Everyone has nightmares.  Being chased and terrorized, falling into a bottomless abyss, seeing a reflection of ourselves and discovering that our appearance has altered alarmingly. We may be a witness to a horrible event like someone we love disappearing or transforming into someone else or something unrecognizable.  We may be in the doctor’s office absorbing some traumatic diagnosis and prognosis. Sometimes the nightmare is more about our reaction to the events in the dream. When we tell someone about it, they laugh, failing to grasp it gravity and impact upon us, furthering the traumatic impact with confusion.  A rather depressing exemplification of, “You really needed to be there.”

Upon awakening, soaked in sweat, sometimes screaming out loud, heart beating fast – so relieved to discover it was a nightmare and not waking life!

The meaning of the nightmare is as individual as we are, however there are several common reasons for having nightmares.  One is trauma.  We may not allow ourselves to reflect upon a traumatic event because the effects are still too raw.  Our consciousness however must integrate and file these experiences into our psychic makeup.  Our psyche is compelled to give them context and meaning in an aim to reach a place of peace and acceptance.

A Fear Has Breached Our Normal Defences

There are many reasons for nightmares; fear of failure, poor health or a necessary health alert, or feeling victimized.  Being bullied generates nightmares in a victim of any age. Being faced with a difficult choice, behaving in a manner unfamiliar to our self-concept, abandonment, loneliness, lack of safety can all trigger the advent of a nightmare.

They do mean that we need to pay more attention to something taking place in our everyday lives.  We are either guilty of ignoring the threat or of minimizing its impact.  During WWI for example, military psychiatrists noted that when men on the front lines began dreaming of the horrors of war they needed to be removed from the battle.  Somehow the horror had breached a psychic barrier which often presaged the onslaught of a crippling mental illness.  Nightmares let us know that a fear of something has breached our normal defences.  We ignore it at our peril.

Consider nightmares to be like a psychic scream.  Our unconscious mind has been transmitting warnings on many fronts which we’ve been determinedly ignoring. In consequence, our unconscious is triggered to amplify the volume.  Our psyche has been left little choice but to rattle us to attention!

Nightmares May Signal Encroaching Mental Illness

Keeping in mind however, that dreams amplify our waking life experiences by tenfold, a nightmare may be highlighting a growing neurosis – fear of something not founded but rather a phobia or neurotic worry.  People who describe themselves as worry warts tend to be plagued more frequently with nightmares. Regardless, a nightmare in this case still demands attention.  A growing phobia can be crippling, preventing us from living a free and healthy life. If a nightmare is alerting us to a creeping neurosis, that doesn’t mean it isn’t relevant.

As children, we’re plagued by nightmares more frequently.  Children experience fear daily yet must prevail.  The world they find themselves inhabiting is vast and those around them so much larger and stronger.  Loving adults can help in providing safety and respite but there are by necessity, times when they cannot offer the assurance of safety so craved.

Encouraging children to talk through their nightmares and offering them suggestions about how to imaginatively deal with the monsters, will facilitate the child to feel empowered and less threatened.  The most beneficial approach to take with a child awakening from a nightmare, is to guide them to imagine themselves more powerful than the monster – see themselves grow in strength and stature – as opposed to seeing the monster shrink.  Shrinking monsters is the stuff of magical thinking but empowering ourselves is a skill well served throughout our lives.

Nightmares are as Pre-Cognitive as Other Dreams

Ignoring or discounting nightmares as only dreams won’t help in dealing with them.  Like most forgotten dreams, they will simply return.  Besides why waste all that sweat and terror?

Do what you can to interpret the meaning of the symbols, characters, feeling and action.  Imagine what the nightmare is asking you rather than telling you.  Further, imagine a couple of different endings.  Often a nightmare is interrupted by an abrupt awakening triggered by our increased heart rate and breath; use your imagination to envision what the ending might have been, especially one where you’re victorious.  A nightmare may even be a warning of something ahead that you need to know now!  Nightmares are as pre-cognitive as other types of dreams.

Use the nightmare as a creative inspiration.  Draw, paint or collage the images. Title your nightmare. The stories of Jekyl and Hyde, Frankenstein, and Dracula were all inspired by nightmares. When you describe a nightmare to someone, it is likely they will immediately identify and empathize with your experience.  There is nothing quite like a sharing a nightmare to bring an uncommon level of intimacy into your social intercourse.