I’ve been having strange dreams recently. Well, that’s nothing unusual, since between my imagination and the anti-depressants, I’m used to strange dreams.

What I mean is that I’ve been having strange dreams for me.

For the past week I have been having unusually violent dreams, where the protagonist (sometimes me, but not always–about half my dreams seem to be third person) gets beat up or tortured.

On one hand, the meaning seems rather obvious. Considering that part of my depression has stemmed from beating myself up over infractions both real and imagined, this seems pretty straightforward. Except for the fact that these dreams started just recently, as I have become more adept at recognizing self-blame for what it is, and refusing to blame myself for the problems of others. In other words, as my depression has retreated and I have become better at dealing with the things and people who caused me problems, my subconscious seems to have decided to make the whole “beating myself up” thing quite literal–at least in my dreams.

Is it a problem? Not really. I’ve been fascinated by dreams since I was in college, and how the most vivid ones tend to your self-consciousness sending you a message. What I’m confused about now is whether my subconscious is getting in it’s last kicks as I learn to ignore inappropriate guilt, or whether it’s trying to tell me that I’m not doing as well as I think I’m doing, and I still have lots of work ahead of me.

Or perhaps it’s simply trying to get me to finish my current WIP so I can move into a new story seeded by one of my freaky dreams.

Except that it’s really going to have to cut back on the sadism if it expects me to find anything useful.