The Nightmare  

Nightmares, like any other dream usually involves images and themes and reflect a typical healing process within.  However, they do tend to be more intense and negative, most of the time associated with fear and being uncomfortable.  It is though, a sort of built in recuperative operation, like dreaming, nightmares serve as a restorative function.  A chance for us to move along and solve some internal conflicts and question that we may be consciously or unconsciously struggling with.  Subsequently, nightmares should diminish in frequency and intensity if recovery is progressing.  Therefore, it is important to be open to your dream experiences and not to fight them. This is important for a typical dreamer who is not a chronic suffer of nightmares.

So then why do I suffer from nightmares?

Dreams serve as a function for resolving inner personal conflicts, as do nightmares. There are many speculations out there as to why, and thinking is that during dreaming our thought is not judgemental or analytical and thus just experiences and learns during the event.  Just like in  waking life, we have good and bad experiences in our dreams as well.  This is probably the reason we also suffer from nightmares.  Much of our experience is a projection of our mental, and emotional states, this may be unconscious ones as well.  If you have started having nightmares for the first time in your life, check your stress levels or pay attention to what you recently may have experienced that might have triggered fears or uncomfortability with you.  In essence, for those who suffer from just the occasional nightmare, the simplest way to think of nightmares is a as a bad dream experience.  However, things are a bit more complicated for most and especially for those who are chronic sufferers.

One function of dreams is a mood regulator from waking to dreams and back into waking. What does this mean? This means that our moods prior to dreaming enhances, changes and alters the type of dream we experience. This means that if you have problems regulating your mood or have depressed mood states regularly, you may find that you also have far more nightmares than the usual sleeper. When one sleeps their emotional states are directed inwards and sensitivity and responsivity is heightened, which triggers the onset of a negative dream experience.  Also, if you sleep in an uncomfortable environment, or if you are sleeping in fear, or have alot of pressure or problems on your mind you will tend to have more nightmares in these types of situations.   A nightmare occurs when during sleep the dreamer is unable to regulate and integrate the negative dream experience and the nightmare begins.

Personality Types and Nightmares           What do Nightmares Mean?