NIGHTMARES
Children,
especially, are prone to nightmares. Nightmares are common in children, typically beginning at around age 3
and occurring up to age 7-8.
People with anxiety disorder might also experience
what experts term “night terrors”. These
are actually panic attacks that occur in sleep.
It is especially difficult to remember these types
of dreams since they conjure up terrifying images that we would just as soon
forget.
In poetic myth, the
Nightmare is actually a “small nettlesome mare, not more than thirteen hands
high, of the breed familiar with the Elgin
marbles: cream-colored, clean-limbed, with a long head, bluish eye, flowing
mane and tail.” Her nests,
called mares’ nests, “when one comes across them in dreams, lodged in
rock-clefs or the branches of enormous hollow yews, are built of carefully
chosen twigs lined with white horse-hair and the plumage of prophetic birds and
littered with the jaw-bones and entrails of poets.”
Thus, in a pagan world of myth and
blood sacrifice, the Nightmare was a cruel, fearful creature. Our modern word nightmare
derives from the Middle English nihtmare (from niht, night, and mare,
demon), an evil spirit believed to haunt and suffocate sleeping people. And so,
in today’s world, when we speak of a nightmare we mean a frightening dream
accompanied by a sensation of oppression and helplessness.
The blood-thirsty aspect of the
mythic Nightmare, however, can give a good clue about nightmares in general,
for in psychodynamic terms nightmares are graphic depictions of raw, primitive
emotions such as aggression and rage that have not been incorporated into the
conscious psyche. Thus we tend to encounter these “ugly” aspects of our unconscious lives as
terrifying dream images in whose presence we feel completely helpless.
Nightmares are quite common in
childhood because this is a time of our emotional development when we all have
to come to terms with, well, raw, primitive emotions such as aggression and
rage.
Traumatic nightmares can also occur
as one of the many symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder
(PTSD). Repetitive, intrusive nightmares following a trauma often contain
symbolic themes that mirror the original trauma and relate to threat to life, threat of abandonment or death, or loss of identity.
Therefore, traumatic nightmares need to be treated differently than other dreams.
It’s not enough just to “know” intellectually the psychological reasons why you
have these nightmares. An event is traumatic because it disrupts your
previously secure—and illusory—sense of “self.” And so, to heal from a trauma,
you must take the initiative to make conscious changes in your life to
accommodate the traumatic shattering of your illusions about life and identity.
Some believe that nightmares have a physiological nature as
well. Edgar Cayce believed that Nightmares, which bring with them an inability to move
or cry out, usually indicate the wrong diet. To end the nightmarish dreams
change your diet.
We
found a technique online that can help people who suffer from recurrent
nightmares. It is not meant to be a
cure-all. It is just a suggested
treatment to deal with frightening nightmares.
The idea is to use this therapy every night until the nightmare has been
resolved. It is called Imagery Rehearsal Therapy.
Here are the steps of Imagery Rehearsal Therapy:
1. Write out the text of the nightmare. Tell the story,
no matter how frightening, in as much detail as you can remember.
2. Create a new ending for the nightmare story and
write it out. Be careful, however, to make the new ending peaceful. Remember
that the nightmare is grounded in emotions such as raw anger that have been
provoked by a trauma. The point of a new ending is to “tame” the emotions, not
merely vent them in violence and revenge.
3. Rehearse the new version of the story in your imagination each night just
before going to sleep. Do this as close as possible to your falling asleep
without any other activity between the rehearsal and sleep.
4. Perform a relaxation exercise. Do this immediately after the rehearsal,
as a way to fall asleep peacefully. You may use any technique with which you
are familiar. This could be meditation,
yoga, or breathing exercises.
The “cousin” of nightmares is disturbing dreams with
unpleasant images.
