nightmares

Everyone will sooner or later get by Nightmares plagued. Research is therefore increasingly devoted to this unpleasant phenomenon of the resting phases. However, they can also indicate existing ailments.

What are nightmares?

A nightmare is a dream that mainly consists of negative events and / or triggers negative emotions. Different scenarios can come before the mind's eye during sleep.

Quite a few of the nightmares are capable of affecting the person's sleep. From sometimes strong movements of the body and limbs to verbal screams and moans to awakening, a nightmare can have different effects on a person.

The excitements released and perceived as disturbing arise from the subconscious. Experiences are processed here. One could think of earlier traumas, professional and private failures or similar memories that cut into the psyche.

Another source of the nightmare is seen in fantasy. Films, books or music can either have a direct effect on a person or stimulate their creative thoughts. Even here the emergence of gloomy moods would be possible, which drag on into the dream.

Basically, the mental prerequisites of a patient must also be checked if they complain of nightmares more often.

Function & task

Science is still in the dark about the usefulness of negative dreams. A process of processing earlier episodes in one's own life can certainly take place here. Confronting the person with their fears or threats at night should help to no longer ignore what has been repressed in the future. As a result, many of those affected learn to deal better with such situations.

However, nightmares can also have an unreal background. On the one hand, when they are brought back to the mind's eye as an extract from films or books in the subconscious. On the other hand, when there are emotional dream images without any real connection to life.

This is where dream research comes in. She subjects each recognized symbol to its own interpretation. Without exception, however, this can be done taking into account the overall psychological situation of a patient. Going further, it would also have to be questioned what exactly characterizes a dream. Because the perception in such case studies has so far been different. What was registered as disturbing by one test person did not trigger any symptoms of tension in other comparison groups. As a result, a nightmare can only be evaluated personally.

It is therefore often assumed that dream images in dark colors would primarily arise in an overstrained brain. Accordingly, they signal that the subconscious is overloaded when processing past and current experiences. This is supported by the assumption that nightmares are very often associated with a perceived emotional distress. These can be professional or private concerns. Fears of the future are one of the most common motives in the scenarios.

If a nightmare occurs chronically, therapy with a view to possible mental ailments would be advisable. In the majority of people, however, negative dream images only occur sporadically. Often it is enough to structure everyday life a little differently or to provide relaxation.

When looking for causes, it should also be borne in mind that taking medication can sometimes lead to nightmares as a side effect.

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Illnesses & ailments

Nightmares are associated with a variety of mental impairments. So the rest phase of sleep is interrupted first. This can result in a form of imbalance. Nervous tension, the easy irritability or the wrong interpretation of some statements are part of it. Even depression or neurotic disorders sometimes result from negative dream images.

Depending on your own feelings, the nightmare can be perceived as very real and trigger the corresponding emotional and physical symptoms. The increase in blood pressure, the cramping of the muscles or the unhealthy clenching of the teeth are considered direct side effects. At the same time, the overall mental situation worsens. Fears can grow, and simple challenges can become insurmountable hurdles.

In addition, it is possible that a distinction between dream and reality no longer takes place. Around five percent of patients feel the threatening scenes of the night in their everyday lives. They tend to have paranoid perceptions, suffer from a misjudgment of specific situations or are no longer able to socialize due to the onset of panic attacks. In these serious cases, therapy without psychological help is not possible.

Here, the effects of the dreams can even lead to the fact that the once exercised profession can no longer be continued. In this way, however, a negative cycle is established. Missing salaries in particular do not alleviate financial worries. Affected people can therefore get into serious personal situations in which the intensity of the nightmares increases. The elimination of the causes is therefore inevitable.

At the same time, however, it should be noted that nightmares generally do not represent a cause for further physical or mental illnesses. They are just an expression of the processing in the brain. In this respect, it is different how each person develops under this influence.

In an emergency, medical support would therefore be advisable. Because dream images cannot be ignored. And not every patient succeeds in waking up from such a negative sensation relatively quickly. The longer and more lasting the nightmare is, the more likely it is to indicate failure. Taken on its own, however, it rarely causes other diseases.