Nightmares can arise for a number of reasons—stress, anxiety, irregular sleep, medications, mental health disorders—but perhaps the most studied cause is post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
In particular, nightmares can be an indicator of mental health problems, such as anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder and depression.
While the functionality and meaning of nightmares vary, they typically function to make us aware of a problem that is or could affect us mentally, emotionally, or physically.
While nightmares are associated with certain mental health conditions, such as PTSD, anxiety and depression, nightmares aren't considered a psychiatric illness. They're a type of parasomnias, which are behavioral sleep abnormalities.
Contents. Occasional bouts of nightmares do not require treatment. However, when nightmares become frequent to the point of causing dysfunction in someone's work, school, and/or home life, the individual may be experiencing nightmare disorder (formerly called dream anxiety disorder) and should seek help.
Nightmares may be an intense expression of the body working through traumatic experiences, so intense that the nightmare causes the sleeper to wake up. Nightmares may also represent a breakdown in the body's ability to process trauma.
Nightmares can be triggered by many factors, including: Stress or anxiety. Sometimes the ordinary stresses of daily life, such as a problem at home or school, trigger nightmares. A major change, such as a move or the death of a loved one, can have the same effect.
Some scientists speculate that nightmares are an indication of emotional dysregulation — meaning that what we suppress during waking life arises during sleep. It's called dissociation, and often, during REM sleep and during a nightmare, the dampening of emotional experience that comes with disassociation is unlocked.
Sometimes the dreams we have seem so real. Most of the emotions, sensations, and images we feel and visualize are those that we can say we have seen or experienced in real life. This is because the same parts of the brain that are active when we are awake are also active when we are in certain stages of our sleep.
Scientists and psychologists, old and new, tell us that dreams reveal critical aspects about ourselves. Dreams are a reflection of your recent state of mind, future possibilities, and changes that you have experienced. Related Blog: Do I Really Need 8 Hours of Sleep a Night?
Some epidemiological studies suggest that experiencing enacted dreams can predict an 80% chance of developing a neurodegenerative disease within the patient's lifetime. RBD affects an estimated 0.5 to 1.25 percent of the general population and is more commonly reported in older adults, particularly men.
Nightmares about falling were followed closely by dreams about being chased (more than 63 percent). Other distressing nightmares included death (roughly 55 percent), feeling lost (almost 54 percent), feeling trapped (52 percent), and being attacked (nearly 50 percent).
Sometimes it means our spirit is not aligned with what's happening in our lives at the moment. When we are having frequent nightmares, something is imbalanced in our lives or our nervous systems, and our subconscious minds are asking for our attention.
Sleep terrors differ from nightmares. The dreamer of a nightmare wakes up from the dream and may remember details, but a person who has a sleep terror episode remains asleep. Children usually don't remember anything about their sleep terrors in the morning.
Comparisons were then conducted for daily stressors, life stressors, social support, and coping. Most notably, this study demonstrated a positive association between nightmares and coping with stress.
Upon waking up from a nightmare, it's normal to be acutely aware of what happened in the dream, and many people find themselves feeling upset or anxious. Physical symptoms like heart rate changes or sweating may be detected after waking up as well.
A bad dream might help people in waking life. The hypothesis "sleep to forget, sleep to remember REM sleep strengthens emotional memories, safely storing them away, and also helps to tone down our subsequent emotional reactions to those events.
If you're having nightmares, you might want to turn down the air conditioning. Researchers warn that sleeping in a warm room causes your dreams to become more vivid, and that could lead to more intense nightmares.
Nightmares are complex, because they're not only caused by anxiety - they can also cause anxiety in themselves. Those that have nightmares may often find themselves losing sleep and experiencing stress and anxiety throughout the day. They may feel scared to go to sleep or worry that they are going “mad”.
When someone experiences nightmares from PTSD, they can seem very real to them. They might feel like they are back in a situation that is not safe, the traumatic experience that caused the disruption in the first place. Symptoms can keep them awake or unable to fall asleep for long periods of time.
Women with PTSD may be more likely than men with PTSD to: Be easily startled. Have more trouble feeling emotions or feel numb. Avoid things that remind them of the trauma.