The truth about your nightmares (and how to limit their effects)

Understand your nightmares and overcome them by learning how to understand them.

by: E.B. Johnson

We all know what it feels like to be woken in the night with a pounding heart and a sweat-soaked pillow. No matter how old you get, your nightmares can still rear their ugly heads. Though normal, bad dreams that occur too frequently can create major disruptions in our lives, and leave us feeling hollow, exhausted and terrified — no matter how outlandish the dreams may be.

Overcoming nightmares is something that takes time and understanding to accomplish, but it also takes a deep retrospective look in your internal environment and mental wellbeing. Bad dreams are often a sign of something more turbulent brewing beneath the surface, but you have to be brave enough to deep-dive into that turbulence if you want to put a stop to the nightmares. Learn how to understand your dreams, and discover the 15 terrifying truths your nightmares might be trying to reveal to you.

What are nighmares?

Generally speaking, nightmares are isolated bad dreams filled with disagreeable scenes and settings that leave us feeling unhappy or on-edge. The problem occurs, however, when these bad dreams become a regular occurrence — something that can lead to fear, anxiety, depression and even disturbing emotional responses.

The normal adult dreams an average of two hours per night, a process which occurs when we enter into the later stages of our REM cycle. Because these dreams occur during the final stages of this cycle, it means the dreamer often wakes up with a vivid memory or sense of what was happening in the dream. Some sleep researchers refer to these bad dreams as “threat rehearsals”, and many theorize that they’re not only an internal manifestation of stress, but also a “practice run” for possible threats you feel you might encounter in real life.

It’s important to note here that there is a distinct difference between nightmares and night terrors. While both adults and children experience both night terrors and nightmares, the two conditions are not the same. An individual with night terrors might thrash around, and react wildly in the midst of a dream — but they are hardly disturbed by the recolletion the dream after. Nightmares, however, are more vivid and linger long after we wake from them, leaving a strong impression on our emotions even hours after the nightmare has ended.

Why do we have nightmares?

There are a number of reasons we have nightmares and they differ from person to person. A range of things can affect the type and quality of our dreams, and they range from the food we eat to the way we treat our bodies. These, however, are the 4 most common reasons for adult nightmares — and each can only be overcome once it’s been understood.

Over-active amygdala

Our amygdala’s are the part of our brains that are responsible for detecting and responding to the threats in our environment. Even when we’re blacked out in the deepest depths of our REM cycle, our amygdala is still awake — scanning everything for danger and doing it’s best to keep us safe from any and all perceived threats presented by the other side of our brains.

Victims of trauma and those who struggle with PTSD often suffer from over-active amygdalae, which has been linked to reoccuring nightmares and sleep disturbances. This means that their amygdala goes into overdrive, and sends out emotional signals while they sleep — trying desperately to shield them from the terror and perceived threats that are occurring in their dreams.

Eating right before bed

If you snack too close to bed, you’ll get more than just indigestion. You’ll get nightmares too. Our metabolism impacts our dreamscape, so if you eat just before bed, you makes changes to your gut and therefore your dreams. One study even showed that both junk foods and spicy foods had a negative effect on dreams, leading participants to have increased nightmares experiences.

Evolutionary advantage

Though our nightmares are terrifying and disruptive, they serve a very real evolutionary purpose. According to Harvard psychologist, Deirdre Barrett, our nightmares are a gift passed down from our ancestors, and one we should be grateful for in the bigger scheme of things.

“Nightmares probably evolved to help make us anxious about potential dangers,” Barret said. “Even post-traumatic nightmares, which just re-traumatize us, may have been useful in ancestral times when a wild animal that had attacked you, or a rival tribe that had invaded might well be likely to come back.”

Practice makes perfect

Some professionals are of the opinion that nightmares are far more than reactions. Many prescribe to the theory that our nightmares are actually dress rehearsals, setting us up and preparing us for new fears that might be lurking just around the corner. This theory seems to hold up well, especially when compared against those subjects experiencing a heightened sense of fight-or-flight due to past traumas.

Running into triggers

Our nightmares can also be triggered by our diets or things in our environment that cause inner or outer turmoil and stress. If you eat late at night, you can expect to find yourself more prone to bad dreams. Likewise, if you’re experiencing a lot of stress, or going through a lot of inner conflict, you might find your nightmares more overactive than usual.

Medications too can add to bad dream occurrences, making it easier to remember the details of our nightmares, or even encouraging the bad dreams as a side effect of their use. Sedatives, beta blockers and amphetamines have been linked to a frequency of nightmares, while anti-depressants too have been in shown to enhance memory of our bad dreams and their details.

Depression and anxiety

Stress and anxiety are everywhere around us, but when we’re overwhelmed by them, they creep into the edges of our nightmares. Going through major life events like marriage, death, birth, moving or even a change of careers can generate mega stress in your life that causes your brain to panic, and when that happens you can find yourself trapped in a depression and anxiety quagmire that leaves you ragged and clinging to your sanity.

Personality

Those with certain negative personality traits like distrustfulness or emotional estrangement are far more likely to experience chronic nightmares than those without. There are a lot of different theories on how this has come to be, but researcher Ernest Hartmann theorizes that it has something to do with the thinner personality barriers these individuals possess.

The truly funny thing about this personlity — dream relation, however, is the correlation it holds with political ideology. Those with more conservative view points or personalities reported more nightmares than those with more relaxed and liberal points of view. Bringing to light, again, the correlation between our dreams and the negativity and fear that harbors in the corner of our day-to-day lives.

Overcoming your nightmares for improved sleep and wellbeing.

Having the occasional bad dream from time-to-time is not that disruptive, but regular nightmares are. Regular nightmares can affect not only our quality of sleep, but our daily functions and relationships as well. If you’re suffering from nightmares that just won’t stop, you can do something about it. It takes time, though, and it takes opening up your mind to the way you view yourself and your place in the world around you.

Stop catastrophizing your nightmares

Our nightmares stick with us, and it’s no wonder why. They are a terrifying experience and — whether real or fake — they leave an impression on us that is often hard to forget.

Even if the horrible images won’t go away, it’s important not to catastrophize your nightmares and turn them into more than they are — fantasy. Remember that your dreams don’t predict the future and remember that they’re not even based in reality. They’re just dreams, so there’s no reason to take them with anything other than a grain of salt.

Stop worrying about your dreams, and stop worrying that what they reveal to you has any meaning. Dreams are nothing more than the amplified representations of our strangest fantasies, so let the nastiness of them fade away before they have the opportunity to bring your mood and spirit down with them.

Relax your worries before you go to bed

If you leave a lot of room for negative thoughts to rumble around in your head as you’re going to sleep, you’re going to find yourself suffering from unpleasant dreams.

One of the best ways to get a handle on your chronic nightmares is to come up with a way of putting your worries to rest before you lay down to go to sleep. This doesn’t mean you forget your worries entirely, and it doesn’t mean you bury them away. It simply means hitting the pause button, so your brain can have a change to power-down and relax before it resumes it’s biggest work the following day.

There’s no one way to go about doing this, so try to find a practice that works best for you. You could spend time journaling about your worries, or take some time focusing on the positive events that happened throughout your day. Got nothing positive to cling to? That’s okay too. Put a positive spin on the things you did today, and don’t be afraid to celebrate even the tiniest of wins.

Examine the negativity in your life

Research has shown that those who engage in impulsive, risky or troublesome behavior are at a might higher-risk of suffering from chronic nightmares. It basically comes down to the age-old principle of “what you put out, you attract”, and the same goes for nightmares — if you have a lot of negativity in your waking life, you’ll have a lot of negativity in your dreams.

Examine your life and examine behaviors you might have that are increasing the stress in your life. Dig into those negative emotions that are holding you back, and try to tap back into that authentic sense of self that used to guide you when things were a bit more simple.

Finding less problematic outlets for your problems and emotions will not only get you a better night’s sleep; it will also get you a boost in wellbeing and overall peace of mind. Sometimes the smallest changes equal the biggest results, so reexamine the negativity in your life and take small steps to cut it away (or replace it) so you can have a happy and peaceful future.

Lookout for over-the-top tendencies

Some of us have a tendency to make things worse than they are. The reasons for this are varied, and don’t really matter that much — but what does matter is that you realize the pattern and how it contributes to your nightmares. If you are someone who tends to blow things out of the water, consider that you might be doing it with your dreams as well, then take the steps you need to correct it.

Stop yourself when you feel the panic or the overexagerration bubbling to the surface. Rather than focusing on whatever negative event or circumstance might be contributing to it all, try to look for the positive in what you’re experiencing instead, and you’ll notice a world of change in an extremely short amount of time.

If you start envisioning worse case scenarios — stop yourself. Understand that mistakes will happen, and don’t get too down on yourself when you slip up and make another mountain out of a mole hill. Focus on trying to change the mood of your life from a negative one to a positive one so that you can change the mood of your dreamscapes as well. After all, our dreams are only an exaggerated reflection of our lives and internal spaces.

Talk to someone

Suffering from chronic and disruptive nightmares is not normal and it’s not somoething you should suffer alone or in silence. If bad dreams are becoming a regular part of your routine or, if they’re keeping you from performing vital daily functions, then there might be chance that you have a diagnosable and clinically recognized sleep disorder — but you’ve got to talk to an professional to find out.

Talking to a trusted and registered healthcare professional can help you get to the root of your nightmare issues, and also help you find the best path forward for you. Sometimes, bad dreams are a symptom of an underlying issue, while at other times they’re a temporary state of being. Discussing your experiences with your doctor or a psychologist is the best way to unlock what’s causing your bad dreams, and get you back to the even keel you need to be on.

Don’t feel embarassed and don’t feel “stupid” for speaking up to someone about what’s going on with your dreams. Nightmares aren’t just for children. More than 1 in 20 adults suffers from a chronic dream disorder, so the impacts and effects are well-known and understood by any medical professional worth their salt. If you don’t feel like you’re ready to open up to someone, open up to yourself, and get real about the steps you need to take to feel better — whether that be journalling, exercising or making some big changes to your life, your relationships or the way you interact with your environment.

Learn about sleep hygeine

While it’s not always possible to prevent bad dreams, we can minimize them by learning different ways to control our environments. Sleep hygiene is one such way we can accomplish this, and it helps us to create an ideal sleep environment so we can maximize our rest.

Sleep hygiene isn’t just about a routine or a couple of new habits. It’s about syncing your habits with your sleeping environment to create your best chance at quality rest. Remove or turn off light sources like the TV, and make sure that the room is quiet, dark and in the low 60’s or 70’s when it comes to the temperature.

Try to keep to a sleep schedule, and stick to it as closely as you can no matter what is going on in your professional or personal life. Our internal clocks have a lot to do with our internal state and our dreams, but we have to support that internal clock and give it the charge it needs to ensure it keeps running. If you struggle with a noisy environment, invest in earplugs or try out white noise to get the rest you need, sans the dreams.

Putting it all together…

Nightmares might be a normal part of life, but suffering with chronic nightmares is not. Bad dreams can disrupt our sleep and cause some serious problems in our lives, agitating conditions like anxiety and depression, and even causing us to abandon or damage our personal and professional relationships. Our sleep is a critical part of our health and wellbeing, and nightmares can seriously disrupt that, so it’s important to get on top of your bad dreams and get them under control so you can thrive.

Understand where your nightmares come from and understand the triggers that lead to the most disruptive dreams that prevent you from functioning normally. Everything from the food we eat to the problems we have at work can majorly impact our dream cycles, so work on establishing good sleep hygiene and reach out to a professional if you find your life becoming dramatically interrupted by the nightmares. It’s not normal to suffer regularly from bad dreams, so reach out to someone you can trust if your sleep is becoming more of a burden than it should be. Take control of your sleep so you can take control of your life. Don’t minimize the things that hurt you. Handle them.