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A lot of "disorders" are not really disorders at all. Depression is a way of making a person focus inward and solve issues. It's the opposite of inflation and often follows hand in hand -- ego inflates, doesn't get what it wants, followed by depression. So instead of feel it and finally resolve to break that cycle, we take drugs to suppress it. I think disorder is just a convenient term for something that isn't properly understood by our modern medicine.

I think DID might result from parts of the personality that aren't incorporated under the umbrella of the ego. The ego is supposed to be a sort of CEO who runs the show and gets everyone moving the same direction, but sometimes it just can't encompass all of the competing interests. I bet your therapist talks about "empowerment" a bit. It's really the heart of helping to incorporate Ren and Tom more consciously into your personality. DID becomes a danger to the public when your alters influence you to take actions that are harmful. The potential for trouble is the reason why DID is treated like it is. Otherwise, in the olden days, it was called "coping."

You can use your dreams to make Ren and Tom more conscious and thus more incorporated under your ego. The female dream character is the key, because she represents the unconscious feminine parts of yourself -- anima -- that you can make more conscious by developing and furthering a relationship with her, same as you converse with Ren and Tom as distinct people. "Marry" her and you will gain the ego strength to be declared "normal." The marriage I refer to is also known as marriage of the soul. Marriage of the ego with the unconscious side of the mind -- what you call your female alter -- is the ultimate aim of personal growth. To really understand what she is to you, I suggest reading "He" by Robert A. Johnson.. It's an outstanding book and it will help you understand what's going on beneath the surface of your mind. He explains marriage of the soul better than I can. You might also read "Care of the Soul" by Thomas Moore. I think those books will help you.

It's difficult to condense so many thoughts that reading your post and talking with you has brought to mind. My background gives me an understanding of what you are experiencing without having experienced myself. I don't think there is anything "wrong" with you, I think you just need time to work things out and need some tools to help you do it. I hope your therapist treats you with respect and helps you understand what is going on inside of you. You are finding your soul, uncovered a spoonful at a time as you experience life and absorb it. Some people just go about it differently than others. As long as you aren't harming anyone (including yourself), you're fine. Take care :)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Girl_Without_Hands

Read that fairytale (try to read an original version of the fairy tale, not just the wiki summary).

We touch with our hands; we connect to lovers, children, pets, etc. with our hands. In today's society, we are oftentimes asked to trade our ability to touch / feel, in exchange for money. This is one of the predominant myths of modern western society. The severed hands are what you are being asked to give up in exchange for silver, or efficiency, or modern convenience, etc. At minimum, the dream is asking you to be aware of any tradeoff you are being asked to make.

After you read that, read a version of the fairytale about Bluebeard's. The box in your dream is analogous to Bluebeard's closet. You discovering the severed hands in the box is analogous to Bluebeard's wife discovering the murdered bodies of his ex-wives in his locked closet.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bluebeard

Again, google around to find an original version of the fairytale.

Then just meditate on these fairy tales and their possible connection to what you experienced in the dream. And then sit back and await whatever new information the unconscious will next deliver to you in a dream. That's my advice, anyway.

If this line of connecting to your dreams interest you in any way, I highly suggest the following book:

https://www.amazon.com/Fisher-King-Handless-Maiden-Understanding/dp/006250648X/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_product_top?ie=UTF8

Its an easy and light read. Half of the book is dedicated to the symbolism of the "handless maiden". Its an excellent read, imo. Given that you actually dreamt about the severed hands in a box, I especially recommend it to you. I think you'll find it enlightening.

There is a book of a analyst who developed his personal form to interpretation of dreams because of a dream similar to yours. In the dream, he said to a taxi driver that he was a part of a dream he was having and the taxi driver looked back to him in contradiction and boredomness, like he was lunatic.

So he says the feelings of the taxi driver made him renew the notion he was having about dreaming, thus being an important dream. He did then developed a theory where that the dream world is real, and we can feel in our body the feelings of ourselves and also from the other characters in the dream when we are awaken and this could interfere in our awaken life.

I didn't finish it, but notions like the dream and the real world have some form of symbiose, or also an membrane that we can enter and also share with others are explored in the book. Also meditations exercises with the body on dreams and interpretation of some of his dreams.

The book is this one, if you want to look more: https://www.amazon.com/Tracks-Wilderness-Dreaming-Robert-Bosnak/dp/0385315260

Yes. Awesome. A fair amount of people get dreams like this.

Keep paying attention, because sometimes it can even help you avoid things you may want to avoid.

Read the book Dreams That Come True.

A researcher took a scientific approach to this topic.

You will definitely learn a lot and be able to apply it.

http://www.amazon.com/Dreams-That-Come-True-Transforming/dp/0385244053/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1452090093&sr=8-1&keywords=Dreams+That+Come+True

Yeah, that definitely sounds like sleep paralysis - your brain is aware of what's in the room with you, and is adding freaky content on top of it...

Some people use sleep paralysis to their benefit. This is a really good guide if you're interested in learning more: https://www.amazon.com/Sleep-Paralysis-Hypnagogic-Visions-Visitors/dp/0984223916

Aww that's great! I really hope the best for you!

Relevant book: https://www.amazon.com/Thinking-Changing-Rearranging-Improving-Self-Esteem/dp/0943920302

This book helped me out a ton: Inner Work - Robert Johnson

I too am a super heavy dreamer (I wake wanting to go back into my dreams) and the analysis that I get from my dreams after reading this book is outstanding.

Are you female and teens or twenties? I ask because that's a common dream for women in that age bracket to have. The appearance of this man and your eventual conclusion is a sign of health and growing wisdom, If I am remembering correctly from this book: https://www.amazon.com/Women-Wolves-Clarissa-Pinkola-Estés/dp/0345409876?ie=UTF8&*Version*=1&*entries*=0

The man represents the darker destructive (if uncontainable self-destructive) aspects of your nature. That its in your dreams means you are becoming aware of the darker, baser elements of yourself. When I was a teenager, I had a dream about a creepy man watching me, always through blinds, outside a window. I had it a couple times and woke up feeling intense fear. Then one day in my dream I was in my bedroom and he was watching me from the window. Then he was in the room with me and I called for my brothers and dad and they came in with axes and chopped him to bits. I woke up very scared and told my dad that I had a nightmare, when I told him what had happened he said "that is a good dream. Something got resolved." And I was very confused because of the intensity of the fear and how vivid the dream had been. Then years later I read that book and realized my dad was right. You will need to call on masculine elements (commonly but not always represented by brothers) of your nature to reconcile and control the destructive aspect of yourself.

I think it's a part of a spiritual quest since society pins women into passive roles and we get better responses by developing our helpful, kinder more nurturing sides. Then we wall off our (the door in your dream between you and the villain) more destructive sides of our personality but it is a part of us and makes its presence known. It can be very scary when the destructive aspect of ourselves reveals itself because it's so foreign to the role we often play in society. The author of that book describes what the dismemberment in the dream does for the dreamer.

Good read: http://www.amazon.com/First-Grave-Right-Darynda-Jones/dp/0312662750

>the Hat Man in my dreams.

Many people have reported dreaming of the Hat men. Do some internet search and you will discover many more stories just like this. There is even a book about it: The Hat Man: The True Story of Evil Encounters

You should check out Dick for a Day.

How do you already know you're bi? Reading this might change your life https://www.amazon.ca/Dreams-Volumes-Collected-Works-Jung/dp/0691150486/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1565586358&sr=8-2