Dreams Essay, Research Paper

Nightmares

?Life is but a dream?

We sleep approximately one-third of our lives…dream about one-sixth of our lives. Everyone dreams, whether or not they are aware of it. Dreams relate important messages to us during sleep, creating opportunities to better understand our motives and actions. Technically speaking, a dream is mass hallucination. A dream is a hallucination that is also a fantastical journey in our sleep that either relieves us of stress or tries to detract us from a certain habit or future happening (better known as a nightmare).

Dreams help us to understand ourselves given that we know how to interpret them. Interpreting dreams is a very powerful tool. We can find out deep secrets or reveal concealed feelings towards something just by analyzing a dream correctly. When we think about dreams we must wonder why they occur. There are seveal explanations for this question. It is a fact that we all must sleep. We constantly go through cycles of sleep and wakefulness. During each cycle, our minds must be active. Obviously when we are awake, we are using our minds for various actions. When we are asleep, it is not as obvious how our minds are at work. To keep our minds active during sleep we must dream. But what happens when we have a nightmare? And why do we have them?

A nightmare is a vividly unpleasant, often violent dream that usually awakens the sleeping person. Although some adults have nightmares throughout their lives, nightmares usually stem from an unresolved issue in our waking lives and tend to occur during or after periods of exceptional stress. Generally, they are not signs of sleep disorder such as depression but very occasionally they do require treatment. (Siegal et al)

The best way to understand why we have nightmares is to think of nightmares as an early warning system or an alarm that alerts us that something is wrong in our lives and is hurting us, and we need to focus our attention on it and fix the problems so we can overcome them and be happier. Being human, we don’t always pay attention to the subtle hints or little nudges that we need to do something, keep procrastinating instead of tackling the problems, or we are so preoccupied with other matters that we miss big issues that are about to blind-side us in our lives, so that’s when nightmares occur to help alert us so we can avoid a disastrous outcome caused by emotional blocks or situations in our lives that we are not moving past or even recognizing.

Some nightmares are like practice sessions that test our abilities and outlook on a given issue, to prepare us for going through a painful lesson in life such as the break-up of a relationship, loss of a loved one, fears of death, loss of health; any number of situations. At first the nightmares on these issues are a shock, but as we get used to the issues they are pointing out and change our perception or get inspired to learn new ways of handling painful issues, the nightmares lessen in their severity and we achieve a sense of inner peace or calm. (Siegal et al)

Nightmares are like a last ditch effort to scream for our attention. There’s nothing like a heart-pounding, terrifying nightmare to get our attention and say, “Hey! What’s going on, here? I don’t understand what this is about, and I need to know so I stop having these nightmares!” Some experts say that nightmares are actually helpful. (ParenthoodWeb p.1) In the same way that physical pain alerts us that something is wrong with our bodies and needs healing, nightmares are a helpful warning or alert to us that our emotional and mental state has a glitch that needs work and healing to get past, because it’s somehow making our lives harder and more painful. (Barret p.26)

Dreams prepare us for current and future events in our waking life. They also point out areas in our lives that need to be healed, or worked upon. Nightmares are usually a person?s deepest fears symbolized by frightening, horrifying images. If one learns to face his or her fears instead of running away or ignoring them, then the nightmares will disappear or evolve into regular non-threatening images. Nightmares are the wake-up calls to problems that need to be solved in the waking life. Why are they so frightening or graphic? Because that’s what most effectively gets our attention.

Unfortunately, we don’t usually pay attention until our dreams get to this point, and then we sit up and take notice. It’s similar to the way in which we pay attention to our bodies…pain may be unpleasant, but we finally realize that there is a health problem or injury that needs to be tended to, and then take care of it. The pain may start out mild, but the longer we ignore the problem, the worse it gets until we simply must take care of the problem. It’s the same situation with dreams; we may get numerous messages in regular, non-frightening dreams, but not pay attention. Finally, when the situation gets to a vital point in which a problem must be taken care of pronto, we will get the nightmare. It?s like the quote: ?The Fates lead him who will; him who won’t, they DRAG!?

Once we get used to paying attention to more subtle messages in regular dreams, we won’t have to be “hit over the head” with a nightmare to clue into a problem, and take care of it. In this way, just as pain helps us avert a more serious physical disaster, nightmares prevent a problem in our waking lives from getting advanced to the point of not being able to fix it. (Hartman, p.160)

Night terrors, incidents of panicky arousal from non-REM (non-dreaming) sleep, are considered to be sleep disorders. Night terrors occur more frequently in children than in adults, especially in the very young. The name, ?night terrors,? is quite descriptive of what it feels like to have this experience, which is also called Sleep Terror, Pavor Nocturnus, incubus, severe autonomic discharge, & night terrors. These events are characterized by the sleeper suddenly becoming awake, usually screaming or crying out, and the dreamer may even for a moment try to escape the dream image that terrified them. At this point, sleepwalking can occur.(ParenthoodWeb)

During an episode of ?night terror? the autonomic nervous system is activated, which stimulates feelings of intense fear via the “fight or flight” response. Some people have anxiety attacks on top of this autonomic response mechanism, and/or have asthma attacks as well. If this is a frequent occurrence, it might help to keep a good old-fashioned paper bag next to the bed, so you can breathe into it and prevent hyperventilating and resume normal breathing.(Hartmann,p.79)

This episode of terror usually occurs within the first third part of the night, with partial or total amnesia of what dream images caused the night terror, if any. ?Polysomnographic monitoring demonstrates the onset of episodes during stage 3 or 4 in the sleep cycle. Tachycardia usually occurs in association with the episodes, which is part of the autonomic response “fight or flight.”? (Barret, p.34) It is helpful to realize that this is a normal physical response, and to start breathing slowly and deeply, bringing your accelerated heart rate and breathing rate back to normal range. This autonomic response with it’s sudden surge of adrenaline is used to prepare the body for either fighting or fleeing danger, a predator, or any life- threatening situation.(Barret, p.43) The body is primed for speed and strength, giving one a better chance of “coming out alive.” This is the response mechanism that enables a woman to lift a car off of her child, for example.

How often do these night terrors occur? It varies. Some people have episodes less than once per month, without harm to themselves or others. Some people experience episodes less than once per week, without harm to themselves or others. In its severest form they occur almost nightly, and/or occur with unintentional physical injury to the person affected, or to others nearby.(ParenthoodWeb)

Everyone dreams. Dreams are an important part of our lives. Dreams may be one of the mind?s ways to maintain sanity, to cope with life. We dream about our ambitions, our hopes and fantasies, our expectations, our worries. Sometimes a frightening dream seems so real that we might fear the events actually happening in our waking lives. We must remember that dreams can be symbolic. A nightmare is only trying to show that we are afraid of something in our life that we are not confronting or resolving. Our protective subconscious is trying to help us achieve clarity so that we can grow. Like Ralph Waldo Emerson said, ?Dreams and beasts are two keys by which we find out the keys of our own nature.?

313