaced by a giant alien bug who was forcing everyone to eat magic beans that turned them into locusts.

Unfortunately, the origins of this dream are more obscure. I have absolutely no idea what it could possibly mean, unless it's just a sign that I'm winding up asleep in such odd postures that my arms are falling asleep, which is unlikely since I haven't been waking up with stiff, achy, or pins-and-needles arms. I suppose that it could symbolize the complicated web of my life, but while my life is complicated, it's not particularly web-like or sinister - and even if it were, while that might explain the spiders, it wouldn't exactly explain why they're only biting my forearms.

I'm sure that if I hunted down a dream dictionary, it would have some clear, precise, and utterly ludicrous obscure explanation. Maybe it means that relatives wearing white will arrive on a rainy day with news about money, or that my poor housekeeping and lack of dusting has led to enough bad feng shui that my elbow chakra is blocked. Or maybe it just means that Fox has decided to retire as my totem animal, and that the spiders aren't happy about taking on the job.

I wonder, does this mean that I'll get the proportionate strength and abilities of an imaginary dream being? And if it does, what exactly would they be?

Comments

[flowing-dancer.livejournal.com]

I rarely get recurring nightmares, but when I do, it's my mind saying This is something Very Serious.

Is there some small problem that keeps biting at you, something annoying? Perhaps annoying little bills that are making budget a PITA? Is there a person who keeps annoying you, someone of whom you can't easily rid yourself? Have you gotten into some plant like poison ivy at some time on your arms? Are you having dry skin there?

Do they seem annoying or hurtful?

How long has this been happening? Can you ever realize that you are dreaming, and if so, can you control it then?

If I can realize I'm in a dream - sometimes I forget right away, but if I don't, either I'll wake up because my brain is annoyed that I won't sit and listen, or I'm able to realize that *I* can reshape the universe there, create what I need, do what I need.

Could you make your skin exude a substance noxious to them? Could you turn and attack them? Um, the possibilities get stranger from there, but there are a couple that have worked for me.


Powers - hmm, travel between dreams of people, like a road? Reshape the dream universe at your whim? Tell people they are being blind, and to relax and listen to their brains? Show the dreams of one person to another, so they could understand each other a bit better?

Good luck.

[ladysprite.livejournal.com]

Nope, no annoying little problems or people, and no dry skin or poison ivy. Annoying big catastrophes, but nothing particularly little.

It's been going on for a couple of weeks. And, unfortunately, I seem to be physically incapable of lucid dreaming. I've tried every trick I've ever heard or read of, and nothing works - I have constant, vivid, detailed dreams that I remember clearly, but I've never been able to realize I was dreaming or change anything in the dream-universe while it was happening.

Maybe it just means that my cats are kneading my arms at night, and they need a nail trim. :)

[flowing-dancer.livejournal.com]

Perhaps you could get a pillow speaker (Radio Shack, a few bucks) and put on a story from CD or something that you listen to as you sleep? Or some mp3 file repeating, something positive?

Have you been tested for sleep apnea?

You could try 2 Benedryl before sleep, that should help you sleep well. OR some valerian, hops, skullcap, poppy.

Possibly have a massage therapist work on you for a bit? Perhaps there is something out of alignment or being pinched.

It could be the annoying big catastrophes from which you feel you cannot escape. My nightmares usually only go away when the root cause is fixed. :-(

Wish I could be more help.

{HUG}

[siderea]

Careful there, valerian is an oneirogenic: it makes most people dream more vividly. It also improves sleep quality, but nightmares are a common side-effect. Maybe not the tool for this job.

ladysprite, if you decide to try skullcap, you're welcome to my bottle! It didn't work for me, but it might work for you.

I think, however, you're going to need to have a sit-down conversation with your unconcious, since it clearly is trying to flag you down and otherwise get your attention.

Random thoughts: Your spiders keep biting you on your forearms? In a recurring dream which is giving you a feeling of dread? It was Jung or Freud who pointed out that the unconscious often speaks in puns and word games: Perhaps your spiders are trying to make you fore-warned about something, so that you are fore-armed.

I'm not asking you to answer such a question in public, but you might want to ask yourself is there something some part of you might be dreading (or might think you're not dreading enough) in your future?

Another thing to ask yourself is whether, if it were possible for you to interrogate the spiders and say, "Hey, what's this all about?" whether you would want to -- or whether you'd rather not know and have them bite you.

Usually when someone's unconscious keeps nagging them about something, and they just can't for the life of them figure out what it is or make heads or tails of the message, it's often because they fear the message is something they really, really don't want to know; and that is what it's doing (whatever it is), shoved into the closet of the unconscious, in the first place. It got relegated to the unconscious because the conscious rejected it; but now the unconscious is sending little creepy-crawlies under the door.

[madamruppy.livejournal.com]

As someone who has chronic/serial nightmares I would urge a bit of caution if you consider anything that could make your sleep deeper. When I have done that my nightmares get worse and I am unable to wake up.

[citabria]

Have you tried doing any journey work where you ask Spider if something's up?

[citabria]

Okay, having asked my basic question, I have of course pondered more.

Screw the books -- what do spiders mean to you? What do you associate them with? Have you ever had any notable encounters with them, and if so what was the context?

And ... in the dreams, what do you do when you notice the first spider? How do you react, and what happens as a result?

I don't get the sense that it's about an annoyance, but rather that there's something you're ignoring (or trying to ignore) that's going to keep coming up again and again and again (and hamper you, but not totally hold you back)until you finally deal with it in some productive manner. Maybe something family related (though quite possibly not)?

I know this is out of the blue, but I seemed to be getting some sense of something, and figured I might as well post it just in case there's anything useful in it.

[ausir.livejournal.com]

I wonder, does this mean that I'll get the proportionate strength and abilities of an imaginary dream being? And if it does, what exactly would they be?

Well, if it's a dream spider, then you get to scare girls who sit on small pillows and eat oatmeal.