The DreamWorker – DreamWorkers.org

All of us have experienced nightmares at one time or another – and that enormous wave of relief when we look around our dark bedroom and gush to ourselves “Oh! Thank goodness, it was only a dream.” Unfortunately, when you close your eyes at night, the odds are considerably against having only pleasurable, or even uneventful, dreams. A study has shown that 64% of our dreams are connected with some level of apprehension – ranging from awaking with a mild sense of uneasiness and not knowing why to being drenched in sweat and too terrified to go back to sleep. It is helpful to go over the different degrees of intensity in connection with frightening dreams:

Night Terrors afflict primarily children. Unlike most other dreams, they occur during the non-REM sleep stages, and are very brief; usually consisting of a single scene. The child awakes screaming, but does not remember what scared him. Naturally, night terrors can be very traumatic to a child. Thankfully, most children outgrow them.

Nightmares cause anxiety severe enough to awaken the dreamer in distress. The dreamer has clear, detailed recollection of the scary dream, which is usually of some length (15 – 20 minutes is the average). Common nightmare themes include falling, drowning, being chased, and getting lost.

Bad Dreams are the most common type of frightening dreams.  Not scary enough to leave you crying or shaking, but certainly quite disturbing. Examples would include being nude in public, having to take a test for which you are unprepared, or hurting someone else. It is worth mentioning here that often physical illness that is not yet apparent to you or your doctors will show up in a bad dream. Be on the look out for, say, dreams of a house with a broken furnace (gastrointestinal problems) or a car with busted headlights (glaucoma or cataracts). Anything that seems somehow to represent a physical problem may be worth checking out, particularly if it is recurring. Of course, any blatant, anxiety-causing dreams of your being ill warrants a check-up.

The best way to deal with a nightmare is to turn it into a lucid dream, or to re-enter the dream. In those ways, you can not only change the ending to a better one, you can confront your fears head on and banish them. Sometimes just making the decision to “kick some nocturnal butt” is enough to narrow the point spread in your favor. Another way to go from underdog to top dog is to turn a dream foe into a friend through conversation. That dream act can bolster your self-worth in your waking life. The  Senoi actively fought their demons in their dreams.

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