Graphically violent images/thoughts/dreams.

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Hi everyone,

I have struggled with very violent graphic thoughts and dreams for most of my life. It has gotten me into trouble in the past and I have been hospitalised a few times as a result.

I was talking to my psychiatrist last night about it. He started talking about the amygdala, shown in research to perform a primary role in the processing and memory of emotional reactions in the brain. Without getting too technical, he stated that this is an organic function from the amygdala, that mine is behaving "hyper-reactive" and cannot process if a threat is perceived or real. The strange thing is that these images or thoughts have no pattern, other than the fact that they accelerate in intensity, premenstrually. They are not a result of being angry, or the result of a negative exchange, even though they do happen with people I do not like. They come and go with no residual feelings. I do not attach anger, as an emotion, to them. They simply "are". In saying that, they do frighten the crap out of me when it happens.

I do have cognitive skills to circumvent them. But it is very tiring to use these skills. It is like trying to subdue a rabid dog with my bare hands, and I often get worried that one day I will just snap and do something I will regret. Sometimes they are so assaulting that I shake from trying to reason with it. I did have a semi-violent childhood, but most of those issues have been dealt with. I am not frightened anymore of the person who was violent, but a residual "memory" and PTSD like symptoms can stay with you for a long time, so my psych says. I agree with him, but think there is something else going on.

So, there is suspicion of ADHD which I a going to be tested for, and stimulants may help. As one of the neurotransmitters they effect is dopamine, this may help with these images and thoughts. I have also been dx with AS and my psychologist believes they could be a result of intense and overwhelming frustration.

Does anyone else struggle with this at all? Just interested to hear of your experience and if anything helped you. My psych and I talked about anti-psychotics yet again, and I told him no. I said "Well, instead of just being a psychopath, I will be a stupid, sleepy psychopath". Anti-psychotics make my brain like putty. He had the good humour to laugh at that and then shared a Monty Python quote with me.

Mics

Don't get me started about the violent images/thoughts/dreams I get. I could literally describe them all day long but i'm not going to.

I had this vision once. I can't remember if I was asleep or awake. It involved me in my backyard pulling the legs off an insect resembling a cocroach one by one. When I'm done that I walk in front of my house and get abducted by aliens. While I am in their ship they attach one end of a chain to my left leg and attach the other end of the chain to the floor. They do this for my other leg and both my arms but the chains from my arms are attached to high points on the wall so I am suspended in midair. They put a metal helmet/mask over my head that obscures all of my head except my left eye. The helmet is connected to the ceiling with a chain.

That's where the fun begins. The aliens fire a ray at me that causes the contents of my stomach to rise to a boil. They then send electric currents through the chains, but this only hurts me. It does not kill me. Finally, they cut off my limbs one by one with a laser.

When my stress levels are particularly high for unconscious reasons, I have thoughts about beating someone annoying to a pulp; thoughts, too, that are not immediately coming to mind, that I simply describe as just EVIL.

I experience a great deal of shame and regret about unbidden thoughts I have of ending my dogs' life suddenly and violently. Thankfully, I haven't had these thoughts in at least a couple of years! Quincy is simply my

and just by existing and providing me his need to be taken care of, my suicidal ideation can be coped with.

I will slap myself on my face and move to thinking about something else as a diversionary tactic.

I wish you peace.

It's a little different with me, but I do get images in my head that I find disturbing, difficult to shake, and don't want to ever detail to anyone else because I feel they aren't "me." I did take some anti-depressants for postpartum depression and whether or not it was the drug or the placebo effect that lifted the depression, I noticed that the drug definitely swiped away the unwanted images - I hadn't ever considered that it might do that, and was quite happy about it. It is something to think about, but there are trade offs so only you can make that decision for yourself.

I have dreams sometimes with images of dismemberment. I am repelled but detached. I feel no threat.

I have dreams about the Vietnam War, every night around 2. That's why I post here, for an hour, in the middle of the night. I'm always ready to go back to bed, after an hour.

I guess that I'm more at battle with the modern NT world, than I thought.

Most of my dreams, and daytime persistent thoughts, are about being blamed or found out. I have dreams with dismembered bodies, gunfire and stabbing. I am the person left alive and get blamed.

I use tools for woodwork and have persistent thoughts about tools being used to cut human bodies, my own body too.

I have thoughts like this every day, and dreams most nights. Telling the psychiatrist about it is a surefire way of getting into trouble, like having the thought is almost as bad as doing it, or wanting to do it (even where in the dream I am never the person doing the mutilation, and am sometimes the victim). I was prescribed antipsychotics once, which kill the thoughts, but kill all dreams (including pleasant ones) and zombify you during the day.

I don't know about females, but among boys and male teenagers if anything NOT having at some stage a strong fascination with violence is abnormal. So the good news is that it doesn't mean you're going to enact them. I'd worry if you feel a serious intent of carrying them out, if you rehearse those acts somehow, etc.

I have thoughts going on all the time. However I've probably made myself this way by cutting up one too many zombies with a chainsaw in videos games. Blood, guts, and dismemberment these things make me laugh, at least when it's not real. I've never seen any of this to a great degree in real life.

I can't stop dreaming about wars.

Yes, the psychs have had the same worries too, and I have had a few longterm stays in their care. I don't rehearse these things in any way, and I am not the person doing anything violent in the thoughts - they are like thoughts that someone else is implanting in my mind, and I find them very disturbing. In real life I am completely nonviolent and do not engage in fights or rows at all.

i am getting sleepy so this will not be a very good post.

i do not think of violent images much when i am awake, but i do dream of them occasionally. one that i imagined while awake was this:

yesterday, there was a post on this site by someone who i am sure has been banned by now, and they said something that was completely outrageous (i will not say who or what ok?) and i posted to him "i do not think you will last long here".

then i imagined a visual of him as a drunken person who was standing sideways on a railway track, and he was unaware of his location, and he was pointing his finger in a stabbing motion and spluttering obscenities at this site. my field of view was narrow, and i could see only him standing there, and as he was spluttering his filth, a diesel train entered the shot from the right hand side at about 70 miles per hour and he was gone. the train had the words "moderation express" on the side.
i found it very funny, but also gruesome and i felt a mild amount of pity for the man who was swiped instantly away.
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i dream rather often about seeing a large airliner with a fire on it's wing flying overhead at a much lower altitude than it should be at. in my dream it is about 150 feet up (15 storey building height), and it disappears from my line of vision that is obstructed by trees, and i listen to it's engines howling in a slowly descendimng pitch and i think "jeezuz christ!! !! it's really going to hit!! !" and it does hit about 5 seconds later, and i feel the ground vibrating, and hear the thunderous grating explosion, and i wait in fear for the fireball to consume me, or for a part of the plane to hit me as it is flung from the impact.

i do not get consumed, and i am not injured, but then i dream of all the people who were buckled into their seats suddenly ceasing to exist so close by to where i am , and then i fear the smell of burning flesh will soon reach me.

it is a very bad dream.
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i had an isolated dream approximately one week ago about a fun park ride called a "sling shot". it is a ride where people are sitting in seats that are attached to an elastic cable that is tensioned so that when the tension is released, they will be slung skyward to a height of about 120 feet.
i dreamed that for some reason, everyone on that ride forgot to fasten their seat belts, and when the sling shot reached it's apex and started to descend, all the passengers left their seats and continued to rise into the air, and they then fell like confetti to their deaths which sounded like 100 watermelons all crashing into an asphalt surface.

gruesome, but there was a funny side to the dream because after they had all landed, i realized it was an ad and a slogan came up that said "remember to buckle up"

whatever, i could have worded this all so much better but who cares anyway. i got the idea out i guess.

I get this. The implanting thing. Especially in dreams. It's really terrifying and Lovecraftian.