Causes of nightmares. Nightmares in adults: causes and ways to combat them

Anxious dream

Instead of a sweet dream, thanks to which you can completely relax, you were tormented by a nightmare all night... You wake up in a cold sweat, your heart is pounding with terrible force, and for some time you try to understand: where are you and what is happening to you? The peak of anxiety gradually passes, you calm down a little, but you are clearly afraid to fall asleep. What if you dream about something terrible again, instilling great fear?

Such nightmares

Probably each of us has dreamed about it at least once in our lives.
However, you must admit what horror a person’s life will turn into if nightmares haunt him every day. A person who has nightmares looks confused. He does not understand the reasons for this condition, and does not see any way to get rid of them. However, it is possible and necessary to deal with this before the nightmares
completely undermine your health.

Cartoon "The Nightmare Before Christmas"

What to do if you had a bad dream?

• After you wake up from a bad dream, look out the window and say: “Where the night goes, there goes the dream!” or “Dreams are nights. Joy to the day. Sleep has no power over my day!”
• You can quickly go to the bathroom, half asleep, turn the tap on full, lean towards the water and say: “The water flows away, it takes away bad dreams!”
• It is also beneficial to recite the bija mantra Hum three times. That is, to say: “Hum, hum, hum!” This mantra drives away evil spirits and entities, protects from negative influences from the outside, bad energies from the surrounding space, in a word - from evil spirits.

After this, you don’t need to tell anyone about your bad dream. Since childhood, many have remembered, I don’t know where it came from, that bad dreams cannot be told before the 11th day. I am sure: it is generally better not to retell scary dreams and nightmares, not to remember or try to recreate them in memory. Bad dreams must be forgotten!

If you said a “drive away” bad dream and did not tell the dream, or better yet, forgot it, then there is no danger to expect. You haven't given energy to the scary scenario, and it has no chance of somehow affecting your real life.

What's to blame?

First of all, you need to take a good look at your nervous system. Do you often get nervous? How emotionally busy your day was, and what is your personal attitude towards everything that is happening around you. The task is, in fact, not an easy one, and you will most likely need a competent psychotherapist who will help you understand the reasons that led to this condition. Often the cause of night terrors

are troubles at work, in the family, the loss of a loved one, moving to another place of residence and much more.

Other causes of nightmares include:

• eating fatty and spicy foods, especially at night. As you know, spicy food increases body temperature, which significantly speeds up metabolism. And this in turn prevents you from fully resting;
• sleeping position. It often happens that a person just needs to change the room or move the bed, and the nightmares recede. Therefore, if dreams disturb you, then try to change your place of rest first. Maybe at this stage you will be able to avoid problems;
• excessive alcohol consumption;
• excessive physical activity, which has a negative effect on the adrenal glands. In this situation, the adrenal glands do not control the process of sugar utilization, which leads to a decrease in blood glucose levels, and as a result - poor restless sleep;
• taking certain medications;
• diseases that increase body temperature. Most often this is .

Short horror films

Why do you have bad dreams??? Not horror films with fictional characters, but simply from life... see ext.

Answers:

Arthur Khaidarov

This is probably due to illness..

Irina Evtushenko

Scary dreams are usually dreamed to warn a person about danger of various kinds. A wooden house dreams of certain restrictions in your life. Cats and dogs usually represent your friends, and since they are dead, they need your help in something. Worms to disease.

Kashtanka

Seeing a dead person in a dream is an unfavorable sign. Seeing worms in a dream means that the intrigues of selfish acquaintances lie in wait for you.

Ksenia Romanova

If you dream of one of your loved ones being dead, the dream is a warning: you must bravely face some kind of test, maybe even loss. Hearing the voice of a deceased friend in a dream is bad news. To a person who has a dream about death, such a dream is sent as a warning. Talking to your deceased father in a dream is an encouragement for you to carefully think through the business you are starting and all the operations associated with it. The dream warns of intrigues being plotted by someone against you. After such a dream, men and women should think about their behavior with greater prudence and take care of their reputation. A conversation in a dream with a deceased mother is perceived as a call to control your inclinations and pay attention to your health. A conversation with a deceased brother is a sign that someone needs your help and compassion. If someone who died appears cheerful and lively to you in a dream, this means that you have organized your life incorrectly, that such serious mistakes are possible that will affect your entire destiny, unless you mobilize the will to eliminate them. If, in a conversation with a deceased relative, he tries to wrest some kind of promise from you, the warning is that you must resist the impending despondency, a period of decline in business, and listen more carefully to wise advice. A voice in a dream belonging to a deceased relative is the only real form of warning sent by an external force from the near future that our sleeping brain can perceive. Even in Paracelsus, we find advice to pay great attention to what the shadows of deceased loved ones appear to us in a dream: a sleeper can even receive advice from the dead in a dream, and experience shows that their use brought the desired results; the shadow of a deceased person close to us merely awakens dormant areas of the brain, bringing to life the knowledge hidden in them.

Consult a doctor

Oddly enough, some reputable scientists claim that a nightmare can be beneficial for human health, if, of course, it occurs rarely. The whole point is that horror in a dream, as it were, trains the human psyche, and in real life a person resists such troubles more steadfastly.

However, if a nightmare has become an everyday (or frequent) occurrence for you, and you are unable to cope with it, then you should immediately contact a specialist. You definitely need the help of a psychotherapist. Often nightmares indicate the presence of neuroses and chronic anxiety. It is almost impossible to cope with this on your own, since psychoanalysis is also necessary here, and a person is not able to analyze himself.

Cartoon "Coraline in the land of nightmares"

When can horror dreams occur?

Scary dreams mostly occur late at night, with the worst phase lasting only a couple of minutes. But despite such a short duration, the human body reacts very violently to a dream. The heartbeat begins to quicken, and in some cases trembling occurs throughout the body, so the dreamer often wakes up screaming and

Many experts believe that a nightmare can be not only a reaction of the subconscious to certain events in life, but also a signal that you need to think about the state of your health. Therefore, in order to clearly understand what to do when you have bad dreams, you need to identify the problem of their occurrence.

Do it yourself

What can you do yourself to reduce the risk of a nightmare?

at night? Try reformatting some of your habits and you may feel relief.

• Try to fall asleep around 22-00.
• Before going to bed, ventilate the room thoroughly. In non-cold seasons, it is better to sleep with the window open.
• Review your diet. Give preference to low-fat and non-spicy foods. The last meal should be no later than 3 hours before bedtime.
• Protect yourself from watching action films, horror films
  and all programs with a negative connotation, especially at night. Switch to comedies and light genre.
• Before going to bed, it is best to take a walk for at least half an hour in the fresh air.
• You can drink it before going to bed. This will calm you down and help you sleep soundly.
• If necessary, you can take a sleeping pill (donormil, etc.), which regulates the duration and structure of sleep, and also has a mild sedative effect.

Scientists say that about 5% of our planet's population suffers from regular nightmares. From time to time, any person has dreams in which he escapes from being chased, tries to hide from terrible monsters, gets into car accidents and plane crashes, loses loved ones, and dies from illness. Bad dreams can signal a real problem and cannot be ignored. It is important to understand why you have nightmares.

Interpretation of scary dreams

The only cure for bad dreams is to understand what causes them. It was not for nothing that you jumped up from a terrible picture that caused heart palpitations, cold sweat and a painful mood for the rest of the day.

They don't like nightmares. It is considered a separate mental disorder, a disease. They begin to think about how to get rid of bad dreams and treat them. And treating nightmares is like killing black cats, believing that they bring bad luck. Cats, thank God, are not shot, but nightmares are treated. Nothing works, however, but they diligently treat - both for money and for good money. Not realizing that scary pictures in themselves do not play a role.

Very scary dreams are a means of drawing our attention to a process that is already happening or could happen in the future.

How do bad dreams happen?

Let us be clear that such dreams are an information code of the subconscious, specially expressed in scary pictures to attract our attention. Either the body sent it, tired of carefully reminding the dreamer of its suffering, or the signal came from the external environment, attracting your attention.

Yes, I would like to ask, is it possible to be more gentle, why scare us like that? Your request will not be heard, just as the crackling of atmospheric discharges will not hear you, frightening you with thunderclaps. Dreams are physical phenomena and they automatically convey to us signals that we should immediately pay attention to.

Let's reverse it.

Calmly translate the images of a terrible dream

The paradox is that we don’t even know what we were afraid of. We were told a phrase in an unknown language, and we are terrified. Can we clarify what we are talking about?

Illustration by artist Victoria Frolova for the book Scary Tales.

Let's build a chain of obtained images. Let's look into my Dream Book.

Maybe after the transfer all the tension from the bad dream will disappear. Scary images can frighten the Consciousness, but in reality they mean very pleasant things. The subconscious mind speaks its own language, and the Consciousness speaks its own. And we suffer from their mutual misunderstanding. Let's say, a mother's worst dream is when something bad happens to her child. But if you look at the image of the Child

, then we see that there is cause for concern, but only because of our own health problems.

Remember, a nightmare is always an exaggeration. Emotions, colors, pictures.

Pay attention when it’s scary not after waking up, but when you’re sleeping. This means that we will experience the same emotions in reality.

Where were we in the nightmare?

If we are an observer, then in real life we ​​will remain one. We turned on the TV, looked on the Internet - and there was another emergency. So they showed the future experience. Therefore, we pay attention only to those plots in which the dreamer is a participant in the events.

Action in a nightmare

To interpret scary dreams, you need to understand not only the meaning of the main images, but also the action - what happens to them. As in a sentence: noun + verb. Whatever happens, watch the ending. If it is positive, then the negative process shown will end positively for the dreamer.

When there is no ending, then it has not developed in the present, and, therefore, it can be changed in any direction we need.

Analyzing

About four months after my husband’s death, I dreamed that I was walking with my child through the cemetery where my husband was buried. Only a cemetery without monuments and fences. I approach my husband’s grave, and the earth on his grave collapses, disappears from under my feet, and I go with it. I start to crawl out, it’s difficult to do, but I get out... I go for help, because I need to bury the grave, but for some reason I get to the hospital.

Cemetery - Deceased - Fall

We substitute the values ​​from the Dream Interpretation:

Past - Experiences, psychological trauma - Dramatic turn of the situation.

We see that the psychological state of the dreamer who lost her husband is reflected. “Without monuments and fences” - there is still no established attitude towards loss. The picture “the ground on his grave is collapsing, disappearing from under my feet, and I am with it” - shows that the dreamer is crossing the line beyond which it is worth stopping in her experiences.

We watch the ending - the dreamer crawls out of the grave - “it’s difficult to do, but I’m crawling out...”. The last action showed that the dreamer has the resource to survive the loss.

Nightmares are a symptom of the disease

Why do I have nightmares at night? English scientists working on sleep issues have recorded an interesting incident. For several months, a man suffered from a dream in which his mother stabbed him in the stomach with a knife. This man was eventually diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. As it turned out, the unfortunate man ate heavy, fatty food, undesirable for such a problem, and it was his mother who prepared it.

According to doctors, negative dreams can indicate a disease present in a person. It is interesting that poor sleep can serve as the first symptom of a mild cold. Night terrors can tell about a serious illness even a couple of months before the first signs appear. Of course, somnologists are trying to identify patterns by analyzing the plots of “sleepy” adventures.

Real illnesses and dreams

Studying the plots of negative dreams, according to experts, may indicate specific diseases. Why do you have nightmares in which a person drowns, falls, falls underground, and lacks air? It is possible that his disease relates to the lungs or cardiovascular system. Problems with the joints and spine are indicated by frightening dreams associated with lifting heavy objects, uncomfortable shoes, and the need to squeeze through a narrow gap.

Why do people have nightmares about teeth falling out, food disappearing, seeing blood, or smelling disgusting odors? This may serve as a signal of disturbances in the gastrointestinal tract. Toxic poisoning and infectious diseases trigger emotional, colorful bad dreams. Persecution and pursuit predict Alzheimer's disease, indicate a tendency towards it, and the possibility of memory loss.

Causes of nightmares

If you have nightmares from time to time and would like to sleep more peacefully, pay attention to your overall lifestyle. The reasons are most often more than banal:

• Horror movies before bed . What you thought about is what you dreamed about;
• Poor nutrition, overeating . It’s not just the stomach that’s bad—the whole body suffers. The body does not feel comfortable and cannot relax, so there is nothing surprising in bad dreams;
• Common cold . Any physical discomfort can be accompanied by nightmares, and this is also quite natural;
• Poor conditions for recreation . If you sleep on an uncomfortable sofa, in a stuffy environment, or vice versa, in the cold, you are unlikely to have a peaceful and pleasant dream;
• Alcohol abuse . Excessive consumption of alcoholic beverages often leads to nightmares, and people who are prone to binge drinking are especially susceptible to this;
• Pregnancy . During pregnancy, a woman’s physical and mental state changes not only - she reacts to every little thing, becomes too suspicious and worries not only about herself, but also about the unborn child;
• Overwork . Being overtired makes it difficult for you to relax. The body may “switch off” instantly, but these words no longer apply to the brain.
• Nervous stress . The most unpleasant reason why people have nightmares. Read about this below in full detail.

Nightmares and psychology

Modern psychologists pay maximum attention to dreams; in their opinion, dreams are a vivid reflection of a person’s current emotional state. Night terrors become frequent guests during difficult periods of life. These could be financial problems, professional dissatisfaction, difficulties in your personal life. There are certain patterns in why nightmares with repeating plots occur.

If a person in a dream falls from a great height or flies into an abyss, one can assume lack of self-confidence and being in a constant state of anxiety. Stiffness of movements, inability to speak, run, and a feeling of paralysis indicate a non-vain search for a solution to a confusing problem. An attack, a chase, or the entry of strangers into the house indicate dissatisfaction with oneself or certain aspects of one’s personality.

Natural disasters

People are afraid of being in the middle of a raging hurricane, flood or terrible tornado. This type of nightmare indicates that the sleeping person has been experiencing a feeling of fear or severe anxiety about upcoming unpleasant events in recent days.

Overeating is dangerous

The reason why you have nightmares is not always due to a serious illness. Even seemingly harmless overeating can become a reason for nighttime worries. Most often, those who indulge in fatty and spicy foods and are addicted to sweets complain about negative dreams. The popular Atkinson diet, which is based on protein-rich, high-calorie foods and no carbohydrates, has been sharply criticized by doctors. Such a diet “overloads” the brain, causing it to generate various horrors.

Even a small amount of food right before bed activates metabolism and digestive processes, pushing the brain to work actively. The result is often scary dreams. It is advisable not to eat anything at all for at least three hours before plunging into the sleepy kingdom. Fasting days are very useful in terms of falling asleep peacefully; dreams will be positive.

Going to bed on an empty stomach is not at all necessary; it is even harmful. It is easy to get rid of hunger pangs with the help of warm milk, honey, and natural juices.

Bad habits

Alcohol, caffeine, and energy drinks are common answers to the question of why you constantly have nightmares. The agitated subconscious cannot calm down. By the way, people who have just given up alcohol often experience bad dreams.

Research has also confirmed the negative effects of smoking on sleep. Cigarette abuse interferes with complete relaxation and rest. You should not sleep much during the day, even if sleep comes at night, its character will take on depressing, severe forms. Only a short nap of half an hour is useful.

When you can ignore it

Not every bad dream needs attention. Before panicking, a person should find out the following facts:

• on what day of the week did you have the nightmare, did the dream come from Thursday to Friday;
• what events happened in a person’s life, was there any stress;
• what is the person's health status?

Often bad dreams occur because a person is very nervous and worried about something. It is in this case that an unpleasant dream should be ignored.

What position is best to sleep in?

Doctors strongly discourage people from sleeping on their stomachs. This habit becomes the source of many problems and often causes nightmares. The chest is compressed, the functioning of the lungs becomes difficult, and the amount of oxygen entering the body is reduced. The position of the head in this position is also incorrect; turning it 90 degrees reduces the quality of nutrition of the brain.

By falling asleep on your back, a person is doing the right thing. Complete muscle relaxation is ensured, neck tension does not occur, and digestive processes are improved. It is important that your shoulders do not lie on the pillow, your head does not lean forward or tilt back. This position is best for sleeping. The mystery of why you have nightmares on your back does not lie in the choice of this position.

Night fears of men and women

Numerous studies indicate that scary adventures in women's and men's dreams are different. Women more often see in their dreams the death of a loved one, rape, negative changes in appearance, and interpersonal conflicts. Men “experience” life-threatening situations, disasters (earthquake, flood), wars, job loss. Failing exams is a common theme and it is not just students who experience this shock.

Why do pregnant women often have nightmares? Expecting a child is associated with hormonal changes, which always affect the brain. The main fears of expectant mothers are difficult childbirth, miscarriages, the birth of a sick baby, and kidnapping of a baby.

Working with Omens

Despite the fact that most of our dreams are just a reflection of daytime experiences and thoughts, we shouldn’t completely dismiss the existence of prophetic dreams either. Perhaps each of us can remember at least a few cases from our lives when what we saw in a dream was embodied in reality, and sometimes - exactly down to the smallest detail. And it’s good if we like the dream. But is it possible to prevent a nightmare from becoming a reality? If the bad dream you had was convincing, then first of all there is no need to panic. Dreams always warn, and if we dream of them, it means there is always time and opportunity to avoid trouble. Sometimes it is enough to change just a detail in your behavior, and the trouble will pass by.

You cancel your decision to go to a party or go on a date with a stranger, take a different route to work, or simply take the opportunity to take a day off today and devote it to household chores. It seems that these are little things, but in this way you change your behavior scenario, and therefore the course of events in your life changes. For convinced fatalists who firmly believe that what is destined cannot be changed, there is also a suitable method in esotericism. You take a step towards what you saw in your dream. Yes, you go to a party where you dreamed of an unpleasant event or accept an invitation to a date from your new acquaintance. But you take these steps deliberately, being as aware of every smallest action as possible. And yes, don’t forget to prepare for the fact that at some point in time something may not go as planned. Here you will be helped out by a combination of vigilance, intuition and readiness to fight back against any trouble. You do not avoid a bad omen, but you are ready to counteract troubles.

The child has bad dreams

Why does my child have nightmares? Children's bad dreams are associated with fears that the child often creates on his own. Their source can be scary stories - creepy old women, black houses, cemeteries, spiders. A son or daughter may be afraid of moving to a new school, worried about family conflicts, afraid of parents' divorce, or suffering due to the death of a pet.

The source of a negative dream in a child, as in adults, can be illness; often bad dreams become companions of elevated temperature. By the way, you should take a hot bath at least two to three hours before going to bed. Some medications have side effects, for example, antidepressants, antihistamines.

Films or computer games that contain scenes of violence are contraindicated for children. Such stories often return to them in dreams.

Dream Interpretation Nightmare, why do you dream about a Nightmare in a dream?

Psychoanalytic dream book Dream book: A nightmare to see in a dream

Nightmare – A nightmare expresses intense mental conflict, most likely centered on some form of repressed sexual desire. These desires are practically not realized, accompanied by fear, which turns erotic dreams into a nightmare. Fear, which is the basis of the nightmare experience, is associated with an internal guilt complex, often coming from prohibition and suppression of desire. Pressure on the chest or ribcage, leading to heavy breathing or limited movement. Submission in the act of sexual intercourse in which the individual plays a passive role. Sadism and aggression. A combination of love with guilt and fear. If the desire is incestuous, then a strong feeling of internal guilt may be associated with punishment, expressed in impotence. In a certain area, dream incubation is successful in reflecting and alleviating guilt if it is atoned for through religious rites that facilitate the transfer of sin to a specific demon. Moreover, the process itself does not change, only the words change: libido is a dissolute demon, to which the individual does not feel responsible. It is not necessary to discover the source of an insoluble conflict, since all objects are known and presented in symbolic or real form. Just like fear of the dark, fear can be dispelled by working through the symbolic essence of figures and emotions in dreams. Nightmares of early childhood that occur or recur in middle age refer to a traumatic birth experience, as the dream book predictor reports.

Dream Interpretation of the 21st Century Why do you dream about a Nightmare?

Seeing a Nightmare in a dream
- Nightmares are seen before unfavorable events, followed by failures in business and quarrels with loved ones. For a young woman, this dream predicts disappointment. If she was tormented by nightmares in a dream, it means that she should start improving her health and be more picky about food.

Dream book of psychologist G. Miller Why do you dream about a Nightmare:

Nightmare - To dream that disgusting nightmares are pressing on you means disputes and failures in business. For a young woman, this dream predicts disappointment and undeserved neglect. This could also be a warning for the woman who saw this dream: to be careful with her health and food.

Vedic dream book Dream book: Nightmare to see in a dream

Nightmare - This dream suggests that you are being manipulated by stupid people. Be careful and attentive with them.

AstroMeridian.ru

Teenager has bad dreams

Why do teenagers have nightmares every night? Adolescence is one of the most favorable periods for scary dreams. Puberty occurs, conflicts with teachers, peers, and parents occur. There is a need to choose a future profession. Psychological maturity in most cases occurs much later, which leads to fears and worries.

Like children, teenagers can have bad dreams due to illness. The problem may be due to certain medications, their side effects or discontinuation. Lack of sleep schedule is harmful for teenagers. Also, negative consequences are possible due to too late dinners, which activate brain activity.

Nightmares and sports

Physical activity is good for health and effectively promotes healthy sleep. However, if a person overdoes heavy training, gets too carried away with exercise, nightmares will come to him often. In no case should you exercise before bed; the body should not receive serious stress three hours before going to bed. This applies to both adults and children.

But for healthy sleep, evening walks are simply invaluable. Views of the city at night, fresh air, the setting sun - an effective lullaby. The blood is fed with oxygen, clarity of consciousness comes. If you can’t go for a walk in the evening, you should definitely ventilate the bedroom. Stuffy rooms are one of the answers to the question of why you have nightmares every day.

Meditation promotes effective relaxation. A person plunges into his subconscious, relieves stress and gains balance. All this is the key to a comfortable sleep. Sexual contacts have approximately the same property. Hugs and kisses trigger a flow of positive emotions that can turn into pleasant dreams.

Things to do before bed

The shortest path to a nightmare is an emotional shock received in the evening. You can’t worry and scream; the subconscious will work through alarming situations even at night. It is better not to leave serious matters for the evening, not to create scandals. Even an unpleasant conversation on the phone can be a source of bad dreams.

Computer games and watching television also negatively affect human dreams. Even if we are not talking about scenes of violence, cruelty, or waves, magnetic waves propagated by the achievements of progress are enough to reduce the quality of recreation. They change brain activity, which can lead to negative dreams. Therefore, it is highly not recommended to place a TV in the bedroom.

And finally, when fighting bad dreams, you should carefully examine your own bed. It should be as comfortable as possible. A good orthopedic mattress, properly selected blanket and pillow will reduce the likelihood of nightmares to a minimum.

Do you often have nightmares? What to do and how to get rid of them?

There was a lively discussion about dreams in the childbirth preparation group. What kind of dreams do pregnant women have: rainbow and colorful or gloomy and nightmarish?

Oksana was about 30 years old and was expecting her first child. She said that she was bothered by the same unpleasant dream: “I’m running away along a deserted street, a man is running after me, but I still can’t escape.”

This dream was repeated so often that when she woke up, she felt overwhelmed. While working with Oksana, she talked a little more about her dream: “I run and run into my yard, where I spent my childhood. Mom still lives there, the man runs after me, and then I wake up.”

I, as a psychologist, said: “Let’s see what happens in your soul when I tell you that mom opened the door.”

Oksana seemed to have a push from within, her eyes opened wide, she said: “Mom, I don’t know what changes will happen to me after the birth of a child, but I’m counting on your help.”

Thus, Oksana subconsciously expected her mother’s help, and the dream clearly testified to this, but their real relationship (her mother’s everyday hyperprotection) did not allow them to say this openly.

Later, during subsequent meetings, Oksana said that she began to quarrel with her mother more often, because she perceived her care as an annoying service, and still did not want to realize that she was counting on her help.

Our dreams are our key to our subconscious!

If you are plagued by stress during the day, you have to experience aggression, feel anxiety and this whole “bouquet” of experiences has to be suppressed, problems are not solved in any way, and there is no way out for emotions, then you can expect that these experiences will find a way out in nightmares. Nightmares are a product of brain activity that cannot cope with stress and negativity in the waking state.

Our unconscious part is trying to tell us that something needs to change. Perhaps there is an unresolved problem that keeps us in suspense, and for various reasons we put off solving it, maybe even avoid thinking about it. The source of restless dreams can be work, significant changes in life, upcoming exams, worries about financial issues, etc.

A dream speaks to us in the language of symbols, signs, which we can decipher on our own. When you wake up, you can ask yourself: “What could this dream mean? What message is my subconscious sending me?

Try to treat your nightmares as advisors who help you see what you are hiding from and do not want to admit to yourself during the day. When you realize your problems, get rid of inner fear, resolve emotional conflicts, then disturbing dreams will stop visiting you.

According to S. Freud: “Dreams are the royal road to the unconscious.”

From the point of view of psychoanalysis, dreams are a reflection of a person’s unconscious images and desires. Sigmund Freud believed that the meaning of a dream is the fulfillment of our desire, which can be conscious or unconscious.

And even if you have nightmares in which a person experiences fear or anxiety, Freud argued that every dream is the fulfillment of a wish.

Fear, anxiety, and horror experienced in a dream are censorship that prevents one from receiving pleasure from prohibited actions. Thus, the desire to show aggression towards another person or some forbidden sexual action can be deeply hidden in a person’s subconscious and protected by internal censorship with the help of nightmares.

The subconscious speaks in symbols and images.

For each person, this or that event, this or that plot carries its own personal meaning, which is why it is so important to find out the feelings and emotions of a person in relation to what he saw in a dream.

That is why you should not rely heavily on dream books, since the same symbol, the same image, can carry completely different semantic meanings for different people.

When analyzing and interpreting dreams, it is better to rely on your own feelings. It is very useful to interpret dreams in dialogue, which allows you to see the dream both from the inside from the position of the person who saw the dream) and from the outside (from the position of an outside observer of the dream being told).

Analyzing your own dreams can be very useful.

Sleep is a reflection of our unconscious. Everything that we don’t like or don’t accept is repressed into the unconscious and from there, sometimes, like on a movie screen, it is projected to us in a dream. That is why Z. Freud, C. Jung and many other classics of psychology used dream analysis to interpret a person’s real life. At a conscious level, we do not always convey true information about our lives, our worries and fears. Everything that causes mental stress and we, for some reason, do not make decisions about the necessary actions in our daily lives, is repressed into the unconscious and we simply will not see it on a conscious level. In addition, we will clearly fight against unfair suspicions of psychologists and psychotherapists in working with us.

In our dreams, we do not always see verbatim facts from our personal lives. They can be presented in the form of symbols and images.

And yet, if we are restless after sleep, we are bothered by nightmares and unpleasant stories that are simply frightening, it means that there are unresolved problems in life and we cannot solve them on our own.

Nightmare

(French
Cauchemar
, from Old French
caucher
- to crush and
mare
- night ghost) - a frightening, disturbing, terrible dream.
In mythology, nightmares are often explained by the action of otherworldly forces.
In the Russian people, nightmares are considered the pranks of the brownie. Nightmares are often the subject of literary works and horror films. Medical sleep research shows that approximately three-quarters of the dream narrative and associated emotions are negative.

and, in turn, lead to interruption of the sleep cycle and awakening. On average this happens once a month. In children under 5 years of age, nightmares are rare, more often in children of primary school (25% of children once a week) and less often in adults - from 25 to 55 years old with a decreasing frequency.

Typically, a dream in the form of a nightmare takes on explicit plot forms, with the dreamer himself at the center of the plot. The plot develops in the form of a pursuit, a series of accidents, the result of which is usually the death of the dreamer, but at the very last moment he wakes up.

One of
the Optina elders
said this to his spiritual child in response to a question posed to him about dreams. “Don’t pay attention to dreams, they won’t come true.”

Excessive attention to dreams can not only deprive you of peace of mind and even lead to mental disorders, but also push you down the dangerous path of trusting temptations and suggestions.

Do you often have nightmares? Rarely for me. But just recently, for once, I was watching fascinating, but blood-rich TV series until one in the morning... the night was a waste: I tossed and turned, and woke up, and took part in some operations - brrrrrr.

What do I want to say with this introduction? The only thing is that nightmares don’t just happen. Nightmares always tell their owner that something is wrong in his life, that there are some repressed experiences that are worth remembering. And there may be several reasons. One of these reasons, the most banal and ordinary (in my case), but which can happen almost every evening for many, is a careless attitude towards one’s emotional health - watching a lot of TV series at night. This is especially harmful and contraindicated for women and children, as well as people suffering from various diseases. In this case, you should take more care of yourself and your emotional health. Fortunately, there is now a lot of literature that very popularly explains what is useful and what is not to do before going to bed....read....and, perhaps, by changing your habits before bed, you will significantly improve its quality, and therefore improve your health.

The next reason that can provoke nightmares at night is emotional trauma from childhood, various fears, and emotions of fear that are not responded to in a timely manner. In this case, it is best to contact a specialist who, in a safe atmosphere, will help you remember and relive the traumatic situation.

Nightmares can also indicate that a person’s conscience is too burdened with negative actions that are not visible to other people, but the person himself knows very well about them or continues to do them consciously. In this case, this is a question of morality and the values ​​that guide a person in his life, and God is his judge, and nightmares are a signal: what are you spending your life on?

Experienced personally or as a witness of various disasters: train, plane, etc. crashes, natural disasters (earthquakes, floods, etc.), tragic death in front of a person’s eyes, and so on. All this is also “favorable” soil for nightmares. In this case, the most important thing is to talk through all your emotions with someone before the first night. If this does not happen, then at the first sign of disturbing dreams, contact a psychologist, without bringing your condition to the point of needing to see a doctor.

Of course, there are many more causes and types of nightmares. The main thing is to always remember that this is not just the case, that there is always a WHY the dream becomes disturbing or nightmarish, and to take care of yourself in a timely manner. If not you, then no one. Take care of yourself and be healthy.

Why do you have nightmares? And what to do if this happens all the time? Let's look at the reasons for not the most positive dreams and talk about how to deal with them.

When you wake up in a cold sweat and remember with horror what happened in your dream, the idea that nightmares are useful seems absurd. But in fact, even from such an unpleasant phenomenon you can draw a lesson and learn something.

Any dream is a product of the work of your subconscious. Through sleep, it sends you certain signals that you can learn to read and decipher.

And nightmares are a colossal reboot of the subconscious, the release of negative energy and experiences. Agree, it is much better if the dark side of your personality manifests itself only in a dream, and not in real life.

How else can horror in dreams be useful:

1. Your subconscious is signaling: there is a problem. In real life, you may not notice it or not attach importance to some important circumstances that could end badly. Try to understand what your brain is telling you. Analyze what you need to focus on
2. The nervous system is unloaded. All negativity, stress, overwork and tension are released from consciousness, turning into nightmares. If you stop having bad dreams, it will all come out in real life, causing you great damage
3. Sometimes terrible dreams are a symbol of the end of the current stage of life. It's time for you to advance in your development and move on. This is an indication of some turning point, a sign that you need to free your living space from everything that interferes and destroys your personality

Analyze this information and think about what your subconscious is trying to communicate through creepy dreams? If you find the reason, the nightmares will stop happening every night very quickly.

Night Terror Analysis

First, you need to ask yourself questions: “What haunts me?”, “Why does this nightmare cause anxiety?”, “What exactly frightens me about these terrible dreams?”

What can haunt people in dreams often symbolizes a set of personal qualities of a person, as well as events, feelings and abilities that he rejects in his real life. The main task of psychoanalysis of night terrors is to understand what is repressed and not accepted in oneself and can subsequently cause such a strong nightmare.

Nightmares can also help to detect a pre-existing problem in the body that a person was completely unaware of in reality.

If scary dreams accompany turning points in life, then in the end there should be a good ending. Since nightmares in this case show a person that he has moved to a new level of his development.

Thus, having gotten rid of the deep psychological reasons, people can not only say goodbye to bad dreams forever, but also change their lives for the better.

Dreams are an amazing part of human life that has long worried our ancestors. Dreams can please, surprise, alarm, and bring news from the distant or near future. But do dreams always warn of future events? And what to do if you have a nightmare - just forget about it or still take precautions?

In the interpretation of a dream, the exact time at which you saw exciting images is very important. It is worth taking a closer look at your dream if you dreamed it on the eve of the New Moon or Full Moon. A dream at the beginning of a new lunar month forms trends in events for four weeks ahead and, as it were, warns you of possible troubles. However, a nightmare that occurs on the New Moon does not necessarily have to come true in detail. Such a dream simply tells you that you need to increase your vigilance or be wary of people with certain character traits.

Such a dream may also indicate the plans of specific people against you personally, so in any case, just be careful and remember that “forewarned is forearmed.” If a nightmare visited you during the Full Moon, then here too it is worth carefully analyzing the dream images. Most often, we receive warnings in this way about what needs to be done in the coming weeks to protect ourselves from possible trouble. The dream suggests that you have enough time to correct the situation, but you cannot hesitate. But bad dreams that occur on moonless days preceding the beginning of a new lunar cycle are most often empty and only say that it would be nice to work less hard and relax more in the next lunar month. Unpleasant events and people in dream scenes without a moon are just a reflection of our overwork.

How are horrors in dreams harmful?

Constant nightmares that repeat every night can be harmful. Especially if you are a very emotional and sensitive person.

The harm of nightmares can manifest itself in the following:

• Sleep becomes restless, you often wake up in the middle of the night. The body does not get proper rest due to insomnia, which is why real life suffers
• You wake up in a terrible mood, which causes everything to go wrong during the day. To avoid this, try not to think about what you dreamed about. By force of will, change your thoughts to more positive ones, do not focus on the problem
• If a person’s psyche is shaken, terrible dreams can cause fears, phobias, and, in rare cases, mental illness. This is easy to notice in children: the child dreams of a monster, and the child begins to be afraid to sleep in the dark

If your nightmares lead to serious negative consequences, it is very important to catch yourself in time and treat your sleep. Contact a psychologist or psychotherapist so as not to suffer even more.

Preventing Nightmares

1. If you are a light sleeper, then eliminate all sounds in the bedroom that interfere with sleep. Noise “paralyzes” the dream. 2. Move large clock faces out of the bedroom, away from your line of sight. You can hang them above your head or place them on the ground next to your bed. If you look at the clock before going to bed, you get the impression that time is passing more slowly, which then creates stress and agitation. 3. Lighting in the bedroom is very important. The eyelids allow light to pass through very easily, and simply closing your eyes may not be enough to maintain an adequate level of darkness for restful sleep. Good curtains or blinds should protect from light, lights from the street in the evening and at night, and from the first rays of the sun in the morning. If you like to read a book before bed, you should make sure that the light has a warm, natural color, preferably a low lamp power (but enough so as not to tire your eyes when reading text). 4. If you have trouble waking up, try exposing yourself to sunlight or bright light. This will restore biorhythms and, when dusk comes, it will be easier to fall asleep. 5. Always take care to change bed linen in a timely manner. Ventilate the room for a few minutes before going to bed. 6. Avoid extraneous strong odors in the bedroom (the smell of food, air freshener). 7. Do not bring food into the bedroom, the smell of food can make you hungry at the wrong time. Additionally, the presence of food in the bedroom can increase the likelihood of allergenic mold and mildew. 8. An hour before bedtime, you can allow yourself snacks containing carbohydrates, but do not exceed the calorie value of 100 - 200 calories (the number of calories is usually on the packaging of any food product). It is better to have a short snack in the evening, which will help prevent the desire to eat at night, hunger leads to loss of sleep. 9. During the day or 3-4 hours before bedtime, you should do physical exercise for at least 30 minutes. In addition, physical activity helps prevent stress, which is one of the main factors that disrupt sleep. 10. Room temperature is very important for sleep. The bedroom should be cooler than the rest of the apartment. It is better to choose a bedroom in an apartment with the fewest windows that are not located on the sunny side, or simply equip the room with air conditioning. 11. Limit your consumption of alcoholic beverages in the evening. After 19:00 it is better not to drink alcohol at all. Alcohol, at first, will make it easy to fall asleep, but the sleep will not be deep and intermittent. The more alcohol you drink, the more time your body needs to process it. Sleep during this period will be of poor quality; the fast phase will not occur on time. As a result, the likelihood of nightmares will increase. 12. You should not drink coffee and strong tea more than two cups a day. After 15.00 you should not drink coffee at all. Caffeine remains in the body for a significant period of time, and its presence can cause sleep disruption and fragmentation.

Following basic sleep hygiene principles will help eliminate many of the causes of parosomnia, but in some cases it may not be enough to resolve all problems associated with nightmares. Good sleep hygiene is essential for any planned treatment to have the desired beneficial effect.

Psychiatrist Kondratenko N.A.

Causes of terrible dreams

So, you understand what nightmares can mean and what consequences they can lead to. It remains to understand the reasons for this phenomenon.

Why do you have nightmares?

• In children, the reason is increased emotional sensitivity. This condition does not arise without reason. The problem lies in family relationships. Children see terrible dreams after physical or mental violence (dad hits him with a belt, mom practices sarcastic jokes), parents’ divorce, problems in the team
• If a person lives in a constant state of physical or mental overwork, gets very tired and is unable to cope with a bunch of problems, his subconscious will be relieved of overstrain in a dream
• Prolonged depression can also lead to nightmares. This also includes severe stress and vivid negative emotions that a person experiences for a long time. This is a colossal burden for the psyche and brain, and dreams solve the problem by freeing the mind from negativity
• Nightmares occur after a strong emotional shock: rape, a traffic accident, moral bullying. Or, for example, a person witnessed a murder - this event then haunts him for a long time in his dreams

It is worth noting that people with a strong psyche almost never dream of horror. Therefore, to prevent terrible night visions, work with your subconscious, strengthen your psycho-emotional state, and monitor your thoughts. Learn not to react sharply to negative events happening in the outside world.

Watch a video about why we have nightmares:

Changeling dreams as a good sign

For those who like a literal interpretation of night visions, there is good news - not every bad event that you dream about must necessarily come true in detail. If you see that a loved one is not feeling well, then this can be both a warning and a sign that he has a long and happy life ahead of him. Here, a lot depends on when you had this dream and on the details of the dream itself. Of course, if you are worried, it is better to turn to an experienced dream interpreter, but you should not immediately mentally say goodbye to your loved one.

A scandal with a loved one in a dream also does not always mean that it’s time to put an end to the relationship. Yes, the couple clearly has difficulties in expressing feelings, perhaps even some kind of understatement. But such a dream shows the possibility of a frank heart-to-heart conversation - not in a raised voice, but sincerely and respectfully towards your soulmate. And finally, let’s mention one more practice of working with unpleasant dreams. Having seen a bad dream, do not rush to open your soul to depressing thoughts. When you wake up, try to rewrite your dream, give it a different scenario and change the ending. Moreover, even the most incredible actions will be correct - you are not working with reality, but with your own dream, and in the kingdom of Morpheus everything is possible. If someone is chasing you, imagine how you easily jump over a tall barrier, or attack your offender.

What is very important here is that you need to “rewrite” your dream when you have just woken up, and the line between dream and reality is still thin and illusory. Not all dreams, including bad ones, must come true in reality. But often in dreams we receive information that allows us to prepare for events in the near future. You can interpret dreams not only with a weighty Dream Book in your hands, but also guided by lunar cycles, with the help of Runes and Tarot cards. The main thing is to remember that a dream occurs when we still have time and the opportunity to change our future. Have you ever had prophetic dreams? Or perhaps you have had to interpret dreams?

Everyone sees dreams, but not everyone remembers them. However, a bad dream is remembered much better than a “regular” one - which is why it sometimes seems that people have bad dreams more often than good ones.

By the way, not all bad dreams are nightmares; some unpleasant visions are called “night terrors” by somnologists (doctors who study human sleep). These nightmares appear at different stages of the night's rest. The REM sleep phase is that part of the “sleep cycle” during which nightmares usually occur: these are plot dreams that can roughly be called “horror films.” When a person wakes up, he remembers almost nothing, but the feeling of fear is imprinted in his memory.

Often, waking up from nightmares due to the release of adrenaline is accompanied by a rapid heartbeat and profuse sweating. Often people in such cases wake up from their own voice because they are screaming.

The deep phase of sleep after midnight is the time when night terrors may appear in dreams. Such a plot is dreamed of for a very short time - literally two or three minutes - but due to its intensity it makes an extremely painful impression on a person, and often drives the sleeper into severe fright.

Why do we all have scary dreams from time to time? Why do some people often dream of them, while others don’t see them at all? There is still no clear answer to this question; scientists name different reasons that can provoke night terrors and nightmares:

• Psychological crisis.
• Stress.
• Depression.
• Overwork.
• Diseases of a mental or neurological nature.
• Taking certain medications.
• Poor nutrition (eating fatty or spicy foods before bed, overeating).
• Alcohol.
• Hidden disease.
• Emotional shock or strong impressionability.

Scary dreams can even serve a person well. For example, suggest what exactly the problem is that needs to be solved in order to improve your well-being and mood. The main thing is to correctly interpret the “horror stories” that we dream about.