It is the end of a long, tiring day. You turn out the lights and settle down for a good night’s sleep.
But as you snuggle beneath the bed clothes and drift off to slumber all manner of terror awaits you.
For you, bedtime is not the restful refuge from life’s stresses and strains but a scary world where ghosts, ghouls and leggedy beasties haunt your dreams. It is as if you are experiencing Hallowe’en horror all year round.
Little wonder that people who experience nightmares regularly are distressed and exhausted and do not look forward to going to sleep at night.
Amost everyone has these bad dreams at some stage, adults as well as children. They make people feel scared, anxious or upset.
Michael Mullen, a hypnotherapist and psychotherapist who is based at New Street West in the city, explains nightmares occur in the latter stages of sleep, between 4am and 6am and are remembered clearly on waking. They affect one in four children and are especially common around age 10. The condition is made worse by nasal congestion, breathing difficulties or anxiety.
Vicious cycle
“Children who get nightmares experience them on average two to three times a week. As a consequence, the parents and children face each day not fully rested and frustrated. This can lead to a vicious cycle for sufferers of being unable to fall asleep properly at bedtime because of the fear of having nightmares and being exhausted the following day because they have not had a proper night’s sleep.”
He says children are more prone to nightmares than adults. This is because they lack the knowledge and life experience to deal with their problems satisfactorily.
Recurring nightmares are a sign that everyday problems are not being dealt with, he says. However, rather than cursing these bad dreams view them as an opportunity to tackle your problems head-on. When nightmares stop it usually indicates that a successful solution has been found to a particular problem or situation.
Sometimes the cause of nightmares can be rooted in stressful past experiences, according to the psychotherapist.
“Traumatic experiences can be fixed in the unconscious mind during childhood only to manifest themselves later in life as a fear or phobia. Even something as simple as a visit to the zoo and seeing a strange or frightening animal may be amplified in the dream state and go on to form a nightmare.”
In danger
The most common nightmare theme is being in danger, whether it is by drowning, being chased, thrown off a building, tortured, beaten or sexually assaulted. Dreams tend to be in colour and are very visual.
“Many sufferers can feel the emotions involved like their heart racing, the sensation of falling, night sweats, sleep talking and moving constantly around in the bed. This tends to happen because the body is reacting to the pictures that are being created in the mind and believes it is being threatened.”
Like nightmares suffered by children, adult bad dreams are an indication that emotions or emotionally charged situations are not being dealt with, according to Michael Mullen.
“Nightmares can also arise because the unconscious mind has picked up clues on deeply hidden anxieties and is exaggerating them in the form of a nightmare in order to bring it to the dreamer’s attention. For example, the common nightmare of your teeth failing out has been interpretated by dream analysts as financial insecurity. However this dream could also mean that you are due a visit to the dentist for a filling perhaps. The longer the dreamer ignores the message of the nightmare the more vivid and even more violent it will become.”
We find “nightmare material” in everyday life, the films we see and the effects of medication we take, whether prescribed or unprescribed.
Trigger nightmares
“Both physical and psychological factors can trigger nightmares. You may experience bad dreams because you suffer from depression or if you are abusing alcohol or drugs. Nightmares may also occur because there is a psychological cause behind them, such as childhood abuse or a recent trauma. People who have witnessed or undergone violent experiences in the past often relive the horrifying moment in their dreams.”
Some children and adults suffer from night terrors. These are far less common than nightmares and occur in stage four of sleep, which is a deep sleep. Night terrors usually happen between 1am and 3am.
“The person who is asleep will bring on a series of overwhelming physical symptoms such as panic, sweating and rapid heartbeat. Because they are in the deepest part of sleep they may be difficult to wake up. Often the person who is undergoing the event has no idea what has occurred and wakes the next morning without any recollection of the terrifying experience.”
How can we prevent nightmares? Michael Mullen recommends beginning by dealing with the elements of your dream which you find terrifying.
“One way to do this is by keeping a pad and pencil on your night table so you write down all the important elements of the nightmare as soon as you wake up. Before you really wake up, take these disjointed parts of the dream and rewrite a new ending. Then close your eyes and imagine yourself going back into the dream this time with your new ending and see yourself reaching a successful outcome that will help you through your nightmare.
Fearful creature
“Another way to deal with the terror is to ask the monster what it really wants. The fearful creature may represent some element of yourself that you are having difficulty dealing with. Allow the monster to get rid of its dream persona and assume the real meaning it has in your life so that you can deal with it directly.”
Parents can help their young children by encouraging them to tell a story aloud which involves the nightmare theme. Inject it with humour or different endings in which there is a successful outcome to the story of the dream. If the child has the same recurring nightmare again then this new ending will be what they choose the next time they are faced with the dream.
“Finally, spare a thought for the author Mary Shelley who after a night of ghost storytelling with her friends, went to bed and had a terrifying nightmare that created a monster fashioned out of human parts. And so one of the most successful horror stories of all time came to be born - Frankenstein.”
