A few questions about nightmares

What are nightmares and why do we have them ? Do they serve a purpose ? Are they " important " & on average how often does a person have a nightmare ?

I wonder this because I have not had a nightmare in over 22 years and I have no idea why this is ?

Originally posted by Max_TO
What are nightmares and why do we have them ? Do they serve a purpose ? Are they " important " & on average how often does a person have a nightmare ?

I wonder this because I have not had a nightmare in over 22 years and I have no idea why this is ?

You should look up "Lucid Dreaming". You may find your dreams change to your advantage through lucid dreaming. It's really all about controlling your dreams. It can be done. It's pretty easy really. Look it up and good luck.

well i dont think anyone can give you the correct answer about dreams i think we only have speculation as to what they are and why we have them ,the only thing that i can tell you about dreams is that life can be created from them hints the possibilty that we can create our own reality .. ill explain


so if i am dreaming about having sex and i wake up having had a wet dream ....well then i guess i just created life from a thought get my point ? lol


anyway ty for the post

love Nephi

reply to post by brilab45


Yes I have had Lucid Dreams , I have also had sleeping paralysis , just no nightmares .

I've not had any nightmares since I was a kid. Sometimes I have scary dreams where something bad happens but never so bad that I wake up scared or sweating. Not since I was a kid.

Usually nightmares are your fears of something that you don't recognize or won't accept. Or just good ole fear of the unknown. So maybe you are stable in life, not many uncertainties?

reply to post by Max_TO
I suggest that nightmares are an expression of our thoughts and experiences in the same way that dreams are. We don't remember all of our dreams and perhaps you haven't remembered your nightmares? If you're correct and you remain a nightmare-free zone, perhaps you are simply content with your lot in life? It could be that whatever anxieties you have aren't enough to spoil a good night's sleep.

That's a pretty cool state to be in

The first three rules of dreaming (according to me)

1. Everything requires your attention to exist.

2 The more attention you give something, the more related detail it creates.

3. Strong emotions have a powerful influence over you dream world.

Nightmares are a mixture of the second and third rules in action. They begin by something scary or dangerous that you would be a fool to ignore in a real life situation. Once that element has hooked your attention, the intense focus you put on it causes it to expand and multiply. The strong emotional response that evokes pretty much guarantees that the behavior of the elements involved will remain negative.

Nightmares are just a vicious circle. Something negative captivates your attention, and the more you focus on it, the more intense it becomes. The more intense it becomes, the more you focus on it. The only way to break that cycle is to ignore the nightmarish elements and focus on something more positive.

Take a real life example, where say a co-worker is doing something that annoys you. The more they do it, the more annoying it becomes, until it builds and builds and you blow the whole thing out of proportion. It's the same process that creates nightmares, only the active emotion fueling the whole process is anger instead of fear like in nightmares.

[edit on 14-7-2010 by The Cusp]

That's an interesting question. The problem is that "nightmare" isn't an objective thing, it's just a dream that bothers the dreamer.

Even attempts to make the category crisper, such as requiring that the dreamer awake from the dream in order for it to "count," don't get very far. Plenty of people routinely wake up immediately after dreaming. We're "almost awake" during REM sleep anyway.

Intuitively, it's easy to imagine that strong affect would make it easier to remember a particular dream, and fright may be an easy affect to evoke. We know from waking life that some thoughts seem to be accompanied with an "urgency tag." Some things, when we think of them (Is my fly unzipped?), mobilize us to take prompt action.

So, dreams being thoughts, maybe some of them use strong affect as an "urgency tag," too. "Pay attention to me!" That wouldn't be too far fetched.

Anyway, I wouldn't be worried about having too few of something that can't be measured in the first place. Although that does sound like a good plot premise for a nightmare, doesn't it?