A nightmare is a dream that causes a strong emotional response, fear or horror, from the sleeping person. Nightmares are caused by something physical or psychological. A psychological cause when a person is feeling anxious or stressed. A physical cause perhaps is when a person is in an uncomfortable position or has a fever. But the psychological cause tends to be more prominent than the physical. Nightmares are NOT from psychological disorders, such as post-traumatic stress disorder. Psychological DISORDERS cause night terrors which are completely different. So do not think that if you have or had nightmares you have a psychological disorder. Nightmares take place during REM (rapid eye movement) while night terrors take place in Stage four of the sleep cycle.
Nightmares are still dreams, the only difference between a "normal" dream and a nightmare is that nightmares evoke fear, while dreams do not. If you want to know why we have certain nightmares then you would have to analyze the latent content of the nightmare. For example, the nightmare I had that is on my previous post probably means that I am terrified of the strange and unknown. But the nightmare in itself was most likely brought on by anxiety. And the anxiety manifested itself using a nightmare. The nightmare that I have might not terrify you and the nightmare you have will necessarily terrify me, so nightmares are directed toward your anxiety.
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This post helps explain a lot. It was very interesting. I never even knew that a nightmare could be physically caused.
ReplyDeleteThis post is a really good explanation of nightmares. It is interesting how a nightmare could be physically caused and directed toward a person's own anxiety. This also helped me understand the nightmare I remember the most from when I was a little girl, losing my dad just because he was in a business trip.
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