What are Nightmares?
Nightmares are one type of dreams which you do not want to remember in you walking life but instead you remember them. They are so realistic that they scare you and disturb your sleep. They even have physical effect like increased pulse rate and faster heart beat due to fear.
Nightmares are more common in children than in adults. The reason it that frightening dreams occur during REM sleep. That is Rapid eye movement. Nightmares generally start at the age of 3yrs. Between to 3-6years children have many nightmares till 10 yrs. Teenager do have nightmares, in this age group girls get more nightmares than boys. Adults comparatively have less freaky visitors.
Second half of the night or towards the early morning hours when there is REM sleep is the time when most of the dreaming takes place. Rapid eye movement or REM sleep stimulates regions in the brain that are used for learning. During REM sleep, the brain sends various signals at random.
Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) can also be a common reason, why people experience very scary and recurrent nightmares.
Sometimes Nightmares don’t just wake you up but also leave you with many effects. It can lead to anxiety, disturbed sleep, headache and even fever. The effect depends on how badly it has left you scared and stressed.
The mysterious and unsettling phenomenon of nightmares is not due to any underlying disease, but if they become frequent it can lead to serious sleep and psychological disorders.
Please understand nightmares are common not the nightmare disorder.
Most of the countries have folklores and mythological interpretations of nightmares.
There are mythological characters like ‘Mare’ or ‘the Old hag’. It is considered that they sit on the sleeper’s chest is when the person has nightmares.
Falling of teeth, failing exams, being naked in public, running late for important work or even falling from hights fall into the category of nightmares, any dream that disturbs your emotions and sleep are called nightmares.
We will talk about each of these dreams separately. We have already covered Chasing dreams.
Nightmare are mostly signs of underlying insecurities, anxiety, fear or depression.
If there is some history of substance abuse, trauma, scary movie or sleep deprivation can also trigger nightmares.
When to meet a medical practitioner?
- If you are so scared and do not feel like going to bed
- There is already an issue with mood disorder or anxiety
- The person is contemplating Suicidal thoughts or even suicidal attempts
- Taking some medications which affects sleep pattern
- While undergoing Alcohol or Drug withdrawal
Can you control these nightmares?
No one has control on dreams. May be good or bad. But when something like nightmare starts haunting any family member, we want to control it.
It’s not 100% full proof to get rid of nightmares but following steps can help to some extent
- Maintain a healthy lifestyle. That is eat healthy and exercise regularly
- Have a disciplined sleep pattern.
- 20-30 minutes of Meditation before sleeping surely helps in giving a peaceful sleep
- Don’t watch horror movies and read horror stories to kids for bedtime. If a folklore has a bad ending tweak it.
- DO NOT scare kids with willy winky or kaala baba, it stays in their mind deeper than you think.
- Say a prayer or gratitude for all the good things you have in life.
Do remember one thing, we do not have control on the scary dreams, but we can surely be more compassionate towards the person getting them. He is already scared and anxious a warm hug and few minutes of attention won’t harm you but can help the person get back to normal.
When a child has a scary dream, do not scold them at that moment for reading ‘Goosebumps’ or watching ‘FNAF- Five nights at Freddie’s’ before going to bed. They just need surely and a tight hug to know they are safe.
That’s all for Nightmares today, hope you are not bothered by these. Tomorrow we discover one of the most common nightmares- Falling
Have you fallen in your dreams? I am sure you had one of these. Let’s see what other people have experienced.
Quite an informative post Ujjwal. It must be so difficult for the parents to calm out their kids anxiety. Medical intervention should be helpful in such cases
I don’t watch scary movies because they give me the worst dreams.
I like the way you present these articles.
https://mywordsmywisdom.com/eerie-nightmares-who-has-freaked-you-in-your-dream-last-night-atozchallenge/
I have nightmares sometimes but fortunately I forget them the next day. I really appreciate the detailed posts you’re writing for this theme Ujjwal.
sorry left a link to your blog
~Moonie
The Letter E
I have nightmare specially in morning. Even my son sometimes have them and in morni g he shares them with us. We just discuss it out and comfort him.
I have had this night mare since I was a child that I am standing on the edge of a cliff and about to fall! But don’t know whether I fall or not because I always wake up when I reach the edge. No idea why this night mare comes frequently!
You know , what everyone says that morning dream comes true . That is more nightmare
Much detailed post on nightmares I hardly remember them.when I wake up so I haven’t taken it seriously. #tmmreads #blogchattera2z
I agree some nightmares leave toxic waste in aftermath which sometimes require additional help.
Really liking the detailed posts, Ujjwal. I am sure its tough for kids and for parents if kids get nightmares frequently. I do get them and i get up but most of the times i forget, Looking forward to knowing more and see if i can remember and interpret any. I like your section where you have advised medical help. Thanks for such informative posts
Good post explaining all about bad dreams in detail. Now I know how to explain the same to my kids too when they ask why we get nightmares.
Such an interesting theme 😊🤗waiting to know more
Kudos to you for the unique choice of theme. An insightful and informative post.
OMG this post was scary.. the reason I don’t watch horror gruesome movies. But your interpretation is interesting about the connection to fear.
nightmares most of the times thy seriously disturb my sleep… I always get and yes even my daughter too most of the time she wakes up at night and says I am scared don’t leave me and go… So detailed post thank you for sharing…
I had no idea that there was a condition called a Nightmare Disorder. Nightmares are never pleasant. Thanks for this detailed post.
This is such a detailed post …I only dreamt about losing my dad again and again since the time he left us!!
Good that you wrote about this. My son complains sometimes about this I will try to keep a healthy sleeping pattern for him.
I am impressed by the facts shared here, I didn’t know young kids have more nightmares buddy
Thank God! Nightmares don’t scare me now. Right sleeping pattern and healthy routine helped me a lot. Thanks for the detailed post.
I remember shivering in my sleep after seeing some horror movie as a kid. Nightmares cannot be stopped but we can sure work on trying to keep them controlled.
Never know that nightmare disorders exist and has so much of significance. This is very informative
I am glad that I don’t have any nightmares but such dreams can scare a person a lot. I agree meditation helps in this case.
I too had nightmares and I controlled it with some home remedies like washing feet before sleeping and listening to gurbaani.
I too had nightmares earlier but I control that by enchanting hanuman chalisha before bedtime ..