Hi Ariel,
First of all, thank you for sharing your concerns with me. I know it can be hard just to reach out, but if your dreams (or anything else) are distressing you, it's always good to look for support to help you get through it. However, please keep in mind tht I am not a professional therapist or dream analyst, so I can't fully break down your dream for you the way a medical professional could.
That being said, it seems pretty obvious to me that your dreams are connected to (a) your past self-harm, (b) your recent thoughts about it, and (c) the incident where people assumed you were hurting yourself even though you weren't. Any one of these things could trigger self-harm dreams—all together, it's not surprising at all to me that you've had recurring dreams about it.
I want to zoom in for a minute on something you said in particular—that you feel like you have "no reason at all" to hurt yourself, and that you feel bad that you think about doing so anyway. I struggled with this a LOT in the past, and it took me a long time (partly because I worked through it alone for so long) to really untangle that kind of guilt you're talking about—like not being okay when there's no obvious reason to feel that way makes you ungrateful. I had a pretty good life, but I still struggled with depressive and anxious symptoms—and yes, self-harm too—and I kept asking myself why.
But here's the thing—there are so many possible reasons why you feel and think the way you do that have nothing (or very little) to do with your external life. Just because you don't see any "good reasons" why you feel the way you do doesn't mean there aren't reasons for it. In my case, I know hormones and chemical imbalances likely played a large part. If you're not sleeping well, that can mess with your head and your emotions too. There may be thought patterns that you haven't recognized yet as unhealthy ones (in fact, I know you have at least one negative pattern—telling yourself that you're ungrateful because you feel a certain way when you think you shouldn't).
I know it's difficult, but one thing I think might help is to try out some cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) techniques to cope with those intrusive thoughts you mentioned—and likely also alleviate your nightmares. This is best done with the guidance of a therapist, so if you can, I would strongly recommend reaching out to a doctor for support here.
Here's a page that contains some hotlines and website you can visit if you don't know where to start looking: https://www.healthyplace.com/other-info/resources/mental-health-hotline-numbers-and-refer…
If you can't for any reason, however, you're not out of luck. I tried working through a CBT workbook on my own and it helped me a LOT with my intrusive thoughts. Mine was called Mind Over Mood, but it's far from the only good option—if you can get to a bookstore, maybe look through a few and see if any of them appeal to you in particular.
I wrote more about CBT for self-harm here: https://www.healthyplace.com/blogs/speakingoutaboutselfinjury/2021/5/using-cbt-for-self-h…
If that doesn't seem like an option right now either, you could even try just journaling about how you feel, what you're worried about, etc. Once you get into the swing of it, you can start writing down those intrusive thoughts and then challenging them—try imagining your friend feeling what you feel, and what you would say to them. Chances are you wouldn't tell them they're ungrateful or a burden—often, we are kinder to others than we are to ourselves. But you deserve your own kindness and care too; please try not to forget that.
I know this is a lot; I hope it's not overwhelming! If you have any more questions, concerns, etc. feel free to comment again here or elsewhere on the blog, even if you just need more ideas for things to try if the journaling/CBT doesn't work. It doesn't matter how old the post is (or if I wrote it or not), I still get the notification that there's a comment and try to respond as soon as I can. :)
Sincerely,
Kim