What causes nightmares?

Question

I have been having quite a few recently, waking up in a cold sweat feeling terrified. Life is good otherwise, why on earth could this be?

Answer 1

Hello scrosie,

No one knows for sure why we have nightmares, but often the content of nightmares is related to the stress in our waking lives, such as troubles at work or changes on the job, or problems with a loved one, moving, pregnancy, financial concerns, etc. However many people also experience nightmares unrelated to their waking lives. Dreaming is usually associated with a particular physiological stage of sleep, and nightmares often occur during that same time.

There is another disturbing situation that happens during sleep that is quite different from nightmares. It is called Night Terrors and happens during a different physiological stage of sleep as dreaming and nightmares. Night Terrors are characterized by the sleeper being left with an overwhelming sense of terror and little to no dream recall, maybe only able to remember a single scene of the dream or nothing, but, a sense of terror.

Night terror tends to happen early in the night, within a few hours of sleeping, and Nightmares typically occur later into sleep.

Stress can be a factor in adult night terrors. There is also the possibility of a sleep disorder. If it is not causing you distress or interferring with your quality of life, I'd say learn to enjoy the bad dreams as much as you do the good ones... after all, in a dream, anything is possible.. But if these nightmare episodes are so frequent that they are disturbing your waking life, you might consider a sleep study.

There is medication that can help with sleep disorders and night terrors, but as always, one must weigh the benefits with the side effects, and make a personal choice on what would be best for themself.

Good luck,

S

Answer 2

I too have a lot of nightmares. However, I don't know how to cause them. Maybe a lot of stress, or a fatigue. I enjoy some of them, but some are more than I can take. Often I wake up in a cold sweat, which is a rush. I'm happy about this: I don't remember all of the nightmares, so I don't have to relive them over and over again.

Answer 3

cause of nightmares are some supressed fears you have. taken the dream as a symbolic language of your brain, the nightmares are a try from your brain to point out something unsolved or supressed by yourself, that you now fear only subconsciously, could be the thought what is your new friend thinking about you, tomorrows exam, your own opinion about yourself(lacking self-confidence) or something as trivial as tomorrow´s exam. The more you are truthful to yourself, the easier are the dreams to read. when you consider the fact that you are the only person in front of whom you don´t have to be ashamed of anything, for the sake of your good sleep be honest to yourself in everything. your dreams will become readable and you will be able to eliminate the source of your nightmares. Wishing you a Good Night. :-)

Answer 4

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Answer 5

Well depends on the stress you have or what foods u have been eating. What do you eat or drink before bed? think of that stop eating or drinking that thing and yours nightmares should go away. But if you still have them think about your life see if anything has recently got you worried.....those are the main causes of nightmares though eating and stress

Answer 6

Try using ur brain during the day a lot more ie crosswords game of scrabble puzzles etc. Your brain will then be "tired" when you go to beddiebies and will sleep as soundly as the rest of your body
PS leave out the cheese toasties for supper as well

Answer 7

Its a very good question. I dont know the answer but....

There are books that explain dreams. I was dubious of them but my friend has one & one of my past dreams was in this book. I dreamt my teeth were falling out & aparently this means you lack self confidence - which is me all over. I say try a dream book

Answer 8

conscious and subconscious fears lead to the formation of nightmare visions. think about what it is you fear and how it works its way into your dreams. i had a nightmare last week that i was at the altar with an incredibly obese woman with whiskers on her chins. terrifying.

Answer 9

Sometimes if you eat too late.

I always seem to get nightmares if I am really hot while sleeping. Try to keep the temperature down at night so you don't get too hot during the night.

Answer 10

.Believe it or not its your subconscious working out the day to day things in your life just because its a bad dream doesn't mean your stressing just means your working out things .When there worked out they will stop. probably the holiday stress .If you can remember them and write them down You might realize what your working on in your dreams.

My husband did this when going to medical school he was dissecting brain parts in his sleep