You awake with a pounding heart and clammy hands. Relax, you think to yourself—it was just a bad dream. But are nightmares truly benign? Psychologists aren’t so sure. Although some continue to believe nightmares reduce psychological tensions by letting the brain act out its fears, recent research suggests that nocturnal torments are more likely to increase anxiety in waking life.
In one study Australian researchers asked 624 high school students about their lives and nightmares during the past year and assessed their stress levels. It is well known that stressful experiences cause nightmares, but if nightmares serve to diffuse that tension, troubled sleepers should have an easier time coping with emotional ordeals. The study, published in the journal Dreaming, did not bear out that hypothesis: not only did nightmares not stave off anxiety, but people who reported being distressed about their dreams were even more likely to suffer from general anxiety than those who experienced an upsetting event such as the divorce of their parents.
It is possible, however, that some-thing is going wrong in the brains of individuals who experience a lot of anxiety, so that normal emotional processing during dreaming fails, says Tore Nielsen, director of the Dream and Nightmare Laboratory at Sacred Heart Hospital in Montreal.
But Nielsen’s most recent results, published in the Journal of Sleep Research last June, actually bolster the Australian findings. To tease out how REM sleep—during which most dreaming takes place—affects our emotions, the Canadian researchers showed disturbing images (such as gory scenes or a women being forced into a van at knifepoint) to a group of healthy volunteers just before they went to bed. When the subjects viewed the same pictures in the morning, those who had been deprived of dream-filled REM sleep were less emotionally affected than those deprived of other sleep phases. The same was true for those who experienced fewer negative emotions in their dreams. In other words, having nightmares did not make dreamers more resilient in waking life—just the opposite.
What is not clear from these studies is whether nightmares play a causal role in anxiety or are merely an expression of an underlying problem. Most researchers agree that having an occasional nightmare is normal and not problematic. But if the dreams give rise to persistent anxiety and concern, something more serious could be going on—and it may be a good idea to talk to a mental health professional about it.
This article was originally published with the title More Than Just a Bad Dream.
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Add CommentCarl Jung based his psychoanalysis and research heavily on dream interpretation, and its effects beyond our night experiences. Dream reality to some researchers and scientists, holds evidence to the ticking of our subconscious mechanisms and the ways we are influenced by the unknown,and unseen portions of our thinking minds. Perhaps perception does not differentiate between dreaming and waking states on a deeper level. Both worlds may interconnect to effect eachother in a catch-22 situation.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDenise McTighe
It is egoPerspective that perceives 'subject/object' distinctions where there are no such inherent distinctions. There is no real distinction between that which is perceived during the day and that which is perceived at night.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThey are 'features' (as is everything that is perceived) of a seamless whole complete Universe.
A noteable dream therapist in NZ, Margaret Bowater, wrote this about nightmares: "Trauma dreams & nightmares are full of overwhelming emotions, repeating night after night, such that a person may even be afraid to go to sleep. One such client had many horrible memories of sexual abuse in her girlhood on a farm that she tried to lock them away, refusing to talk about them. But when she moved into a flat with her boyfriend at 22, the nightmares came back, interfering with her sex-life, till she sought help from counselling. There was a particular recurring dream from childhood:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDream report: Dog Invading
Im outside a big wooden house, when I sense that the Dog is coming. I get inside fast and shut the door. I see the Dog through the windows a big black-and-white pit-bull terrier, with lots of teeth and dripping saliva. Im panicking. Theres another door open, and a window I rush over and shut them just in time! Its okay Im safe, but now I feel trapped.
Here the original memories of rape by her oldest brother have collated with the image of the most dangerous animal on the farm, and the house has become a metaphor for her body, trying to protect herself from invasion. As she talked about her experience in the safety of therapy, the buried feelings at last were released, and her fear gave way to a healthy anger. She began to take steps in real life to confront her abuser, and the nightmare evolved through a series of dreams.
First the Dog stopped on the far side of the section, just watching while she crept out of the house. Then it changed into her human brother, still a fearful figure, but the rest of the family gathered round her; and finally he ran away. The dreams lost their terror. And how did she actually reclaim her sex life? She negotiated with her partner that she would be the one to initiate love-making, at least until she felt safe again.
In this example you can see the normal process of recovery from trauma reflected in the clients dreams. The recurring nightmare not only carried the buried emotions, but also pinpointed the worst aspect of her experience, the sense of animal invasion. Nightmares usually waken you at a point of terror, when you are reduced to a powerless Child ego state."
Dreams are always facinating, no one truely understand the purpose of them and why they occur, there are only theories to suggest the possibilities.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI always have lots of questions about dreams because I am a dreamer. I found out some of people don't really remember their dreams very much, and even if they do, the memories are blurry. However, when I dream I usually remember all the details and they did all feel very real that I can't tell them apart from reality.
I also have a true problem that sometimes when I am dreaming I know in my mind that I am in a dream. In my dreams I was lying in my bed and I wanted to wake up but I just physically can't. Some people explained to me that it is probably due to my tiredness so my brain has already woken up but my body is still asleep. This explanation is somewhat sensible but I would love to believe there are something more.
"What is not clear from these studies is whether nightmares play a causal role in anxiety or are merely an expression of an underlying problem."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis is a pretty big variable not to have a handle on in terms of interpreting the study. It seems just as probable that anxious people would have more nightmares.
My subjective experience is different. I have such vivid horrible nightmares that I have made psychologists physically ill describing them. I also have and do work in high threat/stress situations (subject of nightmares are mostly unrelated). AND I am rock sold in my life and work, not to mention my dreams don't really bother me. Like I said, my subjective opinion, I guess I am still an outlier.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisnamelesss,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe difference is that life is real and the dreaming is not. No ego and no whole universe is involved. Maybe your watching too much TV.
I love my nightmares, better than any horror movie.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI propose that people that are in risk because of nightmares are in reality afraid of death. Don't most nightmares carry the threat of death?
I from time to time have some rather scary, near horrific, dreams, but I always wake up (my wife nudges me, as I tend to make sounds when I have these dreams) amazed rather than scared or anxious. I never get scared.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTo be honest, I even have some great ideas for a book or a movie, just from my amazing horrifying dreams.
I just love it!! ;-)
Enter Your Comment Here.As an information systems analyst for large scale database transaction processing systems, I only had vague, fading recollections of any dreams for a few seconds after waking. Now old, retired and on meds, now including nicotine patches, I’m having much more persistent recollections of more vivid dreams.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAll my dream experiences are consistent with a database maintenance theory of dream interpretation: dreaming represents the process of recalling verbose representations of daily experiences stored quickly in short term memory for reconfiguration as a map to more efficiently encoded permanent snippets of sensory information stored in long term memory. This process releases short term memory for reuse the following day. In this interpretation of the dream process, nightmares represent long term storage of sensory encoded traumatic experiences, either real or misrepresentations due to some functional error.
Looks like I’ll have to modify my theory statement, since I just had a dream vaguely representing a past incident involving regret.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHowever, the suggested process does represent information management tradeoffs regarding speed of storage vs. efficiency of space utilization, which explains the requirement for separate short and long term memory functions in the brain. Also, the to the extent that my theory is correct, recall/reorganization is not necessarily a time-ordered process and it must also account for internal emotional associations with sensory experiences as well as abstract thought. It must be a little more complex than a record keeping system, but the fundamental concept may still be valid.
When the physical body is at rest in sleep, the soul is free to travel "out of the body" in one of its other "vehicles". We have four "lower" bodies; physical, emotional (astral), mental, and etheric. Quantum physics is revealing that there is no time or space; everything is here and everything is now. Compartmentalization of segments called time and space give the developing soul reference points to navigate in while in "physicality".
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThere are two general planes or dimensions that the soul travels in while out of the body (while in sleep or between incarnations); the Astral Plane (hell) and the Etheric Plane (heaven). The Astral Plane is the place of nightmares. The Astral Plane has 33 levels from Purgatory to the Pit of Hell. There is no continuity of experience: one moment you are in one place and you walk through a door and find yourself in an entirely different place with different beings, surroundings and circumstances. Souls who have little to no spiritual development and hence spiritual protection find themselves there. Those who are addicted to some aspect of the physical dimension (drugs, alcohol, tobacco, sex, gambling, materiality, etc) find themselves there by the law of attraction. Jesus said that he who is filthy let him remain filthy still. There is no spiritual development while in the Astral Plane and nothing good can come from it. Misqualified energy; the energy of God misqualified by man; takes on hideous forms. It is literally a "dog eat dog" kind of place as various "entities" seek to sustain themselves by scavenging energy from other entities.
People who have opened themselves to a level of Astral consciousness can become "possessed" by entities from the Astral Plane. The Gadarene Demoniac was infested with legions of these entities when Jesus cast them out of him into a swine herd. Much of the healing that Jesus and the Disciples did was by casting these Astral beings out of people.
The Etheric Plane also has 33 levels of heaven from Devacon (wish fulfillment) to just below the Ascended Octaves of Light. St Paul talked of meeting a man; whether in the body or out of the body he knew not; such an one caught up unto the Seventh Heaven (the seventh level of the etheric plane). Advanced souls who have put on and become their Christ identity abide in the Ascended Octaves and they maintain Spiritual Etheric Retreats which are schoolrooms of the spirit. Souls can attend these schools in their etheric body. The Royal Teton Retreat over the Grand Teton mountains, WY, is open to all who ask.
definitly.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this( regardless of the egg/chicken question-
You may find it useful to read: "The Tibetan Yogas of Dream and Sleep" by Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche. ISBN: 81 208 2003 7
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMany nightmares are NOT our own but are IMPOSED as psychic, telepathic attack by discorporate, unseen negative thought entities, from demons to reptilian aliens who feast from angst; clinicians trained in Jungian and Freudian ilks have not a single clue about such untowards spiritual realities.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNightmares violate the basic premise of dreams as illustrated by the convenience 'bathroom' dream; they wake you, rather than lie to you and keep you asleep.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNightmares are imposed as telepathic, psychic attack by ethereally feasting discorporate negative thought entities, from demons, to ghosts to reptilian grey aliens all of who are nighttime bedroom intruders capable and noted for imposing nightmares, their signature symptom.
Any clinician trained in Freudian/Jungian theories hasn't the remotest clue about such unseen predators nor about providing patients metaphysical practical psychic self defenses towards such unseen entities.
The human mind is part of the quantum physics of the universe and receives and transmits; it is NOT a closed system unto itself.
Psychiatry is a eon behind any such revelation of the untoward ontology of nightmares.
A must have iPhone / iPad App for dream journal entries and dream interpretation.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI found this gem over a random google search. Great for dream interpretation!
This app has a wealth of keywords which help identify what your dream is about. The app lets
your entries be organized into a calendar so you can easily go back, re-read, and edit your
entries, and you can sync it with your personal calendar to better organize your entry log.
Link = http://itunes.apple.com/app/morpheus-dreams-advanced-dream/id508437774?mt=8
You awake with a pounding heart because nightmares are caused by a pounding heaet.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou awake with a pounding heart because nightmares are caused by a pounding heaet.
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