Recurring Nightmares - How Do I Get Rid of Recurring Nightmares?
85What Causes Nightmares? How Do I Get Rid of Nighmares?
Trying to stop nightmares is a difficult task. Dreams and nightmares are funny things. Sometimes keeping track of your dreams or nightmares can give more insight into what's going on your life than even a daily diary. Most people enjoy dreaming, even weird dreams, but nightmares are an entirely different matter altogether. Not many people know a lot about nightmares, and whenever they dream nightmares as opposed to regular dreams, far too many people dismiss that as being something that simply "just happens" as opposed to being a sign of some deeper problem or trauma. Most nightmares have symbols that can reveal a lot of hidden trauma by using dream interpretation.
Nightmares are terrible, can be traumatizing, and often can act as an indication that something is seriously wrong.
This is especially true of recurring nightmares.
Trying to stop recurring nightmares can be difficult. I've had recurring nightmares at several points in my life: some night after night, and one that comes back around every few years, seeming to pop up out of nowhere and begins fading away again the very moment I wake up in a panic over something I've already partially forgotten. Nightmares are usually an indication that something is wrong in your life, or something is unhealthy. Often times this can be a repressed problem or a traumatic memory that comes out subconsciously in the form of a nightmare.
So how do you get rid of nightmares? Well anyone who has had recurring nightmares can tell you that figuring out how to stop nightmares isn't easy. Part of the problem is that there are several different causes of these night terrors, and without knowing what the root cause of your bad dreams are, it's hard to interpret your nightmares and figure out what course of action to take.
There are four main causes that I've found for most nightmares: stress, repressed trauma, physiological changes in your body, and spiritual. Usually the cause of virtually any nightmare will come from one of these four factors, which I'll go over in the next sections.
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Stress Causes Nightmares | How to Stop Stress Nightmares
One of the major causes of nightmares is stress. The reason for this is that stress affects your body physically, causing hormonal changes and imbalances in your body. Stress affects you mind, and this stress can come from many different areas. Stress from being unemployed or laid off can cause nightmares, as can "hidden" stress, like many seniors have before graduating college. The pending moment of complete and total change can be stressful even for college students who have a job, career, or marriage lined up. Changes of this magnitude, even the good ones, cause major subconscious stress.
Sometimes having a dream interpretation book can help, because some nightmares are very symbolic. It's extremely weird how this works, but for many people, symbols in the dreams mean the same thing. A common example of this are snake nightmares. Normally this isn't just because you're afraid of snakes, but snakes can represent hidden dangers or fears you haven't dealt with or noticed consciously, or when around a person in your dream, might be warning you that person is dangerous and is giving off signals that maybe they shouldn't be trusted.
I've had several snake nightmares in the past, and the last one the snake bit me while another person was standing there. That individual fit the description of the interpretation. He had never treated me badly, but I was aware of his character, and knew he was the type of person who could drop the friendship like a bad habit. Before that, my nightmare was being stranded on a roof, with the entire world covered in snakes and nowhere else to go.
That was shortly before my parents' business went bankrupt, bullying at school got even worse, the family emotionally fell apart, and the most terrifying supernatural experience of my life occurred. All that during my later years in high school, where I hoped college would offer the promise of a different life, and I was terrified it would be the same.
So how do you rid yourself of these nightmares? If it's stress caused, one of the first steps you can take is to recognize what the most stressful aspects of your life are, and to deal with the ones you have any control over. Sometimes just openly admitting to stress and uncertainty is enough for your body to find relief from nightmares.
The basic stress relievers can often help. Taking one day off just for yourself, massage, yoga, or whatever helps you relax. If that's a five hour walk, put on the walking shoes! Meditation, prayer (if that's your thing), or exercise are all great techniques for dealing with it. Make sure to get enough sleep, and learn not to stress out over the things you have no control over.
For many individuals, these actions can be enough to help prevent recurring nightmares.Interpreting Nightmares Books
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Treating Trauma Caused Nightmares
Repressed Trauma Causes Nightmares:
This is one of the rarest causes of nightmares, in part not only because it requires a traumatic experience, but because something in a person's life has to be similar enough to trigger it. This isn't only caused by repressed trauma, but a nightmare can also be about a real life event, with minor details changed, over and over again. A classic example of this could be if you were in a building that was taken over by gun men. If this lead to an extended stand off, and especially if individuals died, you could end up dreaming about this over and over.
If this is a case of a real memory being repeated as the cause of trauma, and likely cause of nightmares, then the way to "cure" the nightmares is going to be with therapy and directly dealing with the traumatic situation.
If the memory is repressed, then the only way to deal with it is to see a psychologist and to figure out what in your life is causing the nightmares, and if there is a repressed memory, to figure it out and deal with it.
This is the rarest cause of constant recurring nightmares, but one that should be recognized, nonetheless. There isn't anything short of professional help that can help you with this one.
Links on Dreams, Nightmares, and How to Stop Nightmares
- Radical Dreaming
A strong book about interpreting dreams. - Symbols of Dreams & Nightmares
A very good website giving some great definitions and symbolic meanings of different images that commonly appear in dreams and/or nightmares. - Dream Central
This website is a great resource for finding all sorts of information about dreams and the interpretation of dreams. - Dream Interpretation Wiki
Dream Interpretation according to Wikipedia. - Nightmares
A little stuffy, but a decent beginner's site on nightmares. - Dream Book Store
Online store full of books about dreams, nightmares, and the interpretation of both.
Physiological Changes Can Cause Reoccuring Nightmares
Physiological Changes:
Changes to your physical body can directly affect your mind and your dreams. The obvious first culprit is medication. Certain medications are known to drastically increase your chances of having either incredibly vivid dreams, or vivid nightmares. Medications with these side effects should be avoided if possible, or at the very least you need to talk to your physician. Certain drugs are more likely than others to cause this to happen. Some of the prescription medications that have a bad reputation for this include anti-depressants, anti-histamines, and certain "stop smoking" aids. If you're on a new medication and your dreams go to a very unhappy place, talk to your doctor about switching. This alone might solve your problem.
A second factor is caffeine. This isn't true of all people. I'm a caffeine junkie and nowadays I have very few nightmares - as in maybe one or two a year for the last couple. But caffeine is a stimulant that can keep your system moving at heightened levels. Some people who have caffeine within a few hours of bed find themselves more susceptible to nightmares then when they don't have caffeine close to bed.
Getting enough rest is also important. Most nightmares take place during cycles of REM sleep. If you constantly don't get enough sleep, then you end up staying in a constant state of REM sleep instead of cycles, drastically increasing the chance of nightmares. Not getting enough rest can also make you tired and physically, mentally, an emotionally stress yourself out. This can also make you more likely to have nightmares.
In addition to this, times of extreme change like adolescence and puberty can also make you more likely to suffer from nightmares because of the incredible amount of hormones and physiological changes that your body is going through.
Paying attention to all of these factors can help you to cut down on the number of recurring nightmares that you are suffering from.
Good Video on Dream Interpretation
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Recurring Nightmares Caused by Spiritual Causes
Nightmares with a Spiritual Cause:
If you're one of those people who believe they're inherently better than 5 billion of the world's people because you're smart enough not to believe in the spiritual or supernatural, don't bother reading or leaving a diatribe comment. For everyone else, I firmly believe based on my own experiences that sometimes nightmares are caused by a spiritual source.
Nightmares can plague individuals who live in a haunted house or haunted area, or from people who have dabbled in demon conjuring. There are a lot of different religious beliefs involving dreams, demons, and everything else, so I'll try to speak carefully and generally and if anyone is offended, it was not intended.
The reason some people are affected this way and others aren't is beyond me. I don't know why some people visit a haunted place and nothing happens, while others get traumatized for life. Nightmares that are caused by a spiritual source tend to be especially frightening.
Some possible tell tale signs include an unusually high awareness of the fact that you're dreaming, but none of the control that usually comes with that. The nightmares can feel chaotic, and the nightmares don't have the same symbols that normal nightmares have. In some ways these types of nightmares are like nightmares on steroids, and in my experience they start off as weird dreams that suddenly become violently terrifying, as if being ambushed.
Another sign, which is incredibly rare and perhaps not even tied directly to the nightmare, is waking up with signs of physical damage on your body that are hard to explain. The most common of these rare cases tend to be waking up with claw marks, although in a few cases severe bruising has occurred.
The spiritual solution to recurring nightmares is difficult. I can't give a solution that isn't going to insult at least one person's religious beliefs, but many religions have text about spirits and demons, and if you're dealing with a spiritual attack on yourself, then you need to look to the spiritual for a solution, as well. These solutions not only usually involve a holy man/woman who is a "professional" at dealing with such matters, but also a commitment from yourself to work with them to break free.
If you find yourself in a situation like that, my sympathies and prayers are with you, because I've been there more than once before. Ninety-nine out of one hundred times there isn't anything to fear from the "supernatural" (I love the convenience of this term, though I hate the term because the spiritual is perfectly natural, IMO), but when you're stuck with that other 1% there's nothing fun about it.
That's the most I'm going to go into the spiritual causes/solutions of spiritual causes of nightmares. The recurring nightmares are hard to deal with and hard to get rid of, but the effort is not only worth it, but it's necessary for peace of mind and soul alike.
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glad to see someone with a grip on what they're talking about :) Good deal
That was very helpful.Thanks
Great hub. Remember the movie DREAMSCAPE with Dennis Quaid and Kate Capshaw.
phew this opened up so many new ideas as to why my freind is experiencing recurring nightmares. thankyou!
Nice hub!
When I'm having nightmares? I just pray to GOD even while Dreaming it will stop or I woke up and never repeats!
fascinating stuff. Thanks for the article. One of my students is having an awful one, night after night, about witnessing a much-loved boy dying in a car crash. I am helping her edit a paper about it.
thank you Jerry for such an insightful analysis, I remember having recurring dreams about my grandparents' house; where I spent a lot of time as a child.
here is a tip for easy dream interpretation if you have trouble remembering your dreams, keep a notepad next to your bed and when you wake up in the morning, write down what you remember as fast as possible, as you get into the habit, you will remember in more detail and you will remember all your dreams.
more info at : http://dreamcatchercounselling.com/
nice hub but i am still having nightmares
Thanks to everyone for the comments. Always sorry to hear about recurring nightmares, I know how much they can lower quality of life. There was a two year span where every night I had a recurring nightmare, and it wore on me and affected every part of my life. Sorry to hear about the nightmares, ash, if you've tried everything on here I guess my last suggestion would be to research lucid dreaming. Some people can train themselves to have an unusual amount of awareness or control during their dreams. This is probably my best defense whenever nightmares from a past haunting keep trying to force their way back. That nightmare is setting based, so when I realize what's going on, I can concentrate on changing the setting or moving away from it to help stymie the nightmare before things get too bad. Hope over time you figure out something to help bring you peace.
The majority of our dreams are bad dreams and nightmares. Maybe we need to look at their positive side in our lives. They supposed to prepare us for the similar situations in our real lives. It is said that without dreams there would be no humanity. Maybe they are not so bad after all. They teach us to deal with scary, threatening situations and make us emotionally more strong. What we experience in real life can be always less scarry after all.
Hi Jerry,
WOW what an interesting post. You may want to check our my fav dream dictionary at http://www.auntyflo.com it has lots of information about bad dreams and nightmares.
I found your post, very nice, since i saw the title. Good work!
Thanks Jerry,
I used to have horrible nightmares, or even attacks in my dreams....sleeping paralysis and astral projection, but not on purpose or for fun, it was awful. I would wake up and my body would be asleep, so I would see things like dark figures throwing me around and it actually hurt but not in a normal way...I would even wake up and think i was awake look around and realize I was 3 feet above my body....very scary to a teenage girl! I have almost died a few times so I wonder if it has anything to do with it, I finally got them to stop with a lot of prayer and learning to, as one person above said, even pray in my sleep and in dreams... Just in case I was too weak or out of it to pray, I would sat my alarm clock to Christian music when the nightmares where at a climax....it actually worked, whether your a christian or not I no personally those dark things hated the sound and literally fled.....
Hi Angel,
Those can definitely be terrifying experiences. The near death experiences could definitely have something to do with it. I've had these issues for years, but they definitely intensified after I nearly died, as well. Prayer before sleep is definitely good, and so is having a "holy place" (doesn't have to be real or a truly holy place in "real life") in your dreams that is safe from any type of attack. If you can establish this, then every time you have a dream and realize something bad is approaching, you can retreat to that safe place. This was a huge tactic for me over several years. It's not a huge issue now, though it still crops up from time to time. Environment is definitely a major factor for such things. I take it by the "used to" that you don't have these problems any more, so I'm glad to hear you found your way to win the fight. Take care, and thanks for commenting!
ok my friend has been having these nightmares but it all started around september and its bout her best guy friend who she likes but he's beating her... and he has never laid a finger on her or even threatened her... she doesn't know how these could happen.. and then they stopped around a month later but now after she got into a fight with him.... they have been ocurring a lot lately... and shes soo scared that one day it will happen... help me?
Jerry, great hub with sound ideas, I agree with you completely. This is really good.
Hi Jerry, It was a nice article. I have been a victim of nightmares since childhood. They were so scary that I will shout oooo........oooo.....oooh in a very grotesque mannerand people sleeping near to m will be terrified unbeleiveably. I do not know the reason why? I am very much afraid of supernatural characters and I even do not watch horror movies. This problem is really chronic and even now also I do experience scary dreams and shout in a very horrifying voice. I feel ashamed when people tell me their experience of telling me my behaviour in my dream. Please help.
Jerry, this is so weird because I linked my recent hub to your hub about dreams and a recurring dream is happening in my hub story... The Great American Novel - Chapter 1, Page 2... it's my first attempt at writing a novel and I'm doing it in my hubs.
Check it out because this is really weird...
I have so many bad dreams, from being cheated on to being murdered, and so many other things. It's quite scary.
Your hub brought back memories of a recurring nightmare I used to have whenever I took a nap in the afternoons (should I call it an afternoonmare then?! lol) .. this was when I was a kid. I always dreamt that a stranger chased me all the way to a cliff and then pushes me off and I would freefall and invariably wake up on the ground as i would hv fallen off the bed. Interpretation of Dreams (I think) by Sigmund Freud is a good reference book for dreams. Thanks for putting together this hub. Very well written.
Hey All,
Appreciate the great comments. And my sympathies with everyone having problems. I briefly touched on this in my hub, but another thing to look at is "Lucid Dreaming." Now nearly 100% of my nightmares occur in dreams that feature an old house my family used to live in, one where I had the most traumatic and terrifying experience of my life. Every time I'm dreaming and it's at that property, I know a nightmare or "ambush" is coming. This is where I use lucid dreaming, because for whatever reason, there is one real life location (an old house in Colorado my grandfather owned) that in my dreams was like a sanctuary - for whatever reason no nightmare could enter, no spiritual attack could penetrate it. Because of this, whenever a dream starts at my old property, I concentrate to put my dream self into the safe place: my grandpa's house.
You can actually train yourself into lucid dreaming. For some people it's more natural than others (for example, I was stunned the first time I found out some people didn't lucid dream at all and that most never experienced it more than 10%-20% of the time because I was so used to being aware of dreaming and being able to control the dream), but you can teach yourself to recognize a dream and then take control of one when it's turning to a nightmare. This is a good link as an overview of lucid dreaming:
http://www.dreamviews.com/content/
Hope this helps!
Thanks.. This has helped me mainly.. Now I think I need to talk to my doctor.. :)
Jerry ,
Thank you for this artical . I am at a point in which I do not know which way to turn . I feel that no one understands me as every morning I wake in a state from my dreams .
Sometimes I cannot remember what I was dreaming but still I am in a state as I know something disturbed me in my sleep .
Sometimes I feel I cannot breath - someone is tying a belt around my chest and I know that if I do not pull myself to wake up , by moving my foot , finger - anything I will not wake up .
last night I had a dream that I stabbed someone many times as he came into my house and was planning on killing me . I just beat him to it . Or so I thought . Then as I tried to leave the house he came down the stairs in my brothers clothes and smiled at me . I knew he was going to kill me . Then I woke up .
I am still shaking some hours later and I am deeply scared to a point that my hands are sweating . And I think to top it all my boyfriend does not understand . ' It is just a dream ' he says .
Please help .
Thank you .
x
I too am having a dream like PJM... i get all tied up by someone i dont even know and they have my boyfriend tied up as well... they torcher him till he is almost dead and then they atart raping me... he tries to stop them and save me... but then he gets shot and killed... then they stop raping me and barry me with him. I have been having this dream now for a month and i cannot sleep... when i told my boyfriend about the dream he got all worried about me. i just had one now and woke up and was screaming and crying.
I was on anti-depressants in the past 2 years... i stopped taking them in may (after i took 28) cause they were making me suicidle. I just want them to stop.
thanks
Kassie
Thank you so much for this article as I have been having a recurring dream for the past month or so, every night it has been going further lately. I think it is caused by a constant anxiety of being put in a mental hospital for my past self destructive coping ways, in the dream I am walking down the hall of a mental asylum toward an old fashioned pay phone hanging off the hook && swinging very eerily, as if in a stop-motion movie. When I proceed to answer the phone all I hear is an half human half cat screech/scream then blades flip out of the mouthpiece && cut me from ear to ear. Then I am put into restraints by two nurses, both faceless, one with buttons for eyes && blood smears similating a wide smile (haha the eyes remind me of coraline) && the other has stitches in the shape of a smile from ear to ear && scars where eyes should be suggesting the gouging out of her past eyes.then one of them puts a finger to her "lips" as if telling me to quiet down. I am then taken down a hall where I look into windows && see similar nurses performing lobotomies or cutting out organs of patients in chains from the ceiling similar to the shackles used in slaughterhouses. At the end of the hall I am taken into an empty white hospital like room with nothing in it but a wheelchair with restraints && a medical supply desk with a bone saw, marker, syringe, && scalpel, the "nurses" then proceed to draw dashed lines around my eyes && major organs, with a line toward each tear duct, suggesting lobotomy. I woke up after I was cut from crown to stomach. ----12/25/10, just short of a horror movie right? Haha everything's good now that I know to just remember to dream lucidly tomorow night && pray before I sleep. I think the reason for the dream elevating in the past few dreams is due to taking a walk with my cousins down an old railroad track, then finding bones, including a rib the same size as mine, making me realize that the bones could've easily been me if I kept being so wreckless with my life. This article really helped me figure out this twisted little nightmare, thanks(:
Thank you for this.
I believe mine is based on stress, since I grind my teeth to, and because my recurring nightmare is about spirits and the "supernatural" - whom I also believe in - it makes me extremely scared when I wake up from a nightmare/ the recurring nightmare. This is probably what causes the dreams; I just want to share my dream because It'll make me feel better.
It's usually about me and my sister, we're usually doing something that involves her locking our bedroom door before I can get in, only jokingly. And then 2 seconds larger something invisible drags me into another room and I can't escape, my sister can't here either. I usually wake up about there, but I can't get to sleep because I usually get it 3-4 times in a row, then it will do the same about 9 months later.
I will try harder to locate the sources of my stress and stop it.
Sooo glad I'm not the only one, I feel like a "nut case"...Thanks and good luck to all!
Like your Hub here, I find it useful and informative too. I'm very glad to see others with like minded topics to my own, thanks very much for sharing and keep it up. You should check out my hubs on my own recurring dreams, I have turned them into fictional stories I find this to help quite a bit.
I keep dreaming that im totally isolated. I cannot lucid dream but its every time i sleep, any time of day. Its gotten to where im scared of my sleep...
Isolation is and always has been my largest fear, but i have lots of friends that love me and pray constantly. Any suugestions?
Please help
Perhaps it's not just being isolated, but what may be there in that isolation. Think of it more this way, as something imaginary and dark then it seems almost too silly to be scared of the isolation part anymore. Since there was nothing there at all to harm you, but just your own imagination. Play this as a game with your self a few times, just to see how it goes. Oh, and check out my new hub on nightmares I have some of my own and how I handle them everyday. With a pole you can answer too. A.B.
is there anything else that causes recurring nightmares i don't think these apply to mine
Recurring nightmares could be cause by alot of things. Just really need to understand them.
I keep having a nightmare that I'm at my old elementary school dance, a friend and I walk to the bathroom but when we return everyone is gone except a man in a wheel chair who wants to kill us. We try to find ways out but the doors and windows are locked, so he corners us in a small room, telling us how he killed everyone else and we are left. Every time I have the dream it ends differently but I still wake up terrified.
Hello and ty for the articler it helped alot to understand what might be going on with me. I have a reocuring nightmare of snakes that are viciously attacking me and twice I was bitten in my dream on my neck. I felt helpless in the nightmares and fought my way through it by trying to find a way out of the nightmare. I have been going through alot of stress and alot of physical issues going on such as my heart as well as lack of sleep. When I do sleep its for short periods such as 1 1/2 to 3 hours at a time. I am in pain most of the night and I spend my night tossing and turning and find myself extremely tired when I finally need to get up to start my day. So on top of that I have these nightmares. Other than snakes I have had nightmares of harm from others. Terrifying and disturbing nightmares. I didnt realize until I read your article that stress can play a huge part in nightmares.
man i think its so strange because i woke up with a weird scratch marked scar and no one can honestly see it except me.
I like to dream as much as I want some good rest. My nightmares on chickens (my phobia) take my breath away and I can't get over it quickly.
You have many other interesting hub titles I would like to read. I'll be back soon.
MsMazz 3 years ago
Thanks! That was really helpful :)