Nightmares are disturbing dreams associated with negative feelings, such as anxiety or fear. They may begin in childhood and tend to decrease after age 10. However, some people have them as teens or adults, or throughout their lives.
Until age 13, boys and girls have nightmares in equal numbers. At age 13, nightmares become more prevalent in girls.
Nightmares seem real, often becoming more disturbing as the dream unfolds. But they usually are nothing to worry about. They may become a problem if you have them frequently and they cause you to fear going to sleep or keep you from sleeping well.
They’re referred to by doctors as parasomnias—undesirable experiences that occur during sleep, usually during rapid eye movement (REM). You’ve had a nightmare if your dream wakes you; you feel scared, anxious, angry or sad as a result of your dream or your dream keeps you from falling back to sleep.
Nightmare disorder is a condition in which people experience chronic, intense nightmares over a prolonged period of time. The nightmares are so intense that they cause the person great distress and often interfere with the subject’s work or social life.
Night terrors is another disorder that is very different from a standard nightmare. Night terrors occur during the first few hours of sleep, causing a person to scream loudly and thrash around violently in his or her sleep.
Unlike standard nightmares, it can be difficult to wake up a person who is experiencing night terrors. When they do wake up, they will not remember much about their dream.
Scientists know very little about nightmares and dreams. However, there are many different theories about what causes a nightmare.
One theory has to do with the anatomy and physiology of the brain. REM sleep stimulates regions in the brain that are used for learning. During REM sleep, the brain fires various different signals at random. The cortex (the part of the brain that interprets and organizes information) attempts to make sense of these random signals by turning them into a “story” or dream. If this theory is correct, then nightmares and dreams have no deeper meaning. They are simply a side effect of deep sleep.
Some psychologists, including Sigmund Freud, believe that dreams come from a person’s unconscious mind and represent his or her secret fears and desires. Only during sleep, when the conscious mind is silent, do these repressed emotions come to the surface and manifest themselves as nightmares and dreams. This theory implies that all dreams are significant and that they have some sort of underlying meaning.
Nightmares can also be a symptom of post-traumatic stress disorder. Examples of physical trauma include surgery, a car accident or a history of physical abuse. Emotional trauma can include the loss of a loved one, assault, neglect, or emotional abuse. There have been many reported cases of people who repress memories of childhood abuse. They have no recollection of the abuse, but after many years, they begin to have nightmares. When they seek counseling because of the nightmares, their repressed memories start to come to the surface.
Other common causes of nightmares are entirely physical. They are simply part of the body’s response to certain physiological conditions, such as a fever or a side effect to a medication.
There is also a theory that some people may have a genetic predisposition to nightmares. In other words, nightmares may run in your family.
Some people believe that nightmares and dreams have a deeper meaning and that they can symbolize your subconscious emotions. Everyone’s dreams are different, and only you can truly understand the meaning of your own bad dreams. However, some elements commonly occur in all people’s dreams at one time or another. Dream interpreters suggest that these elements symbolize something specific.
Some symbols are self-explanatory. A bad dream about falling means you feel powerless or out of control, or that you are afraid of failing at something. A nightmare about drowning means you feel overwhelmed by your emotions. Dreaming about war or a fight could mean that you need to be more assertive in a real-life confrontation.
Also, monsters and other nightmare creatures represent some aspect of your life that has gotten out of control. The most common type of nightmare is that of being chased. Adults commonly find themselves being chased by a stranger (usually male); children are more often chased by some type of animal, monster or other nightmare creature.
Dream interpreters say that being chased in a nightmare represents feeling that you are being pressured or inhibited in some way.
Of course, bad dreams may simply be a symptom of not getting adequate sleep. If you’re having too many bad dreams, you might need to reevaluate your sleeping habits and overall lifestyle. For example, you may need to make any or all of the following changes:
• Cut down your intake of caffeine and alcohol, especially before bed.
• Increase your exercise routine and include more aerobic exercise (swimming, jogging, tennis, step class).
• Try relaxation techniques just before bed, such as yoga, aromatherapy or meditation.
• Don’t eat anything before going to bed. Eating increases brain activity and raises the body’s metabolism, which can cause nightmares .
• Keep a regular sleep schedule. Try to go to bed around the same time each night and wake up around the same time each morning.
If you recently began having nightmares and they are occurring more than once a week or if they keep you from getting adequate sleep for a prolonged period of time, you should seek help from a doctor. You may need to get a physical, neurological or psychological exam to determine the underlying cause.
If you experience especially intense or recurring nightmares, you may benefit from talking about it with a counselor or psychologist. Sometimes just talking through your nightmares is enough to dispel them. In other cases, bad dreams are a subconscious manifestation of some emotional or psychological problem that you need to sort out.
We know so much about the human body, yet nightmares and dreams continue to remain a mystery. Perhaps that is why they hold such a power over us. You may believe that nightmares are a side effect of normal physiological processes, a message from a higher power or your subconscious mind’s way of communicating with you. Whatever the case, just know that your nightmares are only as powerful as you make them.
