What do soldiers who have killed dream about? The answer may surprise you.

What are Dreams Really About?

When we dream, our minds are essentially trying to generate meaning from our current life situation. Inner conflicts, and the chaos of every day events are taken into memory, broken down into little pieces, then reshuffled organically into a new symbolic narrative that helps us make better sense of who we are and what our life is really about.

Dreams, like other spontaneous thoughts, are very emotion focused, so when we are really stressed, our dreams tend to "zero in" on our most pressing emotional issues. Why? Because our brains evolved to take emotions extremely seriously. This is because the emotional centers of the brain, such as the midline subcortical structures like the limbic system and the brainstem, have endured for millions of years relatively unchanged compared to our more expanded frontal lobe structures that are involved with "higher thought". In other words, whereas we are different from most other animals in our complex executive functions, we are very similar to other animals, especially mammals, in our emotional processing.

This is because emotions focus on survival. The famous "fight or flight" response kicks in when our emotional centers are firing on all cylinders. But we are also SOCIAL animals--perhaps moreso than any other mammal (with close behind being whales and dolphins, wolves, and other primates). That means our survival instincts kick in when we feel our social standing is threatened. Why? Because being kicked out of our social group would have been LETHAL in the ancestral setting. So our brains take this very seriously.

Dreams of Combat Soldiers

When I was in the Air Force, I had the opportunity to work with soldiers who had been in combat--often very recently--and I (along with my colleagues Dr. Chris Wyatt and Dr. Mike Ignatowski) noticed that in soldiers who were in combat zones, a very common dream they had was one in which the dreamer was fending off wild animals that were attacking their families. This dream can be understood as an expression of survival instincts, and it makes sense on a literal and figurative level--not only protecting family from predators, but protecting one's familial feelings from the primitive and "animal" instincts evoked by being in combats.

But in soldiers who had actually confirmed kills, the dreams became more ominous. Often times in those folks, the dreamer would wind up fighting "insurgents" or "hostiles" dressed as their enemy often dressed, and they would actually injure or even kill these dream characters, only to find to their horror that they had killed a loved one such as their wife or beloved family member. What's going on here?

The Moral Injury of War

It is a brutal fact that the military is not designed for sitting together and singing campfire songs with other countries. The military's sole purpose is to be good at killing people and destroying things. As humans, we are have very powerful pro-social instincts because working together has been how we have survived since the dawn of Homo Sapiens. And yet, there are times when we have to kill in order to survive. This desperate situation can be emotionally terrifying for many of the toughest among us. As a military psychiatrist, I can tell you that I have worked with some of the toughest men and women in the world. And yet, even in those cases, the ability to kill does not always mean one can kill without remorse.

These dreams indicate that, even in the best of circumstances, wherein a soldiers was required to kill and there was no alternative, it can weigh upon our souls. Even if one has no qualms about killing the enemy, these soldiers often worry about whether or not killing makes them "a monster". In session, I often heard such soldiers saying they went into something like an altered state during combat, and they likened it to being a predator, or a "terminator" (i.e., a heartless killing robot). In a way, these reactions are oddly reassuring because it means that even in extreme situations, there is still an innate part of us that wants to retain some level of human compassion. These dreams express the fear that one may become a killer who hurts those they love most, and seems to be a direct result of the fact that they have had no other choice but to kill. Killing, in itself, seems to evoke this objection within the psyche.

Hatred and War in Fantasy and Ritual

Many fantasy narratives circle around the dual nature of hatred in warfare. In some, the relationship between the power that hating the enemy can give us and the dangers involved in hating--look at the Star Wars movies, for example. Anakin gains tremendous power by hating, but it also nearly destroys him. Faramir, in the Lord of the Rings says famously "I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend." As a soldier, Tolkien was likely a man who had killed in combat. He knew how important it was to keep this mindset when embroiled in a deadly conflict. In lesser fantasies, however, warfare degenerates into a simply good vs. bad conflict, with no recognition of these darker nuances.

Around the world, many indigenous peoples have come up with ways of dealing with the moral injury that happens when we kill--these often involve very elaborate shows of respect for ones fallen enemies, and even asking for forgiveness. It is important to point out that these rituals may partly exist to promote peace and reconciliation between enemy groups. But another purpose for them is to restore the humanity of someone who has been asked to do something that we are strongly evolved not to do: kill. Hate, I argue, makes it easier to kill, and unfortunately in wartime situations, hatred flares easily and frequently--and this is in all honesty understandable. Rage is another of our defensive instincts with deep evolutionary origins. And yet, hate is a poison remedy. Hate cuts the hand the wields it. My mom once wrote in her diary that she thought hatred was worse than hell--instead of telling people "go to hell", she said, it would be worse to say "go to hate".

That has always stuck with me.

Keep dreaming,

EG