Dreams And Dysphoria

[Guest Wulfhere]

I tend to go through these periods where I have really vivid dreams, while during other periods I either can't remember or don't dream as vividly. But during those periods where my dreams are very vivid, there are some dreams that just heighten the sense of what's missing when I wake up. One dream in particular continues to haunt me even though I had it over a month ago. Unlike other similar dreams I could see my whole naked body very clearly and with extreme detail. I think what struck me most was the degree of detail I could see in my penis and my chest. It was a I've been looking down at the same penis attached to my body my whole life, kind of detail. I've never had that kind of detail in a dream before or the feeling of it being something I see every day, and not in a dream that seemed so real. Usually I subconsciously know I'm dreaming, so I don't usually feel completely lost after waking up.

Anyways, right after I woke up and realised everything had been a dream I felt this really deep sense of loss. Such a sense of loss that I had to fight back tears, and that later just made me feel so angry. For me, looking down at my body and not seeing a body that matches my male mind is something that has made me feel like my male physical characteristics are missing. Like I shouldhave been born with a penis or shouldhave been born into a body with a male chest. My mind knows I've never had them, but knows it should have them. But with this dream, it was like I did have them. I had them so clearly that I knew every small detail because I had always had them. It doesn't just feel like they're missing anymore, but that I had them and lost them; that my male body matched my male mind, but that my male body had suddenly been snatched away.

I guess it's like saying if you've caught a glimpse of heaven, earth feels even more like hell once you get back to it.

I guess others have had similar experiences, but wondering how you deal with this added sense of loss in order to go through average, mundane everyday activities that you need to do in order to transition completely and to build a life for yourself.

[Guest Elizabeth K]

I have always wanted to post something like this, not necessarily the dream, although I have had that to. but the fact that there are parts of me I just miss so badly. I mean, what happened to them? When I did finally go on HRT and my breasts came in, I felt complete again.

Working on other things. GRIN.

Strange how our mindset also includes those phantom parts.

Lizzy

[Guest Audrey Elizabeth]

This reminds me of something I came across one time on the internet. It was some research that was done that showed that our minds have some kind of mental picture of who we are, such as male or female. They found that MTF had a female mental picture and male for FTM. So if this research is credible, remember I said I found it on the internet, then it might help explain your dream and the vividness of your male body that you had. I wonder if I could find it again. If I can I will post the link.

Audrey

[Guest Elizabeth K]

This reminds me of something I came across one time on the internet. It was some research that was done that showed that our minds have some kind of mental picture of who we are, such as male or female. They found that MTF had a female mental picture and male for FTM. So if this research is credible, remember I said I found it on the internet, then it might help explain your dream and the vividness of your male body that you had. I wonder if I could find it again. If I can I will post the link.

Audrey

Cool, never heard of that. It explains why when I looked in the mirror before I transitioned, it was NOT me looking back.

Lizzy

[Guest JaniceW]

I can truly identify with what you are describing but from the other side. I have those same dreams and it used to result in the same disappointment after waking. What has changed recently for me is not the dreams (thank God) but the disappointment afterwards. Instead of dysphoria now the memory of the dreams brings a smile to my face as I relive the dream in my mind. Now bedtime is welcomed as my chance to have one of those dreams again, they are so fulfilling.

I have also started to try an exercise of mental imaging while awake. I am trying to get the feeling of those "phantom" parts being there and I have had a small amount of success. It is important to not look but to feel. When it works it is short lived but it feels really good for that short time.

[Guest Wulfhere]

This reminds me of something I came across one time on the internet. It was some research that was done that showed that our minds have some kind of mental picture of who we are, such as male or female. They found that MTF had a female mental picture and male for FTM. So if this research is credible, remember I said I found it on the internet, then it might help explain your dream and the vividness of your male body that you had. I wonder if I could find it again. If I can I will post the link.

Audrey

Interesting, Audrey. I'd definitely be interested in reading this if you run across it again!

I can truly identify with what you are describing but from the other side. I have those same dreams and it used to result in the same disappointment after waking. What has changed recently for me is not the dreams (thank God) but the disappointment afterwards. Instead of dysphoria now the memory of the dreams brings a smile to my face as I relive the dream in my mind. Now bedtime is welcomed as my chance to have one of those dreams again, they are so fulfilling.

I have also started to try an exercise of mental imaging while awake. I am trying to get the feeling of those "phantom" parts being there and I have had a small amount of success. It is important to not look but to feel. When it works it is short lived but it feels really good for that short time.

I'll try more of the exercise in mental imaging with a focus on feeling like you suggested. Maybe it will help me as well. I try to visualise while looking in the mirror, but maybe the missing key is what you said about feeling instead of looking. Lately it's just like my entire life is more consumed than ever with this sense of loss and of what is missing, like I'm not even living my life anymore. I need to find the strength to kick start my will power to keeping living my life and moving forward.

Thanks for all your replies!

[Guest BeckyTG]

Rather than use it against yourself and make yourself depressed, turn your weakness into your strength.

Tell yourself that the dream is exactly how you'll look eventually. Use that energy to feel good about what's possible for you. Feel good about what's ahead.

That dream is doable. That dream can be realized. Belief can make it possible and you must then begin to do the things you need to make it happen.

Personally, as an MTF, I've always had a dream of waking up in the hospital after "the operation" and feeling myself, the bandages and tubes, after it's been done. Someday, maybe I'll find out if it'll happen the way I've envisioned it or not. But, over time, I've taken peace in that vision and I believe that, someday, I'll find out.

For now, I know I am taking steps to eventually make it happen. I have felt pain like yours for decades. It's never too late to start.

Don't waste away in despair, work away in hope. Use the positive role models and examples you see here by other brothers and sisters. That's what I've done and I'm now living the life I always dreamed I could, but never believed it to be possible. Laura's site and Lynn Conway's site changed my mind. My mind changed my body.

Love, support and hope for you,

Becky

[JJ]

Our dreams express what we are feeling and bring it to the surface so we can recognize and deal with it. I think that your dream is telling you what you always felt. That the body is what you are in your inner being and the sense of loss is something that you have always felt even though you weren't as aware of it.

I am having to learn to move into this body in a real way for the first time in half a century as I start transition. Because the real me was always a man - I'll never be or have my birthright body and I grieve for that but I am deeply thankful that I can acquire a masculine body and live as the man I have always been.

[Guest sienna]

I don't usually remember what I dream about when I wake up, but as I drift off I usually imagine myself as I would like to be in the world. It works for a great start to a dream.

Sienna

[Guest N. Jane]

From childhood through my teens I was either genderless (no awareness of physical sex as it wasn't relevant to the dream) or female, but then I thought I was a girl throughout my childhood. Through my teens I was usually normal female in my dreams (distressing when I woke up) or male with the intent of amputating the offending parts!

When I woke up in hospital after SRS, I felt only a great relief that I was finally complete and the deformity was gone. I then went back to sleep with a contented smile and had the best sleep I had had since childhood!

A year or so after SRS I had a nightmare in which I dreamed that surgery and the time after it has all been a dream and the offending deformity was still there, that none of it had happened. I woke up screaming, hysterical! I think I scared my neighbours LOL! Fortunately that nightmare never recurred....

[Guest Sascha]

I heard that if you want to remember a dream, you need to wake up after the REM phase has ended. If you wake that moment, you can also experience lucid dreaming more often. That is about every 1.5 hour or so: 1.5 hour, wake, 3.00 hour, 3.5 hour, wake, 5.0 hour, 6.5 hour, wake, 8.0 hour.