Nightmares are simply dreams that scare the dreamer. What might your nightmares mean, and how can you free yourself from them?

ADULTS’ BAD DREAMS. Those of us who have a lot of nightmares are more likely to: be creative (!), remember our childhoods well and to have been sensitive kids,  have experienced childhood neglect or abuse, be more concerned about death, be unusually affected by other people, and have difficulty protecting ourselves against hurtful feelings.  Many substances can cause nightmares (see Sleeping Better post), and if you are unusually stressed or grieving, expect more nightmares at those times.

In fact, nightmares are a relatively ordinary experience for most of us–not an indication of mental illness or weakness of any kind. Two-thirds of all adult dreams, all over the world, are bad dreams!

What to do about them? First of all, don’t work with any dream that causes you genuine terror when you remember it. For each of the following techniques, start by making sure you are in a safe place and won’t be interrupted for a few minutes. Sit quietly, close your eyes and imagine yourself descending a staircase. When you reach the bottom, you will find yourself at the beginning of the nightmare—before anything scary, or the scariest thing, happened. Then, try…

Relaxation (for recurring or very frightening nightmares). Imagine the dream from the beginning until just before becoming scared. Now stop. * Keep your eyes closed and visualize a place you’ve been that makes you feel very calm, maybe a place in nature. Once you’ve done that, consciously relax all your major muscle groups by taking an imaginary tour of your body. Keep imagining the relaxing place.  Once again, imagine the dream up until the point at which you become scared.  Stop.  Repeat from the * until you get through the entire dream (this could take days or weeks with a powerful, recurring nightmare).  Reward yourself after each session of imagining.

This is an extremely effective technique, but make sure not to continue to imagine the dream once you become tense! That will only reinforce the fear and make it more likely you’ll be more afraid, not less.  Relax (from the *), and perhaps take a break.

Each time you’ve completed this exercise, make sure to thank the dream images for meeting with you (communicating respect for your own unconscious!), and walk back up the stairway. When you reach the top, you’re out of the dreamworld…

Changing the image. This works well for almost any garden-variety nightmare, and can also be an additional step to the process just above. This time, remember the dream from the beginning, and when you reach the point where the scary image resides, simply focus upon it. As you watch it, it will change. Allow your own unconscious mind to present changes to the original image.  The changed image often gives clues as to the meaning of the scary image.  Stay relaxed throughout, but if you can’t, try the “relaxation” technique, above.

Express the scary image creatively. Think of the scariest moment of the dream, when you were confronted or threatened or attacked or chased by something or someone terrifying. Now, give the dream a different, positive ending.  Write a story (or tell a friend) about the dream, using the new ending. Or paint the images in the dream, perhaps bringing in a helpful character for a different resolution, or as the dreamer, doing something to ensure your safety or triumph. Make a collage, photo montage, or video of the dream. Anything you can do that externalizes the dream images and brings them into reality where you can consider and evaluate them will help heal nightmares.  For a child who’s having nightmares, ask him or her to tell you a positive-ending story and to draw the images from the dream each time the dream occurs.  This nearly always ends nightmares.

KIDS’ BAD DREAMS. The dreams kids tell their parents have been found to be more violent and scary than adults’ dreams.  In fact, kids who read scary books or view frightening video images are three times more likely to have nightmares than are other children! Children’s dreams are much more affected by reading than are adults’, so if you have a child in your life, you might want to put the frightening books away until they’re older. Protect children from anything other than “G” rated images. Their nervous systems aren’t developed enough to be able to process the stimulation, or to understand the storyline. Younger children confuse the story with reality, which makes their reality a terrifying place full of potentially non-human things coming at them.

BUT WHAT DO NIGHTMARES MEAN? Characters in nightmares often represent parts of ourselves that we have yet to acknowledge or accept. They present themselves as terrifying because we find their qualities so threatening to our sense of self, and we may dream of them when we most often need to express their qualities.  In dreams of being chased (the most common human dream), we are often chasing ourselves! For example, if you dream you’re being chased by an athletic, tireless, energetic character, that may indicate you need to work out a bit more. But not too much! A recent study from the UK of 1.2 million people found that exercising 2-6 hours per week was the amount of time most associated with positive mental health (tai chi, yoga, walking, cycling seemed to work best).

If you have dreams you’d like help understanding here, feel free to email me (see Welcome, Creative Dreamers post). Sweet dreams!

Last night, I was the guest of Esme Murphy on CBS’ WCCO 830 news radio in Minnesota. Several gracious listeners called in with dreams, ranging from striking images to whole nightmares.  Scary dreams can influence our mood the next day, and although they may lead us to feel unsteady and apprehensive, they often contain a message about something preoccupying us which needs attention.  Creative people tend to have more nightmares than average, so if we’re going to have more of them, we might as well make use of them!

In my mailbox last week was just such a frightening dream, from a generally happy young mother. She dreamed a young, unfamiliar boy was in her home. He had the same last name as she, and “he seems evil…he grabs my throat and starts to choke me.”  He “overpowers” her, and plays word games with her. She figures out he is related to her:

“I don’t feel comfortable repeating the conversation I had with him. It was like he was the devil playing games with me, and I’m not religious. What does this mean? It bothers me so intensely, I can still feel the crazy kid.”

Don’t worry!  These are not uncommon dreams. Creative people have three dream themes more commonly than do others, and one of them is more children.  What might kids mean in dreams?  Generally, they represent new aspects of the self. The age of the child often (not always) indicates how long the new quality has been around. How threatening the child is, suggests how willing or able we are to accept it (the more threatening, the harder the quality is to accept within us).

The dreamer feels related to this child (and has the same last name!), although she does not know him. He enjoys playing word games, he says things she is upset by or afraid of, and he seems to have something to do with talking (it is hard to communicate when choking, word games).

What if the child represents a part of this dreamer, herself? An emerging, masculine side that may have been “born” within her about 7-8 years ago, and has qualities so different from the way she typically sees herself, that they are presented in the dream as threatening, even dangerous?  It may be that, for the last several years, she’s needed to express a more assertive side, and the dream child does this in an exaggerated way.

Change is frightening. We humans don’t like it much. Even positive changes can be unbalancing. If you have a dream like this, consider what the dream child is like.  What are his qualities? What does he seem to want you to do? And why?  Are any of his qualities, in more positive form, something you are developing within yourself?  Consider what the child needs and wants; is there a way in which you could give this to yourself in a healthy, productive, less exaggerated form?

At the same time, is there something within you that is stealing your own breath (choking) and ability to communicate?

Consider your dreams of children as emerging, creative aspects of your own personality. What do they need? How can they be protected? Do they need discipline? Limits? Freedom? Tools?

Scroll down (or click the links to the right) to get help for ending nightmares. Until next time… sweet dreams!

We are approaching the winter solstice, the day that turns the dark to light for the next six months of the year…

Just as light is a metaphor, so is darkness: in dreams, the dark can stand for unawareness, confusion, unconsciousness, deeper feelings waiting beneath the surface.   When you dream of night or a dim place, consider…  what’s happening there? How do you feel when there? What are you trying to “see” (become aware of) within yourself, situations, and others?

Most often, our nightmares take place in the dark. (If you have one of these, take a look at the “nightmares” post for how to discern its message and move past such a dream.)  When we are scared of the dark, what are we really afraid of? What we don’t understand about ourselves is what frightens us the most.   Often, what we have a hard time facing is just what we need most.

Two thought-provoking quotes from Carl Jung for this time of year:

• “Knowing your own darkness is the best method for dealing with the darknesses of other people.”
• “Enlightenment is not imagining figures of light, but making the darkness conscious.”

Of course, then again, all hail the return of the light!  Spring is just around the corner…

Next time,  by request, dreams of zombies and other creatures.  Until then…sweet dreams!