Summary

Julia, a psychologist with personal experience in dealing with nightmares, offers strategies to cope with and reduce the frequency and intensity of bad dreams, emphasizing the importance of a comforting sleep environment.

Abstract

The article "Coping with Nightmares 101" by Julia, a psychologist who has dealt with nightmares since childhood, provides a comprehensive guide to managing disturbing dreams. She acknowledges that while nightmares are a normal part of processing emotions, frequent occurrences can lead to sleep disorders and increased stress. Julia shares her expertise and personal coping mechanisms, such as rewriting the narrative of a dream, practicing focused distraction, fact-checking irrational fears, and employing comfort measures like creating a supportive sleep environment. She encourages readers to identify triggers, keep a dream diary, and seek professional help if nightmares significantly disrupt sleep.

Opinions

Julia believes that rewriting the narrative of a dream can be an effective coping strategy for relatively normal dreams that take a bad turn.
She suggests that focused distraction is crucial for individuals, especially those with PTSD, to ground themselves after a particularly disturbing dream.
Julia advocates for fact-checking and reassurance as methods to alleviate anxiety caused by irrational dreams.
She emphasizes the importance of a comforting sleep environment, including the use of dreamcatchers, stuffed animals, and calming scents, which she has found to be beneficial since childhood.
Julia recommends keeping a dream diary to identify triggers and reduce factors related to nightmares, although she notes it may increase dream recall.
She encourages seeking professional support for underlying issues that may be causing frequent nightmares or significant sleep disturbances.
Julia values the support of loved ones and suggests sharing experiences with a partner for additional comfort and perspective.
She promotes the use of external resources such as YouTube videos with affirmations and mantras to provide additional reassurance.
Julia highlights the personal benefits she has experienced from creating a sleep-conducive environment and encourages readers to experiment with different comfort measures.

Coping with Nightmares 101

Healthy ways of dealing with bad dreams

Picture by magwood_photography / 57 images

Everyone gets nightmares once in a while. They’re quite a normal way of processing information and emotions from the day. However, nightmares can be disturbing and interrupt your sleep. If they occur frequently, they may interfere with your sleep quality and energy levels during the day — as well as added anxiety and stress. Nightmares can also be symptoms of underlying mental issues, such as PTSD and GAD. However, nightmares alone (or with added sleep problems) could also form sleep disorders, as they can be very agonizing.

As a child, I used to have one of those disorders. I had nightmares almost every night, and as a result, had a lot of trouble falling asleep. I was often anxious and tired during the day as my quality of sleep was very bad. I am still plagued by nightmares and sleep paralysis sometimes, although they don’t scare me anymore. I guess I could say I’m used to them by now — although sometimes I’m pretty shocked by what my brain comes up with. Dreams fascinate me, and I often find myself philosophizing about possible hidden meanings. Still, I know my way around handling unsettling dreams and I know exactly what triggers them for me. Today I’d like to share my knowledge as a psychologist and personal experience on how to cope with disturbing dreams.

Whatever the reason for your nightmares may be, here are my coping strategy recommendations to help you deal with them — and possibly reduce the frequency and intensity of your nightmares. Which one I use depends on the dream and the way I feel when I wake up. Once you get familiar with multiple ways of coping you’ll soon get the hang of which strategy is useful in specific situations.

Rewrite your dream

I won’t tell you to fix your sleep schedule and relax before going to bed today, you’ve probably heard and read that a lot already. It does help, of course, but I hope to provide you with some new insights. Whenever I get relatively normal dreams with weird twists and bad endings, I rewrite the dream. I was cooking a meal before that random person chased me with a knife, so after waking up in the heat of the fight I try to relax and visualize myself and my family enjoying the meal I was cooking. Naturally, this tip only works if your dream started off relatively normal. Sometimes it’s just a hot mess, in which case you might want to revert to other coping strategies.

Focused distraction

I know what it feels like waking up from, what it often feels like, the most disturbing experience you’ve had. Even though you’re realizing it was a dream and are glad that you’re now awake, sometimes that alone isn’t enough. Sometimes, things were so unnerving you just need to not think about it anymore, or else you’ll stay in that confused-but-alarmed-state. This goes especially for people with PTSD or any other (traumatic) memory that has appeared in the dream. If you do feel like analyzing or repeating the dream even though it was that disturbing, wait until the morning or at least follow these steps first. If you find yourself in this state, it’s time to ground yourself. Sit up as soon as you can after waking up and place yourself on the side of your bed. Place your feet on the ground and focus on your environment. What can you see? You’re in your room, safe. This is your comfort place. Get out of your head as much as you can for a while by focusing on your direct environment, see it as a way of letting your brain ‘wash away the experience’ while you’re not interfering with it. Focus on vision, sound, and touch. Read a book or play some calming music if you have to.

Fact-checking and reassuring yourself

Has a super irrational dream got you anxious? This might be a good time to do some fact-checking. What’s the real chance you’ll randomly fall from the Eiffel tower? Point out the irrationality of the dream as a way of reassuring yourself. You could also point out the ways your awake self could stop or prevent the situation presented in the dream. However rational or irrational your dream is, reassuring yourself is soothing. You might want to repeat a mantra or listen to affirmations, especially when it’s about a reoccurring theme. There are plenty of videos on YouTube for this. Do you sleep next to your partner? You might want to share your experiences with them and ask for support in the moment. Sometimes your own mind is so overwhelmed and confused by a dream that you could really use someone else’s perspectives on things.

Comfort measures

I’m not sure how much value this section will have to you, but as this is one of the things that helped me most I feel like I have to highlight it separately. As a child, I was terrified of sleeping in my room which was located next to the stairs. After I changed rooms my nightmares reduced a lot in frequency. Even though that was me as a child, it thought me how important my sleep environment was. I loved dreamcatchers and slept with a dozen stuffed animals. I still experience that I’m more prone to getting nightmares and sleep paralysis when I don’t sleep in my own bed — in hotels, for example. I like sleeping with a bunch of pillows and still have a huge teddy bear in my bed, why not? It provides me comfort, especially in the aftermath of sleep paralysis. I have a nightlight on my nightstand that I could keep on without waking anyone whenever I’m anxious at night and I have a little bag with lavender in it next to my pillow.

I’ve put a lot of time into furnishing my room and creating a sleep environment that would help reduce nightmares and it does wonders.

If this is something you haven’t done already, my advice would be to experiment with things. Oils, aromas, pillows, multiple bedsheets, moving your bed around, different curtains, different lights, different room temperatures, white noise machines, ambient sounds, a comforting plush, whatever it is that works for you. Keeping a dream diary is also very insightful for identifying triggers and reducing factors, as well as understanding your dreams better. However, when I kept a nightmare diary I noticed that I started getting better at remembering my dreams and nightmares as a result of writing them down (and that they started appearing in more detail), which is something I wasn’t too happy about.

I hope these tips and insights help. I’d love to hear about my readers’ personal experiences with nightmares. What’s the most disturbing dream you’ve ever had? How do you usually cope?

Much love,

Julia

If you feel like there is an underlying factor causing frequent nightmares or your nightmares are disturbing your sleep to an unbearable extent, don’t be afraid to seek support. Consider seeing a doctor, mental health professional, or sleep specialist.

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