Lately I’ve been scared remembering a dream I had a while back where I acted inappropriate to say the least with a child , I remember waking up that day feeling so guilty that my consciousness even let me do what I did in my dream I felt so scared that I had to tell my mom n I felt so disgusted n horrible n just needed reassurance that I’m not a pedo Does anyone have any ideas for dealing with dreams like this ?? I’m scared one day I might get one again n in general it’s so hard to even handle the memory that I even had a dream like that

As someone else who has really strange and disturbing dreams from time to time, I get how you can wake up and just feel like you want to carry around this negative feeling all day. It can be scary up in our brains sometimes. I challenge my NOCD members (because you and I are not alone - this happens a lot) to treat dreams like intrusive thoughts. Because they're kind of like intrusive thoughts - they pop up and you cannot control them. So we can't necessarily judge ourselves for them. Although naturally OCD will come in and try to misinterpret this and make you believe or doubt - well why did *I* have this dream, what is it about *ME* that makes me have these dreams, this dream must mean something and it's my responsibility to figure it out NOW! It is more easily said than done, but try to treat the dream like the intrusive thought. You can't help what pops up, but you can help what you conjure up. So the reassurance seeking, the bringing attention and honing in on why you had that dream in the first place, and all the other probably mental compulsions and other avoidances that took place afterwards will make you more likely to experience those things later on and will make you ultimately more doubtful. I bet that reassurance probably felt realy good in the moment but didn't last long unfortuntaely. Try to resist any additional compulsions about the dream - try not actively engage in trying to figure out what it meant or didn't mean. Allow it to be there and next time you have a dream like this (I hope you don't but I bet you will because #ocdistheworst), try to wake up and go about your day as though you did not have that dream. No reviewing it, just allowing it to be there and continuing to engage in your values and what interests you YOU'VE GOT THIS!