crying wake ups – what does it mean?

“Those who do not weep, do not see.”  – Victor Hugo

I’m sleeping soundly, and then I find myself crying in my sleep, and when I realize this, I am wrestling and struggling to wake up out of the dream – and when I wake, I have tears rolling down my face and the emotions build even bigger as I continue to cry.

I then realize, WAIT I just woke up out of a dream, why am I crying and why am I so sad?

Sometimes I will stop crying right away, sit and think about it, feel puzzled on what just happened! Then other times I will continue to cry out of my sleep, even sob and feel completely sad about whatever it is that I may have seen in my dream that made me have tears.

Sometimes the crying wake up is so bad that it leaves me feeling out-of-place all day, and it sits within me wondering “what is going on, and why does this keep happening to me”?

As some of you may know, I have written about this a few times on my blog, but for a few years now I have gone through bouts of crying as I wake up out of my sleep. It’s the worst feeling in the world because as our bodies sleep, our body is paralized, but the mind and emotions are not, therefore you truly feel what it is your feeling.

This has been a huge topic in therapy, and when I tell my therapist “I had a bad crying wake-up” he knows what that means. He understands the depth of how that makes me feel, and the struggle I have had with this for quite some time now. He will ask “did you continue to cry when you woke up, or did you stop it right away?” because there are times I will keep crying because I feel so incredibly sad, or I will stop it out of anger that it hapened again and why??!!

SO what does it mean and why does it happen? There are many theory’s written online like, “repressed emotions having a space to open up when you are at your most vulnerable (sleeping)”. But for me, I believe it has to do with the young inner child within – – showing her emotions when I am least likely to stop them.

Its no surprise that I fear having emotions. I have struggled with this my whole life, and this fear showed up most in therapy when I began expressing my emotions! I have a fear of showing emotions, therefor maybe that is why they show up in my sleep.

I’m not sure the reason, but I hate it and it feels horrible when it happens. When it happens it takes me out of my sense of self that whole day – even DAYS will go by that I struggle with the dream / crying wake up, even to the point of projecting.

Just this past week I had such a hard week in therapy since the crying wake up – I was projecting my feelings onto my therapist and in the room, but I can’t help it, this is what happens to me and it sucks.

SO for now, all I can do is pay attention to these cruyingwake up’s and work with them the best I can until I really get an understanding around them, but for now, its something I struggle with and I have no understanding around it and that is OK because it means something.

Does anyone else struggle with crying wake ups or crying out of your sleep