I have constant nightmares. What early childhood events influence these nightmares?

Answer 1

Hi,

I have a sleep disorder that causes me to have nightmares. I have had it for 13 years now.

My doctor has told me that it can be a number of things that cause this to happen.

1. Childhood trauma
The sad thing about this is some people never know what really happened to them when they were little. My mother in law to be got in a bad accident 10 years ago and now she is stricken with terrible memories of being molested by her father. She knew her father was a mean and bad man and he was physically abusive, but the car crash had stirred up locked memories. Children push things back in order to survive.

2. Stress.
All people handle stress differently. Your dreams are a mirror of what your mind is going through at any time. If you notice, your dreams always incorprate things that have just happened or that you have just seen (this is why scary movies give people nightmares. It is still fresh in their mind).

3. Depression
When people are depressed, their body hormones and chemicals are out of whack. This makes it hard for your body to produce the very necessary ceratonin.

Everyone gets depressed from time to time, but some of us have chronic depression and it is an imbalance we have to live with. Depression causes weight gain and loss, sleep deprevation, too much sleep and night terrors. Depression also causes your immune system to suffer which makes it easier for your body to catch illness.

4. Health imbalance.
This could mean your weight, your nutrition, what you are and what you are not putting in your body. Vitamin deficiencies. Remember your brain is the center of activity. Your brain does everything from tell your eyes to blink to turning your moods.

Here are some of the things I do to keep my dreams in check. I have had this disorder for a long time and have gone to sleep clinics and research facilites to find out what is making me night terror.

I partake in regular exercise.
Exercise keeps your endorphins and ceratonin levels up. Ceratonin is the chemical that your body produces to make you happy. This also helps me keep my body fit and healthy. It helps reduce stress and tension.

I take vitamin B12 to regulate my energy levels.
This makes sure that I am getting the right amounts of sleep. It helps give me a normal sleeping pattern. It is proven that those who have a stable and steady sleep pattern sleep better.

I eat healthy and drink lots of water to flush my body of toxins. Even the smallest imbalance makes people cranky, depressed (depression - night terrors is a symptom of depression).

I read as much as I can about my disorder.
Humanizing your disorder and learning that it is normal and that there are things you can do and people you can talk to, make it easier to get better.

I was abused as a child, so I went into therapy to help me find inner strength and quit victimizing myself. I took the power away from my abusers. It makes my nightmares less horrific and sometimes they are weird and not scary.

Try lucid dreaming.
Lucid dreaming is a technique where you are in a state of sleep where you know you are dreaming and you can control your dreams. You can make people and things disappear, you can fly, you can also feel better in control or the simple fact of knowing that you are in your bed and it is a dream. The terrible thing about nightmares is that you usually don't know you are dreaming until you scream yourself awake, or you wake someone else up. There are tons of books on lucid dreaming and I highly recommend looking into it.

Edgar Cayce is a famous Dream psycologist. Look his work up for sure. When you identify objects and colours in your dreams, they don't always mean something bad. Hair loss for instance, in a dream it means a great and good change is on its way.

I had a recurring dream (for a year) that my sister and I were running from a tidal wave that was about to engulf the city. We went to the tallest building we could find and laid on the bed. Everything in the room was bright yellow.

I found out that the yellow actually stood for love and happiness and was a symbol of my feelings for my sister whom I was trying to protect so much. That helped me recognize the dream and I stopped having it.

Try meditation. I meditate to clear my head.

I hope some of this helps you. Your problems hits close to home for me and I sympathize with you. I had to struggle helpless with my terrors for 9 years before I got help. Now you have some ideas to help you.

Definitely talk with your doctor. And remember, sometimes pills are not the answer. I went on many anti depressants and it made my dreams worse. But, it doesn't hurt to try. :)

Sincerely,

Allie

Answer 2

It is my theory that nightmares are nature's way of trying to wake you up. It could be so you go to the bathroom. It could be because your blood sugar is low. The fastest way to check this out is to have a snack before going to bed. Try 1-2 oz of turkey, a cookie and some almonds or peanuts. Try this for a week, and see if your nightmares let up any.

Mine did, when I got into controlling my blood sugar.

Answer 3

There has to be something traumatic that happened in your life. What you have sounds like something called, "Post Traumatic Stress Disorder." You have terrible nightmares and jolt awake scared or even horrified. And the nightmares do not go away. They stay with you. It's like you can't get rid of them. You should see a therapist about this. It can get serious and worse.

Answer 4

depending on what happened in the past and what the nightmares are about. But they are mostly caused by tragic events in your childhood.

Answer 5

It is not early childhood events that are causing your nightmares.
You're too hot or your stomach is having a hard time digesting whatever you ate before going to bed. Or you got fungus in your brain.

Answer 6

It depends on what you are thinking from your child hood that had maybe you remember from what you had experienced earlier in you child years. Sometimes when you are in bed you start to think subconsciously what you remember earlier on.. I used to have nightmares from my child hood and my child years were not good not even to remember now. I try to block alot of it out...

Answer 7

it depend on the kind of nightmares u have.....it may be helpful to see a psychiatrist.

Answer 8

what are the nightmares? do you smoke? do you drink? do you stress? allot of factors go into why a person has nigtmares you know

Answer 9

possibly molestation or other types of abuse