Relational Nightmares: Unfinished Business of the Heart

Our dreams, especially our nightmares, are not isolated from our waking lives. Rather, they often mirror our deepest emotional patterns and interpersonal wounds. Emerging research on relational nightmares—disturbing dreams involving interpersonal conflict, loss, or rejection—has found a consistent link to insecure attachment styles, particularly the fearful and anxious types (Belfiore & Pietrowsky, 2017; Reed & Rufino, 2019). This makes intuitive sense: as social creatures, we are profoundly affected by our relationships, and when those relationships are fraught, our sleep and dreams can become haunted by unresolved distress.

This dynamic is apparent in my work with dreams—Clara’s story is a vivid illustration. Years after leaving a damaging relationship with John, a charismatic but emotionally volatile partner, she continued to have distressing dreams about him. These dreams didn’t feature overt terror, but were saturated with emotional darkness—feelings of powerlessness, humiliation,…