NewBird mentioned dreaming of spiders before discovering the psychpaths lies.

At the moment I am dreaming of the ex-Psychopath almost nightly, but my dreams seem to be psrticularly nightmare-ish just before he contacts me. I don 't think this is creepy, likely my subconscious knows it is " about time" to hear from him. Definitely increasing in frequency as I anticipated.

All this leads me to wonder if he dreams about me ( I know that I shouldn't wonder this because it shows a persisting desire to want him to care - brain knows this, heart is lagging in intelligence). I can 't recall him ever talking about his dreams. What do pysychopaths dream? Given that dreams are often emotionally driven, DO psychopaths dream?

Not sure about this but if they do then they'd hate it.. a dream would be something that they can't control!

I don't think anyone will ever know. I researched dreams many years ago and read some of Jung's theories along with others.

I came away with 2 theories from reading about dreams, they can show us the way by our deep feelings, some dreams can be puzzles, some think that all the characters in dreams are parts being played by ourselves. I believe you can also have others who are really in your dreams and if they are not pleasant people in your life it is important to not let them into your dreams.

Back to your question, who would ever know, even if a Psychopath told you what they were dreaming their lips would be moving and the odds are they would be lying.

Di

Well I can remember my Psychopaths wondering why he doesnt dream.
And those one or two I heard about - they were very, hmm, how do I put this - normal - non-dreamlike. I mean when you dream you usually dream surreal, the world is not "normal" for example - animals talk and so on:)
But his dreams had nothing like that. Or maybe he just made that up, so it didnt have the dream-factors:)

Notcrzy I have always been slightly puzzled about the assertion that Psychopaths don't have emotions, rather they seem to have the negative ones: anger, jealousy, envy, possessiveness, a desire to control of course, boredom (is that an emotion?), without the positive ones to balance them: love, loyalty, moral integrity.

There is a view that so many of them are addicts as they use substances (or getting a high from manipulating us!) to try to escape themselves and their negative emotions.

I found two songs that seem to sum up how "real" people feel when they fall in love with a Psychopath in Patti Russo's "Where were you?" and the Psychopath's side in the lyrics of Nick Lowe's "I trained her to love me".

Nailed it with those songs Smokey.

I don't know how many negative emotions the ex-Psychopath experiences. He only experiences jealousy in so much as his ability to control is concerned. Eg. He quite happily proposed that I sleep with other men so that "you can come home and i'll force you to sleep on the floor and i won't go near you because you're such a filthy slut". No jealousy at all. He displayed jealousy towards my children, but only in so much as he could not control my relationship with them. I don't think he experiences sadness or loss -his reaction was not normal when his dog developed a life-threatening illness and very nearly died, and when my own dog did die and i was overwhelmed with grief, he was delighted, and spent days on end showing me "happy dog videos". He doesn't seem to experience hatred, regret, fear. He does experience some anxiety - although he is a social charmer he doesn't like people and does get anxiety sometimes before social situations (prefers social situations where he can control the experience, a casual party where he doesn't know who will be there is not his scene and like most psychopaths, prefers one:one so he isn' t caught out in lies). I think he experiences boredom. He complains of loneliness a lot - i don't know if it is real. He has no long term friends and his family have all but abandoned him - personally i would be extremely lonely in his situation. BUT he uses his loneliness to manipulate me so it could be an act for my pity to maintain control.

The Psychopath does appear to have some "positive" emotions, they are just not normal or driven by normal things. Eg he really looks so happy when i am full of sorrow and he can have the role of consoler (perfect opportunity to manipulate and usually to make my pain worse with some added cruelty). He appears to have pride in himself with respect to what he can display to potential victims.

I guess almost what i have said there is that all emotions he "feels" are intrinsically related to controlling, and many of them are really proxy-emotions brought on by the emotional state of someone else. He doesn't experience emotions like "feeling happy because the sun is out, birds are singing and he has the afternoon off work" or "feeling excited because he his buying a new car" or "feeling sadness because a relative dies".

I was amazed when I first heard those songs, they were so spot on!

When you explain jealousy in your way Notcrzy I can see what you mean. My ex-Psychopaths jealousy was if someone or something else took my attention of him, i.e. was more important than him at that point, or if someone's support of me weakened his control, I just hadn't looked at it that way before.

Or he would be jealous/envious in the sense of feeling hard-done-by if he felt someone was doing better than him, part of that ego Psychopaths have. He felt his greatness should have been recognised and rewarded over someone else's "ordinariness".

He was also quite vain about his appearance, but I think that was about "tools of the trade" - easier to hook people in, male or female, with a good façade. I remember he always seemed to smell great.

I do agree they don't seem to get the great day, lovely walk, great to spend time with friends joy we can have- until they take it from us.

It's weird how they alternate between sitting on the sidelines observing, and being in the centre of things. I guess they need to watch to learn how real people react and feel, so they can mirror, borrow and copy as camouflage, waiting to test and target their next victims.

Yep Psychopath definitely experience vanity (not just related to their physical appearance)!

Good topic & responses.

I had a recurrent nightmare of my chest being cut open and exposed with a knife. The Psychopath wasn't doing the cutting or anything. It was just like some being, some force was cutting me open. It was scary and disturbing. It was a combination of unexplainable fear, the overwhelming emotions I had for her, and the fact we had to be separate for a time due to work. So, it was a feeling of loss; it felt like my heart being ripped open. I think I always knew and expected she would break my heart.

As far as emotions go, I do think there was a lot of negativity on the Psychopaths part. She was jealous of the world in general, felt resentful, left out of opportunities and was angry because of it. She had no long-term friends. In fact, when she left me for her new "friend", she even told me ,"Well, you knew I didn't have many friends." But, she didn't feel jealous of one individual, as in threatened by someone else. There was a good description I once read that said when the psychopath chases after someone else's partner, s/he doesn't feel jealous. They are more annoyed and frustrated the other person is an obstacle to getting what they want. Like a kamikaze pilot, they ignore those feelings because they are too intensely focused on their target. When I got sucked into her self-pitying victim routine and fell for her, I still remained friends and kept contact with my former partner. When Psychopath left me, I thought it was because of this, yet she simply said, "Oh, that was always there." She was more jealous of the situation, that there was someone else who still loved me. She felt competitive, and quite very proud when she found someone else. I actually am the jealous type and got really hurt and angry over her brief betrayal. The guy she used to get away from me got jealous when she came back to see me. She thought it was funny pinning us against each other and was rather amused we were jealous of one another. So, I don't think they get jealous in the traditional sense of the word. She actually wrote what may as well have been a dancing tune about how funny it was to see me squirm as she was initially pursuing me and I was still with my partner.Big red flag! I think the song suggestions were certainly right on!

I'm not a Psychopath, but I certainly drank to escape the negativity and craziness in the aftermath, having to listen to her brag of her conquest in detail, as she simultaneously screamed at me about petty annoyances from when we had been together. Even her anger was shallow. It was a sudden bizarre chastising (I'm gonna teach you!) not real rage with genuine hurt or feelings behind it. My Psychopath hardly ever drank because she was small & couldn't handle liquor. However, when I was getting sober, she met me for lunch and purposely ordered wine, something she never did, just so she could smile and drink it in front of me! She sipped it slowly, grinned widely saying how good it tasted, and that she was sorry I couldn't try it. Seriously sick.

omg i did the worst thing. replied to his SMS today. he was in town. ended up meeting face to face after 3 months apart. i melted. he pulled out all the old charm from 15 years ago, love like he hasnever shown and a pity act about the whole he feels without me. i am falling. I know the truth about him and i am stilling falling. Im married i have kids and i cant walk away. What is wrong with me ??