Recurring Childhood Nightmare

[kathryn]

Anyone care to help me interpret this nightmare I had in childhood? I had it on a regular basis from age 4 to about 6 or 7. 

 

It always started with me waking up in my bed in the nursery. My older brother was in the twin bed on the other side of the room, but he was asleep. At the side of the bed there was a large cricket who stood upright like a person. He was about my height. He was sort of a gangster, wore a leather jacket, and was often smoking a cigarette. He would stare at me and be flipping a coin in the air very smugly. On the floor at his feet were about a thousand normal size crickets, and he stood over them. He would give me this pointed look and then bounce away to the hallway.

 

I was so scared, but I followed him because I knew he was nefarious as fuck and wanted to harm my family. My mom was in the hallway, either on the phone or otherwise distracted, and the gangster cricket was on her back. He was looking straight at me in this haughty way. Mom didn't notice at all. I tried to tell her and get her attention, but she couldn't hear me. I would cry and scream, but she just turned away and continued talking on the phone. Sometimes she would wave her hand dismissively and say, "Not now."

 

Then the cricket would jump off her back and leap back into the nursery. He stood in the middle of the room over all the other little crickets for a moment before picking one up. He stuck it between two slices of bread and took a big chomp. At that point I would wake up, covered in sweat, and usually burst into tears.  

 

I brought this dream up to my parents over dinner a few years ago. My dad remembered right away and jokingly cursed those damn crickets, but it's interesting that my mom had no recollection of it. Much the way she was in the dream, she was completely oblivious of my fears and needs as a child. 

 

In terms of what was going on in my life at that time, my mom had a miscarriage when I was 3. It was really traumatic time in the family, and mom was really sad for the next couple years until she got pregnant with my little brother, who was born when I was 5. There was a fair amount of strife between my parents during that time because mom wanted another child, and dad didn't. He frequently joked about how mom "tricked" him into getting her pregnant. 

 

Any ideas about what this dream means?

 

Also, is it fairly "normal" to have recurring nightmares like this? I'd be curious to hear if anyone else had repeated bad dreams as a child, and what they were about. 

[MysterionMuffles]

Hmm before I proceed with my interpretation, I need to see if I'm on the right track.

 

I'm guessing the cricket gangster might represent your father...was he ever noisy late at night and kept you from sleeping soundly? Or anybody/anything else? Any actual crickets keep you up at night?

I didn't have recurring nightmares, but one dream that I won't get into here. I think they are meant to link certain times in your life by a common thread you may not see among them.

[kathryn]

Hmm before I proceed with my interpretation, I need to see if I'm on the right track.

 

I'm guessing the cricket gangster might represent your father...was he ever noisy late at night and kept you from sleeping soundly? Or anybody/anything else? Any actual crickets keep you up at night?

I didn't have recurring nightmares, but one dream that I won't get into here. I think they are meant to link certain times in your life by a common thread you may not see among them.

 

Typically my dad was very quiet, reserved, and passive, but he was prone to outbursts of anger where he would yell and throw things, though I don't remember that happening late at night. I did have some fear of my dad when I was a kid, but my fear of my mom was more acute. She would get really crazy and have episodes where she would be verbally abusive and hateful to my dad, my siblings, and me. This happened more frequently then my dad's anger. Again though, not sure it really happened at night. 

 

My older sister would have been someone who terrorized me at night. She is about 4 years older, and she really bullied me and my other siblings. We moved when I was 5, and in the new house my sister and I had connecting bedrooms. So she would have to walk through my room to get to hers. Every single time my sister walked by my bed from age 5 to 10 she would knock my bed with her knees startling me awake. This happened multiple times every night and morning for those 5 years. If she was en route to the bathroom, leaving the room, any time she was in transit, she would jolt my bed with her knees. Upsetting me would amuse her greatly; it was a fun game to her, even though I cried and pleaded with her to stop. However, this didn't start until after I was already having these nightmares. I can't remember if she did that sort of thing before. 

 

No actual crickets. Haha. 

[neeeel]

I was thinking along mellomamas lines. Where did you come into contact with the idea of a gangster at the age of 4 or 5? Is the gangster just a concept you have applied to the cricket in the dream later on, or was it that type of feeling/idea even at the time you were having the dreams?

 

I also was thinking that the large cricket is your mum, or an aspect of your mum. But, in that case, wouldnt the cricket be female as well?

 

alternatively, is it possible that the large cricket was your brother? You started dreaming the dreams about the time he was born, right?

 

He is now taking over your previously held position as mums baby, and I can imaging that younger siblings are very smug and in your face and haughty about supplanting your position.  She was on the phone ( if you think about people on the phone, they are very much "somewhere else", as in, not able to give you attention, focused on something different, not able to engage with you), meaning, she was looking after your brother, he is on her back looking haughtily at you ,  and every time you tried to get her attention, to make sure that you were still loved and wanted, she waved you away with a "not now", she has no time for you.

I can imagine that would be very scary for a child.

[kathryn]

That's a good question neeeel and mellomama; I think the image of the gangster came from TV and movies. We watched a lot of Disney videos and Sesame Street, and the gangster was a typical archetype. Films like Lady and the Tramp and Aristocats featured characters like that. We also did watch Pinocchio quite a bit, which could have been the source of my anthropomorphic notion of the cricket. The idea of him as the anti-conscience is quite interesting. 

 

I hadn't thought of the cricket being the unborn child. I was thinking the dreams started before my little brother was conceived, but I'm not entirely sure about that... It could have been the child my mother lost in the miscarriage? Though the cricket seemed like a full grown man. There was nothing childlike about him, except for his relative size to me. Hmm. 

 

EDIT: The Bugs Bunny cartoons! Bugs was always flipping a coin and being sassy. I think he may have even had a leather jacket that he wore sometimes? I watched a lot of TV as a child...

[Kevin Beal]

Really weird and interesting dream. It has that vibe of being really significant.
 
This is just how I would go about analyzing it if it were my own dream.
 
 
Crickets
 
Crickets are what you hear when everything is quiet, they get tuned out, just like you are tuned out by your mother in the dream. Maybe like the gangster cricket, they symbolize particular things that people are tuning out?
 
A common experience that people have with small children is that they notice and fear things that adults understand are not serious threats, like certain bugs entering the house. And sometimes, unfortunately, those things that the kids notice really are things worth being concerned about, but are flippantly dismissed as eagerly as the threat crickets present us. Things like recurring nightmares that are ignored and laughed away, for example.
 
Children (and everyone else too) desperately need to feel confident in their ability to process reality accurately, and be able to assess threats. If the adults in their lives are doing things which fuck with their sense of reality, and don't do anything to help the child understand, for example, how harmless crickets are, then the child is presented with a worse problem than the threat of the cricket: they now doubt their own ability to process reality in a healthy functioning way. And if the child doesn't feel like the adults around them are going to help them to understand these threats (like your mother on the phone), then that's a scary situation to be in.
 

Gangster Cricket
 
The big cricket seems like "dangerous bad guy" personified. The fact that he jumps on your mother without her noticing seems significant. It's not just that she doesn't see it, but that he becomes attached to her. I am drawing a blank on this, but it does remind me of the theory in child psychology which splits the nasty parent from the good parent like in the movie Coraline. The child doesn't see them as the same person because she has to maintain any sense of security they can in their attachment to the parent. A small child who believes that their parent is sadistic has no perceived option of escape. That's why people develop Stockholm Syndrome, because they would rather justify evil than face the fact that they are at the mercy of a sadistic person. It's too much to handle.

 
The big cricket is your size, though. That too seems significant, so I would look at it as a part of yourself. You do not strike me in the least as being nefarious, the way the big cricket is, but along the same lines as the Stockholm'd child, in order to preserve their bond (used loosely) with the parent, they are very prone to internalizing what the parents say about them. If you were told that you are all kinds of bad, then it would be no surprise that you would perceive yourself in some way to be the kind of bad they tell you that you are.

 
 
Coin Flip
 
The coin flip could be a symbol for randomness or arbitrariness, kind of like the coin Two Face uses in the Batman series to decide if he'll kill his captive. If seemingly anything could set your mother off, it could be related to that.

 

 
 
Cricket Sandwich
 
You said you woke up sweating and burst into tears, presumably out of fear. I don't know if there was anything about the sandwich eating in particular that was scary or if it was just the nightmare in general, but if it was fear for the little cricket in the sandwich, then it makes me wonder if the little cricket represents you. You were at a young age and very little in comparison to your mother, and you were at the mercy of her hysteria. I imagine your father didn't offer much in the way of protection from that.

 

 

Conclusion

 

To me, it sounds like your unconscious may have been priming you for an environment which has a consistent and significant threat of some kind. My guess it's your mother, but maybe not. Maybe the threats are as small and numerous as the number of crickets running across the floor, and it's more that your family didn't feel like a safe place to be, a place to get away from those threats.

 

I'm sorry whatever the case may be. I wish your parents would have taken this recurring nightmare more seriously

[Kurtis]

Hello Kathryn, thank you for sharing.

 

I wanted to reply because there are a few key similarities in your dream as were in my recurring nightmare from the ages around 2-4.

 

My dream had a large (8ft) grasshopper who stood upright like a person. He would enter into my grandma's kitchen where my mother and grandma were chatting. The grasshopper was evil/dangerous, and would be taking me away. I was scared and in danger. No matter how much I cried out for help, my mother and grandma could not, or would not, hear me.

 

There's a bit more to it, but that's the main details. I've since figured out, in this last year, what it meant. Which is basically that these "caretakers" in my life were not competent. Not only were they unable to protect me from harm, they were indifferent or unaware of the harm I suffered.

 

This was mainly centered around the daily abandonment I experienced from the age of 6 months onward, as my single mother went to work full time starting then. She left me usually in the care of her parents who had abused her as a child and were cold and emotionally distant.

 

The way you describe your mother also resonates very well with my experience. My mother had a very traumatic miscarriage, and I was the solution to her deep sadness. I was the baby who would bring joy into her life.

 

So due to these similarities, I wonder if your dream was indicating similar issues for you with your mother. Her inability to see your distress, because you were there to provide her with happiness. If your childhood experience was negative, she would be unable to acknowledge that due to her own interests superceding yours.

 

Well, these are just some thoughts that came to me when reading your posts. Perhaps they may be of some help. I'm sorry to hear about your childhood, I wish you the best in finding your answers.

[Mister Mister]

That's a fascinating and horrifying dream.  I think it is common to have recurring nightmares for both children and adults, though this is more detailed than most I think.  There's some great analyses here, what rings true especially for me is the coin flip, and the unpredictability of the people in your family.  I don't have much to add with regards to the dream, except to say the basic content of the dream seems to be that there is a threat amongst your family that only you are aware of.

I was struck by what you said about your father joking that he was "tricked" into having a kid he didn't want.  Did she poke a hole in his condoms?  Lie about birth control?  I'm sure you realize now this is a really glib and callous way to talk about something really serious.  And it gives a really terrible impression of how sexuality works to a young girl, that women trick men into children and by proxy, commitment.  So I'm very sorry for all that.

How do you feel about crickets or bugs in real life?  Do you scream and lift your skirts at the sight of a cockroach or a spider in the kitchen?

[kathryn]

Really weird and interesting dream. It has that vibe of being really significant.

 

This is just how I would go about analyzing it if it were my own dream.

 

 

Crickets

 

Crickets are what you hear when everything is quiet, they get tuned out, just like you are tuned out by your mother in the dream. Maybe like the gangster cricket, they symbolize particular things that people are tuning out?

 

A common experience that people have with small children is that they notice and fear things that adults understand are not serious threats, like certain bugs entering the house. And sometimes, unfortunately, those things that the kids notice really are things worth being concerned about, but are flippantly dismissed as eagerly as the threat crickets present us. Things like recurring nightmares that are ignored and laughed away, for example.

 

Children (and everyone else too) desperately need to feel confident in their ability to process reality accurately, and be able to assess threats. If the adults in their lives are doing things which fuck with their sense of reality, and don't do anything to help the child understand, for example, how harmless crickets are, then the child is presented with a worse problem than the threat of the cricket: they now doubt their own ability to process reality in a healthy functioning way. And if the child doesn't feel like the adults around them are going to help them to understand these threats (like your mother on the phone), then that's a scary situation to be in.

 

 

Gangster Cricket

 

The big cricket seems like "dangerous bad guy" personified. The fact that he jumps on your mother without her noticing seems significant. It's not just that she doesn't see it, but that he becomes attached to her. I am drawing a blank on this, but it does remind me of the theory in child psychology which splits the nasty parent from the good parent like in the movie Coraline. The child doesn't see them as the same person because she has to maintain any sense of security they can in their attachment to the parent. A small child who believes that their parent is sadistic has no perceived option of escape. That's why people develop Stockholm Syndrome, because they would rather justify evil than face the fact that they are at the mercy of a sadistic person. It's too much to handle.

 

The big cricket is your size, though. That too seems significant, so I would look at it as a part of yourself. You do not strike me in the least as being nefarious, the way the big cricket is, but along the same lines as the Stockholm'd child, in order to preserve their bond (used loosely) with the parent, they are very prone to internalizing what the parents say about them. If you were told that you are all kinds of bad, then it would be no surprise that you would perceive yourself in some way to be the kind of bad they tell you that you are.

 

 

Coin Flip

 

The coin flip could be a symbol for randomness or arbitrariness, kind of like the coin Two Face uses in the Batman series to decide if he'll kill his captive. If seemingly anything could set your mother off, it could be related to that.

 

 

 

Cricket Sandwich

 

You said you woke up sweating and burst into tears, presumably out of fear. I don't know if there was anything about the sandwich eating in particular that was scary or if it was just the nightmare in general, but if it was fear for the little cricket in the sandwich, then it makes me wonder if the little cricket represents you. You were at a young age and very little in comparison to your mother, and you were at the mercy of her hysteria. I imagine your father didn't offer much in the way of protection from that.

 

 

Conclusion

 

To me, it sounds like your unconscious may have been priming you for an environment which has a consistent and significant threat of some kind. My guess it's your mother, but maybe not. Maybe the threats are as small and numerous as the number of crickets running across the floor, and it's more that your family didn't feel like a safe place to be, a place to get away from those threats.

 

I'm sorry whatever the case may be. I wish your parents would have taken this recurring nightmare more seriously

 

Thank you so much for this thoughtful analysis. It took me a little while to process all the aspects you bring up because it all really resonated with me. 

 

The Little Crickets - Noticing and worrying about little things is something I've always struggled with, and my parents would constantly tell me I was "too sensitive." It seems extreme to say they never cared about my feelings, but I can't remember a single time when I had a fear, and they patiently talked it out with me. It was always dismissed, disregarded, or laughed at.

 

It did really fuck with my reality processing when I perceived something as a threat and was told I shouldn't feel that way, but never given any sort of logical reasoning as to why I shouldn't be afraid. I suspect the internalized belief here was that I had to control my feelings, not try to understand them. 

 

Gangster and Coin Flip - The psychological split... Thank you so much for pointing this out. One of the things that has been really confusing for me looking back on my childhood has been the dichotomy with my mother. She was both emotional neglectful and abusive, so she was either ignoring me or attacking me. It seems strange because often when I reflect on my childhood I just don't see her there, but I also remember the many times she screamed at me and called me names.

 

For example, every day when my mom got home from work she went straight to her bedroom and closed the door. My father would bring her meals in bed. It was the same on the weekends, she just didn't leave her room. This seemed completely normal to me. But then there were times like the Christmas I had a stomach virus, and she yelled at me until I fainted. I blacked out and fell on my face. When I woke up with that throbbing feeling in my nose a few moments later, she was still ranting, raving, and contorting her face in hatred. 

 

I used to think I loved my mother so much, and I wanted her approval and attention so badly, but that didn't fit with the cruelty that she displayed so frequently, especially since her other side was never very loving. The split seemed to be between wanting to be seen by her, but also wanting to be invisible when she was angry and accusatory. 

 

In the dream, she was ignoring me, but the evil cricket jumped on her back like a warning that she could flip at anytime. 

 

It's also very interesting that the cricket was my size. I often blamed myself when she got so angry, and felt deep inside that I must be bad or wrong for her to treat me that way. I heard Stef say once that suicidality is the internalization of others murderous feelings toward you. When my mother was mad, I really thought she wanted to kill me. In my perception of my mother, she either ignored me or wanted to murder me. Either way I was completely worthless... 

 

I think the evil cricket was the nasty side of my mother, and it manifested in me as self-hatred, but for self-preservation I had to create an alter ego, the anti-conscience, to take on those characteristics. I was splitting my perception of my mother and also my perception of myself... Does that make any sense?  

 

(I haven't seen Coraline, but I may have to rent it now.)

 

Cricket Sandwich - What frightened me most about the chomp at the end was that this cricket was a cannibal. Looking back on it now, it feels like he was eating his young. It really scared me, and I felt so bad for the baby cricket. The little crickets meant nothing to him. His callousness and disregard for life was horrifying to me. (Could this be why I became vegetarian?) 

 

Thank you - I really appreciate you taking the time to share your thoughts with me on this dream. It has given me so much to think about and process. I'm not entirely sure when this dream started, if I was 3 or 4, but it's validating to examine it and see how early my mother was displaying these behaviors and why I have felt so depress and suicidal for the majority of my life. I feel really sad right now, but I also feel a great amount of relief and clarity. Thanks again for your insights. 

[Kevin Beal]

It's also very interesting that the cricket was my size. I often blamed myself when she got so angry, and felt deep inside that I must be bad or wrong for her to treat me that way. I heard Stef say once that suicidality is the internalization of others murderous feelings toward you. When my mother was mad, I really thought she wanted to kill me. In my perception of my mother, she either ignored me or wanted to murder me. Either way I was completely worthless... 

 

I think the evil cricket was the nasty side of my mother, and it manifested in me as self-hatred, but for self-preservation I had to create an alter ego, the anti-conscience, to take on those characteristics. I was splitting my perception of my mother and also my perception of myself... Does that make any sense?  

 

(I haven't seen Coraline, but I may have to rent it now.)

Yes, that makes sense to me.

 

Maybe this isn't your experience, but when I would experience shame when I was younger, I was prone to projecting the judgments I had of myself onto others, kind of like how people in biblical times people would put all their sins into the sacrificial lamb and drive it out into the desert; I put my sins into other children and hated them for it. I also thought in very black and white terms. Everything was either/or. Either I'm great or I'm terrible.

 

And goddammit I want to punch your mother square in the fucking face. What an unbelievable cunt! Jesus, that's a nauseating thing to hear about, I can't even imagine what it was like to experience it

 

I saw Coraline pre-philosophy, so I can't say how good the moral of the story is, but there is definitely an interesting split explored between the good mother and the evil mother, sown together like a frankenstein's monster with the uranium glow of familial propaganda.

 

 

I'm really glad that it was helpful

[kathryn]

Hello Kathryn, thank you for sharing.

 

I wanted to reply because there are a few key similarities in your dream as were in my recurring nightmare from the ages around 2-4.

 

My dream had a large (8ft) grasshopper who stood upright like a person. He would enter into my grandma's kitchen where my mother and grandma were chatting. The grasshopper was evil/dangerous, and would be taking me away. I was scared and in danger. No matter how much I cried out for help, my mother and grandma could not, or would not, hear me.

 

There's a bit more to it, but that's the main details. I've since figured out, in this last year, what it meant. Which is basically that these "caretakers" in my life were not competent. Not only were they unable to protect me from harm, they were indifferent or unaware of the harm I suffered.

 

This was mainly centered around the daily abandonment I experienced from the age of 6 months onward, as my single mother went to work full time starting then. She left me usually in the care of her parents who had abused her as a child and were cold and emotionally distant.

 

The way you describe your mother also resonates very well with my experience. My mother had a very traumatic miscarriage, and I was the solution to her deep sadness. I was the baby who would bring joy into her life.

 

So due to these similarities, I wonder if your dream was indicating similar issues for you with your mother. Her inability to see your distress, because you were there to provide her with happiness. If your childhood experience was negative, she would be unable to acknowledge that due to her own interests superceding yours.

 

Well, these are just some thoughts that came to me when reading your posts. Perhaps they may be of some help. I'm sorry to hear about your childhood, I wish you the best in finding your answers.

 

The similarities in our nightmares are fascinating... Thank you for sharing. There is nothing human or soft about grasshoppers and crickets; they're so different it's almost alien. Not really sure what it means, but it's interesting for a household of neglect. 

 

I'm very sorry to hear your caretakers were so uncaring and neglectful. You're mom went back to work six months after you were born? That is so awful for a child's attachment.

 

Was your mother's miscarriage before you born?

[Kurtis]

 

 

Crickets are what you hear when everything is quiet, they get tuned out, just like you are tuned out by your mother in the dream. Maybe like the gangster cricket, they symbolize particular things that people are tuning out?

 

--------

 

The big cricket seems like "dangerous bad guy" personified. 

 

Thank you Kevin for your thoughts... These two I found especially interesting/insightful.  I know that the large man sized grasshopper in my dreams was definitely that "dangerous bad guy" and the source of a very real threat to my safety.  There were these types of actual bad guys in my life, when I was very young, think the 'abusive alcoholic stereotypical bad guy' type.  

 

From birth to 6 years old I lived in the prairies and grasshopppers were everywhere.  Your comment about these bugs symbolizing things that people tune out makes me think of how many people tune out the very real "dangerous bad guys"  that are all too numerous in the low income, single mother types of environments.   My mother tuned out these types of threats and so it makes perfect sense to me why she could not hear me in the dreams.

 

 

To me, it sounds like your unconscious may have been priming you for an environment which has a consistent and significant threat of some kind.

 

Yes, completely agree.  

 

 

The similarities in our nightmares are fascinating... Thank you for sharing. There is nothing human or soft about grasshoppers and crickets; they're so different it's almost alien. Not really sure what it means, but it's interesting for a household of neglect. 

 

I'm very sorry to hear your caretakers were so uncaring and neglectful. You're mom went back to work six months after you were born? That is so awful for a child's attachment.

 

Was your mother's miscarriage before you born?

 

Yes it was.  She ran away from her abusive parents at the age of 16 or 17 with my biological father who was in his 20's.  He was a bad guy, so of course she became pregnant with him. One day, midway through the pregnancy, she was assaulted by two women who beat her so badly she lost the child.  She was so devastated that she promptly tried to get pregnant again so as to 'bring some happiness' into her life.  That child is me.

 

So it was an extremely stressful environment for me even while in utero, and a lot of pressure to deliver on 'my purpose' after birth.

 

These are some very dark things I have shared, and so I want to finish it with a positive.  

 

It took a lot of work, but I have successfully processed these traumas (and more) and after 35 years I am finally living in a fear free state of happiness.  A significant contributor to this success has been conversations like these and so I wanted to express my gratitude.  Thank you, and everyone else who participates in this pursuit of healing and happiness.

 

The Little Crickets - Noticing and worrying about little things is something I've always struggled with, and my parents would constantly tell me I was "too sensitive." It seems extreme to say they never cared about my feelings, but I can't remember a single time when I had a fear, and they patiently talked it out with me. It was always dismissed, disregarded, or laughed at.

 

It did really fuck with my reality processing when I perceived something as a threat and was told I shouldn't feel that way, but never given any sort of logical reasoning as to why I shouldn't be afraid. I suspect the internalized belief here was that I had to control my feelings, not try to understand them. 

 

Gangster and Coin Flip - The psychological split... Thank you so much for pointing this out. One of the things that has been really confusing for me looking back on my childhood has been the dichotomy with my mother. She was both emotional neglectful and abusive, so she was either ignoring me or attacking me. It seems strange because often when I reflect on my childhood I just don't see her there, but I also remember the many times she screamed at me and called me names.

 

For example, every day when my mom got home from work she went straight to her bedroom and closed the door. My father would bring her meals in bed. It was the same on the weekends, she just didn't leave her room. This seemed completely normal to me. But then there were times like the Christmas I had a stomach virus, and she yelled at me until I fainted. I blacked out and fell on my face. When I woke up with that throbbing feeling in my nose a few moments later, she was still ranting, raving, and contorting her face in hatred. 

 

I used to think I loved my mother so much, and I wanted her approval and attention so badly, but that didn't fit with the cruelty that she displayed so frequently, especially since her other side was never very loving. The split seemed to be between wanting to be seen by her, but also wanting to be invisible when she was angry and accusatory. 

 

 I'm so sorry for all that you suffered  

 

How do you feel now that you have seen the reality of your childhood?  When did this realization fully sink in?

The perversion of a child's sense of what is real, what is true or false is so evil.  Destroying the child's ability to trust their instincts is so harmful to them and their future life.

 

 

 

Cricket Sandwich - What frightened me most about the chomp at the end was that this cricket was a cannibal. Looking back on it now, it feels like he was eating his young. It really scared me, and I felt so bad for the baby cricket. The little crickets meant nothing to him. His callousness and disregard for life was horrifying to me. (Could this be why I became vegetarian?) 

 

My therapist has talked about how important the feeling states are within dreams.  This sounds like your fear was possibly due to the reality of how dangerous your parents were for you (as symbolized by the cricket killing his 'children').  Has your empathy for the baby cricket extended to your own baby self?

 

[Kurtis]

@Kurtis, and all, I want to point something out, in response to this from Kurtis: "From birth to 6 years old I lived in the prairies and grasshopppers were everywhere.  Your comment about these bugs symbolizing things that people tune out makes me think of how many people tune out the very real "dangerous bad guys"  that are all too numerous in the low income, single mother types of environments.   My mother tuned out these types of threats and so it makes perfect sense to me why she could not hear me in the dreams."

 

I want to point out that in a child's eyes, "bad guys" and threats do not have to be "real," in the sense of life-threatening. To a child, a parent who does not listen to your feelings IS threatening your life. A child's only defense against the world is to stick by a responsive adult. If their only available adults are unresponsive, the biological input is that the child's life is in danger. I just want to make that distinction, because I'm afraid that someone who did not have a "dangerous" childhood, or whose parents were neglectful but not violent or physically threatening, may somehow feel that their feelings as a child, their perceptions of threat, are not as real. But in fact, those fight or flight feelings as a child, in response to neglect, are just as real as those responding to physical threats and "bad guys." Not to minimize those who have endured such horrors, just want to make clear the child's perception, as is biologically necessary.

Very good point and it is something I was thinking about adding to my post, so I'm very glad you brought it up. Thankyou.

 

Also, the harm caused by neglectful parents and the child's need for love (due to the dependence on parents for survival that you mentioned) is very damaging because as these children we are taught to "love your parents". This creates that reality perception problem because we are told to love the people who are our biggest threat.

[kathryn]

That's a fascinating and horrifying dream.  I think it is common to have recurring nightmares for both children and adults, though this is more detailed than most I think.  There's some great analyses here, what rings true especially for me is the coin flip, and the unpredictability of the people in your family.  I don't have much to add with regards to the dream, except to say the basic content of the dream seems to be that there is a threat amongst your family that only you are aware of.

 

I was struck by what you said about your father joking that he was "tricked" into having a kid he didn't want.  Did she poke a hole in his condoms?  Lie about birth control?  I'm sure you realize now this is a really glib and callous way to talk about something really serious.  And it gives a really terrible impression of how sexuality works to a young girl, that women trick men into children and by proxy, commitment.  So I'm very sorry for all that.

 

How do you feel about crickets or bugs in real life?  Do you scream and lift your skirts at the sight of a cockroach or a spider in the kitchen?

 

Sorry it took me a while to get back to you. I've been thinking about your comments on the birth control issue, and you're absolutely right. It was really confusing as a kid and also as a young woman. Thanks for pointing this out. I've been thinking about the messages I received from my parents about sex and relationships when I was young, and it was all really vague and mystifying. When I was in high school, literally the only thing my mother told me about sex was not to get an abortion. She said this to my sister and me while we were watching TV, but she didn't use the word abortion. I believe her exact words were, "If anything were to ever... happen. We want the baby!" She pretty much sprinted out of the room after saying it. 

 

She became a little more open when I got older, if I asked her very specific questions. Like when I was in college I actually asked my mom what kind of birth control she was using when my little brother was conceived. She stated that they were going by her cycle and avoiding the days she was most fertile. Though a couple years later she said they were using the "withdrawal" method, so it seems their birth control was dubious at best. I'm assuming the "trickery" my dad was referring to was some sort of assurance that she wasn't ovulating at a moment when he was dumb and horny. These people are both doctors who should be aware of how biology works. Weird. 

 

Crickets and spiders don't bother me, but cockroaches are another story...