Gosha Semyonov
CEO of sleep products company Blue Sleep
How does our daily life affect the quality of our sleep? How to get rid of nightmares? When should you see a doctor?
Paralysis, painful memories, terrible scenarios - any nightmares in a dream have a bad effect on your health, physical and psychological well-being. It is important to consider that some diseases and lifestyle can also cause frightening dreams. Let's figure out what causes sleep problems and what to do about it.
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What are nightmares?
A nightmare is a realistically scary, frightening dream that makes a person wake up in the middle of the night.
As a rule, nightmares occur during periods of REM sleep, so the nightmare is abruptly interrupted, the sleeper wakes up frightened, and he can remember his dream in detail.
In this state, a person quickly comes to his senses and can feel a certain cheerfulness.
Nightmares are a consequence of brain activity. In this way, a person experiences negative emotions, stress, bad impressions, and resolves some of his internal issues and conflicts.
Constant nightmares can lead to lack of sleep, headaches, depression, anxiety, and panic attacks.
The interesting thing is that creative people have nightmares much more often than others, thanks to their wild imagination.
How do they manifest themselves?
Nightmares manifest themselves in the fact that a person wakes up in the middle of the night from severe fright and may scream (in his sleep or even after waking up). Cold sweat occurs, heart rate increases, and blood pressure may increase.
If the nightmare has a strong impact on the sleeper, then the frightened state may persist for some time. It becomes difficult to fall asleep, which can lead to sleep disturbances.
If nightmares bother you every day, then during the day a person feels tired, constantly does not get enough sleep, he may be bothered by disturbing thoughts, and be haunted by certain fears.
This condition can lead to depression and other disorders.
When nightmares “come” in the REM sleep phase , the awakened person understands that it was just a bad dream, and it is easier to calm down during this period.
The deep sleep phase is much more difficult. Having woken up, a person may not understand where he is, and it takes quite a long time to come to his senses.
It is accompanied by drowsiness, high blood pressure, a feeling of cold, and palpitations. In this phase , it is more difficult to remember what led to the fright .
Why are there bad dreams? What do they mean? 10 worst dreams:
Examples
Each person has their own concept of nightmares. Some people dream of something truly terrifying, they scream in their sleep, they wake up crying, but for others this dream would not seem so frightening.
After all, all people are different, each has their own fears and experiences.
But there are several “universal” nightmares that will make any person, at a minimum, flinch.
- falling into a black abyss, or falling from a tall building: many people claim that they dreamed of flying somewhere into the void and waking up just before they were about to crash;
- the death of someone close: most people have dreamed at least once in their lives that a close and beloved person is dying;
- animal attack: such a dream is really scary, especially if a person is very afraid of dogs, and he dreams that he is being bitten by a pack of these animals;
- natural disasters;
- dreams about dead relatives;
- strange people in masks: most people say that they periodically dream of characters in strange masks, or in strange clothes.
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In what cases should you consult a doctor?
In most cases, nightmares in children go away on their own, but in some cases they may be a reason to consult a doctor. Parents should consult a doctor if:
- the child experiences seizures more than once a week;
- if the attack lasts more than 45 minutes or persists after preventive awakening;
- if the child begins to walk in his sleep, thereby putting himself in danger;
- if during an attack the child experiences muscle tension, twitching, and drooling;
- if the “nightmares” begin during the second, third, etc. sleep cycle;
- if the child’s night fears are remembered and persist throughout the day.
Why do people scream out of fear in their sleep?
Sometimes you have really scary and frightening dreams about what a person once experienced and about what was strongly reflected in his consciousness or subconscious . Such dreams can cause screaming in the middle of the night, severe fright and panic.
There are several reasons why a person may scream in his sleep:
- a strong fright that a person has experienced can be repeated in a dream, which is what causes a cry;
- sleep disturbance;
- anxiety;
- constant exposure to stressful situations;
- during the deep phase of sleep, hearing any sound or noise, a person may scream right in his sleep;
- taking medications that affect the central nervous system.
Causes of nightmares
What causes nightmares that make you wake up:
- Traumas that a person experienced in early childhood (beatings, parental alcoholism, parental quarrels, constant stress).
All this and much more negatively affects a person’s mental health and leads to nightmares. - Severe emotional shock: seeing or personally experiencing a tragedy can lead to nightmares.
- Stressful situations at work.
- Overwork.
- Constant nervous tension.
- Depressive state.
- Diseases of the nervous system.
- Anxiety states.
- The presence of any strong phobia can provoke severe nightmares. If a person is terribly afraid of heights, then he may constantly dream of falling from tall buildings.
- Problems that bother a person on a subconscious level, but he tries not to think about them. Often this condition results in nightmares, which make it clear that there is a problem.
- Diseases of internal organs.
- Physical fatigue.
- Overeating before bed.
- Alcohol and drug use.
- Routine work or communication with people who cause unpleasant feelings.
- Watching horror films at night: highly impressionable people may experience fear and anxiety after watching them, which leads to nightmares.
- External irritants: loud music, sharp sounds, unpleasant smell, light and much more.
I often have bad dreams - what does this mean?
If nightmares bother you often or constantly, this may indicate that there is some kind of problem that the person is trying in every possible way to ignore and avoid.
In this case, you should understand that it needs to be resolved immediately. Because nightmares will haunt the sleeper for more than one night in a row.
Nightmares. Psychologist's comment:
How to get rid of it?
What to do to avoid nightmares? Psychologist's advice:
- First of all, you need to find the source of your nightmares. Determine why they are dreaming, find out and admit what a person is afraid of or is running from.
- Imagine a happy and prosperous ending to your dreams.
- Convince yourself that the dream is not reality. Everything that happens in a dream is just our subconscious. Nothing from the dream will happen in the real world.
- You need to think positively.
- It is advisable to rid yourself of stressful situations and everything that negatively affects mental health.
- You need to relax and unwind before going to bed.
- Think only about good things, don’t watch anything negative before going to bed.
- Don't be afraid. You need to solve your problems or disturbing issues and the nightmares will disappear on their own.
- If necessary, you can contact a psychotherapist for help.
The same thing every night
What to do if you have the same nightmare every night ?
If the same dream bothers you every night, then you should come to the conclusion that the subconscious is trying to say that there is a problem to which the person is simply turning a blind eye.
In our lives it often happens that we do not want to decide something or are afraid to do it. At the same time, this worries us. And it doesn’t matter whether it’s on a conscious or subconscious level.
As a rule, all our fears and worries result in our dreams.
When a person runs from a problem , it can overtake him in the form of a nightmare.
If the same dream bothers you many nights in a row, then you should admit that there is a problem. You need to find the courage to solve it, look fear straight in the eye, then the nightmare will disappear on its own.
Why do you have nightmares?
26.07.2018
Nightmares cause dramatically negative consequences on our lives. The causes of nightmares include fear and anxiety. In turn, this causes sleep disturbance, and sometimes even insomnia . Remember your actions when waking up after another “unsuccessful” dream, did you fall asleep quickly after that, and did you sleep at all? As a result, you feel physically exhausted throughout the day, which in turn causes stress. Let's first look at the cause of nightmares, and only then start getting rid of them.
The Myth of Nightmares
There is an opinion, quite widespread, that nightmares visit people only in childhood, and this is a childhood problem that goes away over the years. Is it so? Statistics will help us understand this. 10% of people have woken up from a nightmare at least once in their lives, but from 2% to 8% of people, to put it mildly, are not at all lucky, suffering from chronic nightmares.
Differences between nightmares and ordinary dreams
Most often, nightmares occur during REM sleep. This is precisely the reason that we experience them in the morning. In fact, a nightmare is a terrible, frightening dream. Also, a nightmare remains in your memory longer than a normal dream and it will not be difficult for you to remember it. Sometimes a nightmare can be so realistic that even after waking up, a person needs time to realize his presence in the real world.
What do you dream about more often?
As with most things, it varies from person to person. What dreams you see depends only on your environment, your thoughts, age and many other factors. However, it is possible to identify dreams that occur more often than others. Most people are familiar with dreams where someone is running after you or you are falling into some kind of abyss. Also, it is worth mentioning that people who have experienced tragic events tend to see them in their nightmares.
During the time spent studying the problem of nightmares, many studies have been conducted to understand which ones are more common. Psychologist Michael Schredl from the Institute of Mental Health in Mannheim surveyed over a thousand people over 16 years of age who experience nightmares several times a year and found that 40% of people tend to feel falling in their dreams. The next thing is the feeling of persecution. 26% of people in their nightmares feel like a victim of persecution.
Given the research data, we can conclude that there is a certain number of common fears that are significant for all people.
Causes of nightmares
In adults, nightmares are spontaneous, without any good reason. But exceptions are possible, for example, various psychological problems: stress, depression . Also, tragic incidents, events caused by the loss of loved ones or other equally important factors play an important role. To this conditional list, you can also add infectious diseases, lack of sleep, and even sleeping in a place unfamiliar to a person can become an equally significant reason.
Getting rid of nightmares
Knowing the causes of nightmares, you can begin to remove them. Let's look at these steps:
- improve your sleep conditions by adjusting your sleep schedule. It is recommended to fall asleep and wake up at the same time. Also, sleep should last at least 8 hours;
- Medicine has succeeded in treating many unpleasant reactions in the body, and sleep is no exception. The use of this method is quite rare, but in some cases it cannot be avoided;
- Stress is one of the main causes of nightmares. Therefore, if you get rid of stress, you will obviously get rid of nightmares.
So don't be alarmed if you occasionally have nightmares. But if you start having nightmares too often, seek help from a psychologist who will help you identify the real cause of nightmares.
Published in Psychotherapy Premium Clinic
What to do if your child has nightmares?
When your child has nightmares, it is worth observing and finding out how often this happens. If this does not happen often, then there is nothing to worry about .
Nightmares are the norm for a child’s still unsettled nervous system. This will pass with age.
But if nightmares are a fairly common occurrence for a child, then it is worth paying attention to this problem.
First of all, you need to contact a specialist. It will help determine the cause of childhood nightmares. Next, he will explain what to do and how to deal with them.
The main thing to do:
- Under no circumstances should you try to wake up the baby abruptly; during a night attack, it is best to wait quietly until the child calms down;
- to protect the child as much as possible, because he can, for example, hit his head;
- surround the child with kindness and positivity;
- read good fairy tales before going to bed;
- talk more with the baby;
- parents should not quarrel in front of the child, the child should not experience stress;
- show your baby all your love, he should feel safe;
- maintain a clear daily routine, go to bed at the same time.
Recommendations from psychologists for getting rid of the fear of loneliness can be found on our website.
What causes scary dreams in a child? How a mother can help is in the video:
What are nightmares in children?
It is worth noting that night terrors are not a figment of the imagination of a child or overly caring parents. Nightmares are a physiological phenomenon of a hallucinogenic nature. Typically, this phenomenon occurs when a child’s overexcited brain is unable to enter the inhibition stage. Because of this, increased mental arousal occurs.
One third of children who suffer from nightmares often exhibit increased motor activity. In their sleep, such children can actively swing their limbs and also try to escape. It is important to remember that the child is in a deep sleep stage and can get hurt. Children who suffer from nightmares may develop parasomnia or sleepwalking.
Note that childhood nightmares are not a hereditary disease, it is not caused by genetic factors. Nightmares can occur in people of all ages, but the greatest number of disorders is recorded in children aged 3 to 5 years. It is worth noting that in most cases boys suffer from nightmares. Complete relief from fears at night occurs by the age of twelve.
