Everything you need to know about nightmares

What causes nightmares in adults? Internal factors are nerve interactions. And these are derived from the individual’s complicated composition like their age, personal original factors and what role the nightmare plays in the dreamer’s life.

How can you identify the causes of nightmares to handle them and reduce nightmares?

These are common factors/ causes of nightmares:

Consumption of organic stimulants in food, drink, other chemical stimulants & consumption of visual input via media.
Detoxing, rehabilitating, stoppage of alcohol & medications.
Changes in life. (stress, anxiety, prolonged stress, poverty, depression) Other related posts on depression: Activities to manage depression, Dreaming of depression.
Changes in hormones.
Physiological disorders, illnesses & mental illnesses (anxiety, depression, PTSD.

Dreams (& nightmares) continue waking reality. If a person has negative mental thoughts and emotions during their wakeful hours, then it is likely their stream of thoughts will continue in their dreams and nightmares. Likewise, a psychological disorder like depression, will produce symptoms like nightmares. A person with depression will see more nightmares than someone without depression.

Nightmares can exert a heavy toil on the dreamer. Studies show sufferers with frequent nightmares are likely to have suicidal thoughts.

How do we differentiate between a nightmare and bad dream? When do you call a bad dream a nightmare? There are some criteria to discern what is a nightmare. They are:

Serious threats to your welfare, like violence, various types of abuse, being helpless, and accidents.
Danger to your physical, mental, psychological & emotional security. The psychological fear can induce medical disorders which may endanger your health.
You remember your frightening nightmare after waking up.

You know by the manner of dream imagery that the events cannot occur in real life, but you’re disturbed by the threats Somehow, under unexplained reasons in a nightmare, you can’t know the motives of other characters in the nightmare and this makes you more scared.

You may consult a therapist on Imagery Rehearsal Therapy, on how to handle nightmare imagery.

One of the good traits of nightmares is that it inspires the dreamer to retell the story. Dreamers of nightmares are likely to become unwitting story tellers.

The creative mind that invented nightmares at night, uses the same brain, to be creative during the day. The converse is also true; creative people tend to see nightmares more often than non-creative dreamers.

Consumption of food & drink can bring depression & nightmares:

Studies showed that Omega-3 and vitamin D are necessary to prevent aggressive mental thoughts and behaviors. If you experience frequent nightmares, you may want to consult your doctor or dietician to improve your diet to include natural sources of Omega-3 and vitamin D, or include supplements to boost your intake. Criminals who were tested for these yielded results with their low levels of brain nutrients. Test subjects on clinical trial proved that Omega-3 and vitamin D effectively reduced their antisocial offensive behaviors.

Too much of a good thing can be bad. While comfort foods console us initially with sugar, salt and carbohydrates, they make our digestive tract work hard to process these ultra-processed food. Manmade foods contain chemicals which can affect mental thoughts and behaviors. Additionally, if we experience indigestion, we begin to think negatively and feel depressed. This sets off a chain reaction which may result in nightmares.

Similarly, natural and artificially made sweet drinks also give the same effect. If sugared fluids increase the tendency to feel depressed, then our hope lies in unsweetened drinks. Black coffee’s slightly bitter taste does not herald depressive thoughts. Green tea, unaccompanied by sugar, also keeps negative thoughts at bay.

Alcoholic drinks reduce the quantity of glutamate, a neurotransmitter, in your body. Consequently, you feel little anxiety and forget your burden on your shoulders. This temporary effect stops when alcohol is eliminated out of your body. Nervous activity returns with a vengeance when the gatekeeper disappears. You’ll feel anxious, nervous and depressed. Alcohol interferes with sound sleep. You wake up during your sleep. This affects your level of alertness during your non-sleeping hours. You will feel bad, grouchy and depressed.

Fibers and fermented food aid gut bacteria to digest ingested food and provide roughage to process waste. Without sufficient waste, a person may suffer from indigestion and/ or constipation. These conditions will affect mood, irritability, negative emotions and depression. Here is an article about reducing anxiety (and depression).

Reduce foods that bring on depression & its subsequent nightmares:

Reduce sugary foods.
Consume sugarless drinks.
Eat more vegetables in every meal.
Reduce use of cooking oil in cooked foods.
Reduce meat consumption. Choose lean cuts of meat.
Eat less processed foods. Choose natural and organic snacks too.
Reduce intake of carbohydrates.
Reduce and then slowly remove alcoholic beverages.

Eating comfort foods can relieve some sadness and negative emotions temporarily. The problem arises when comfort foods are eaten often and in large quantities. Overeating should not be used as a coping method to fight stress. Similarly, use and over use of substances like smoking and other stimulants must not be used to cope with problems.

What should be used instead? This is a short list of coping methods for stress:

Stress management methods.
Therapy to manage stress.
Social support to provide moral, emotional and resource support.

Let’s discuss Changes In Life (stress, anxiety, prolonged stress) that are known to affect occurrence of nightmares.

Children grow up to become adults who see nightmares, when they experience anxiety and stress. The stress usually comes from emotional neglect due to parental neglect, parental separation of parental permanent separation in death

Changes in living environment:

A study in Denmark tracked children who had to move houses and learned that around 3% had depression in adulthood. Kids experience more challenges than adults and they are less equipped to tackle changes. They had to adapt to a new neighborhood, new school, new social environment and make new friends. Along the way, some of them developed negative attitudes which emerged as depression in their adulthood. This mental disorder can contribute to the frequency of nightmares.

Another factor in childhood which leads to depression in adulthood is poverty. Children who grew up poor are 10% more likely to develop depression in their adulthood.

Creative writers who used to suffer from depression used their knowledge and experience to write experimental literature. One example was Virginia Woolfe, who was born January 25, 1882, in London and died on March 28, 1941, in Sussex. She struggled with depression, especially after getting married to Leonard Woolfe in 1912. Her husband moved them to Asheham for her convalescence. Virginia’s doctor prescribed rest and nature therapy to relieve stress.

How to reduce depression and subsequently reduce frequency of nightmares:

Psychological methods recommended by experts say to use meticulous planning of daily schedules during convalescence for depression. The wandering mind invites negative thoughts. The patient can choose desired activities to engage in. If they are unable to make decisions, then a simple routine can start them off to introduce structure to their day.

Virginia Woolfe was prescribed walking and bed rest. Her doctor believed that immersing in nature could heal her troubled mind. She slowly progressed to one page of letter writing a day. She focused her thoughts and cognition by writing lists. Initially, she took inventory of her household items. Then, she managed to write about her daily menu, and grocery shopping lists. From there, she gathered her experience to write Mrs Dalloway, the woman who planned her party while running errands in London.

WRITE LISTS:

Virginia Woolfe used this method to deal with her depression.

Why we should tackle the problem of nightmares:

A study group was followed for a decade. Their frequency of nightmares every week was recorded. Female subjects who saw at least one nightmare every week, were four times as likely to develop cognitive decline into dementia. Male nightmare dreamers had a higher rate of cognitive decline into dementia. Men were five times more likely to get dementia, as compared to women.

Since nightmares can be one cause of dementia, then treating them may stop the advance of the disorder.

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