Kid with excessively violent dreams

[manwesulimo2004]

One of my sisters is 13 and has a history of having weird and scary dreams. She would tell frightening stories of what she had dreamed quite often. First I thought she just watched too much junk on TV and the like (she does) but now I've taken a more active interest in things and have asked her to keep a dream journal.
She claims to have had a dream a long time ago (at eight years) in which she saw a family photo with a grave stone in her place. Apparently there was a ghost floating about near the picture which told her something along the lines of: "I will come to get the others too." Since then she has had many dreams in which she violently kills members of our family. These have been increasing recently. The descriptions are truly disturbing because my sister goes into the gruesome details on the many ways in which she beats up, chops up, rips to pieces, etc. our Mum and our siblings and so on.
She also has many nightmares of other nature too, sometimes quite cryptic and strange ones. What could this mean? What can the causes be and how can we work against the nightmares?

[personalreality]

what is the home environment like?

does she talk about how she feels on normal basis?

[bardips]

is she taking antidepressants or other medications? 

from http://www.sntp.net/prozac/prozac_info_2.htm


The adverse reactions reported on Prozac include aggression, psychosis, hallucinations and "akathisia", a drug-induced insanity with bizarre and frightening characteristics including hallucinations, aggression, self-destructive outbursts, terror, anger, suicide, hostility, hatred and rage.(2) Already, frightening reports of persons being turned violent and suicidal by Prozac have begun to surface.

A study recently published in the American Journal of Psychiatry exposed the fact that Prozac creates obsessive and intense, violent suicidal thoughts in patients who take the drug. According to the study, these bizarre and extremely dangerous self-destructive thoughts occurred in 3.5 percent of persons on the drug.(3)

[manwesulimo2004]

Well the environment isn't one that I feel comfortable in. Our parents don't get along well at all. Mum is also constantly overloaded with housework and feels misunderstood by her husband (who has been diagnosed with Asperger syndrome) and kids. She doesn't hesitate to let her frustrations out on anyone and everyone around. But most of the time they remain verbal outbursts as opposed to physically violent things.

As far as I know my sister does not take any regular medication except for her asthma medicine.

I understand that my sister must be heavily influenced by her unpleasant surroundings but the dreams seam to have a further dimension of meaning to them. I recall a dream she told me about in which she met a ghost in our church and asked him who sent him. He then replied by carving symbols into her hand with a dagger.

Could these dreams be messages waiting to be decrypted? Are they a form of harassment from a negative entity? Are they the result of her mind trying to deal with a psychological trauma?
I'm just not sure which angle to approach this from. Maybe you know someone who has made similar experiences and found a good way to deal with it?

[horaciocs]

I think this may be a mix up of emotional distress and psychic harassment, all coming together in a way that one worsens the other's condition. She's young, easily influenced? (can't tell that from your post since I don't know her) and probably has a hard time coping with her mother's situation.

It's a hard spot to be in, it will take her some effort to overcome that. I'd say it most definitely has got to do with her family situation.

[personalreality]

Is your mum's husband your sister's father?

If your sister has asperger's in her genetics that could explain a lot.  People with asperger's have difficulty with social interaction.  They don't recognize the feelings of other people well so it can be hard for them to appear "sensitive" or "empathetic" which can further isolate them within themselves.  Especially when you add to it that she's a little girl who wouldn't entirely understand the dynamics of adult interactions anyway, seeing and hearing the verbal disagreements of the parents would cause immense psychic stress on her.

It is pertinent to consider the Shadow Self.  It's the unconscious part of us that makes up our weaknesses, fears, failures, etc.  This part is unconscious because it embarrasses, threatens and makes the ego feel shame, so it gets buried.  The deeper it is buried the more compressed it becomes and the greater it's projections onto your reality become.  Sometimes this even manifests as 'poltergeists' or very very real and powerful dreams.

[manwesulimo2004]

Yeah, my Mum's husband is our biological Father. Now that you mention it, my sister does seem to have adopted more of our Dad's Asperger than the rest of us (we're six kids). I guess we all deal with things in a different way but the effects of our family situation seem to be less obvious on her siblings.

The comment about the Shadow Self was quite interesting. It sounds like "burying" the Shadow Self is not such a good thing to do. But what exactly does this mean? Though the situation affects my sister (and all of us) it's not something I believe she has too much influence on. It doesn't seem like there is much for her to bury or confront in a practical sense anyway.

[personalreality]

My point in regards to your sister (though she is very young) is that the aspergers may indeed exacerbate the habitual denial of emotional turmoil.  There are ways to treat the shadow self, first being to acknowledge it. 

I suggest doing some research on the Shadow Self, it's a concept developed by Carl Jung.  It may not be THE answer, but it can't really hurt.  I'll tell you one way I used to acknowledge my shadow, I would paint a picture and then burn it.  I was symbolically acknowledging that my artwork is just an expression of myself and not a representation of myself.  By doing this I wasn't honoring pride, but rather i was putting pride aside and telling my ego to lay off a bit.  It can be pretty distressing to destroy a piece of art that you spent hours creating.  It really was quite liberating.