Everything about Nightmare totally explained
A
nightmare is a
dream which causes a strong unpleasant emotional response from the sleeper, typically fear or horror, or the sensations of pain, falling, drowning or death. Such dreams can be related to
physical causes such as a high fever, or
psychological ones such as
psychological trauma or
stress in the sleeper's life, or can have no apparent cause. If a person has experienced a psychologically traumatic situation in life—for example, a person who may have been captured and
tortured—the experience may come back to haunt them in their nightmares. Sleepers may waken in a state of distress and be unable to get back to sleep for some time. Eating before bed, which triggers an increase in the body's metabolism and brain activity, is another potential stimulus for nightmares..
Occasional nightmares are commonplace, but recurrent nightmares can interfere with
sleep and may cause people to seek
medical help. A recently proposed treatment consists of
imagery rehearsal. This approach appears to reduce the effects of nightmares and other symptoms in
acute stress disorder and
post-traumatic stress disorder.
Practitioners of
lucid dreaming claim that it can help conquer nightmares of this type, rather than of the traditional type (see below).
Historic use of term
Nightmare was the original term for the state later known as
waking dream (cf.
Mary Shelley and
Frankenstein's Genesis), and more currently as
sleep paralysis, associated with rapid eye movement (
REM) sleep. The original definition was codified by
Dr Johnson in his
A Dictionary of the English Language and was thus understood, among others by
Erasmus Darwin and
Henry Fuseli, to include a
"morbid oppression during sleep, resembling the pressure of weight upon the breast."
Such nightmares were widely considered to be the work of
demons and more specifically
incubi, which were thought to sit on the chests of sleepers. In
Old English the name for these beings was
mare or
mære (from a
proto-Germanic *marōn, related to
Old High German and
Old Norse mara), hence comes the
mare part in
nightmare.
Folk belief in Newfoundland, South Carolina and Georgia describe the negative figure of the
Hag who leaves her physical body at night, and sits on the chest of her victim. The victim usually wakes with a feeling of terror, has difficulty breathing because of a perceived heavy invisible weight on his or her chest, and is unable to move for example, experiences
sleep paralysis. This nightmare experience is described as being "hag-ridden" in the
Gullah lore. The "Old Hag" was a nightmare spirit in British and also Anglophone North American folklore.
Various forms of
magic and
spiritual possession were also advanced as causes. In
nineteenth century Europe, the vagaries of diet were thought to be responsible. For example, in
Charles Dickens's
A Christmas Carol,
Ebenezer Scrooge attributes the
ghost he sees to "... an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, a fragment of an underdone potato..." In a similar vein, the
Household Cyclopedia (1881) offers the following advice about nightmares:
» "Great attention is to be paid to regularity and choice of diet. Intemperance of every kind is hurtful, but nothing is more productive of this disease than drinking bad wine. Of eatables those which are most prejudicial are all fat and greasy meats and pastry... Moderate exercise contributes in a superior degree to promote the digestion of food and prevent flatulence; those, however, who are necessarily confined to a sedentary occupation, should particularly avoid applying themselves to study or bodily labor immediately after eating... Going to bed before the usual hour is a frequent cause of night-mare, as it either occasions the patient to sleep too long or to lie long awake in the night. Passing a whole night or part of a night without rest likewise gives birth to the disease, as it occasions the patient, on the succeeding night, to sleep too soundly. Indulging in sleep too late in the morning, is an almost certain method to bring on the paroxysm, and the more frequently it returns, the greater strength it acquires; the propensity to sleep at this time is almost irresistible."
Medical investigation
Studies of dreams have found that about three quarters of dream content or emotions are negative.
One definition of "nightmare" is a dream which causes one to wake up in the middle of the sleep cycle and experience a negative emotion, such as fear. This type of event on average one per month. They are not common in children under 5, more common in young children (25% experiencing a nightmare at least once per week), most common in adolescents, and less common in adults (dropping in frequency about one-third from age 25 to 55).
Scientists speculate that negative dreams are evolutionarily adapting, purging the brain of memories or associations which trigger fear.
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