Facts You Never Knew About Nightmares...

Everyone has a tale of a nightmare to tell, a dreamland event where you are not actually in the "land of make believe", a place of comfort and luxury full of what we wanted in real life instead we find us in an episode of apocalypse terror fills the horizons around us and we fight to the finish until aaaahhh! its just a dream.

"Scary" (CC BY 2.0)

The question,  what actually is going on in our head while this show continues? and our experiences after that leads to us making hypothesis and assumptions about what we think nightmares are. Though we are still allowed to keep and believe in our own interpretation of whats happening to us, let see what experts say about nightmares.

• Nightmare is a random combination of memories in our brains displayed in a terrifying manner...

Ever seen your self been fiercely chased by a crowd of zombies as if you were Milla Jovovich in resident evil? or seen yourself turn into a mountain climber overnight then suddenly you slipped and started falling off the cliff? These situations are not really that weird anyway. According to Micheal Breus a clinical psychologist, what a person sees in a nightmare is just a combination of different memories recent informations that s/he got exposed to.

However, nightmares are masterminded or influenced by a persons fear and stressors like the fear of being tormented or tortured. Nightmares are relatively longer than ordinary dreams in terms of time length with frightening realistic and memorable details which can take longer to forget.

• Not all nightmares are scary

Seriously this fact freaks me out but its true a nightmares doesn't have to be you being chased by a crowd of blood sucking zombies nor does it have to be a tale of apocalypse no! the rule is that as long as what (the visuals) is being played in your mind scares you then bingo! you're in deep shit. OK!

A nightmare only needs to create a strong "negative" emotional response (usually fear and panic) for a particular person thus what you may call a nightmare maybe just a normal dream for me. For instance, just dreaming about a classmate in your school could be a nightmare for you if it stairs up sadness and anger- even if they were just standing on a beach watching the sky and chewing gum pop! pop! pop! and harmless.

Similarly, being chased in a dream doesn't have to be a nightmare if you found it fun said Dr Bary Krakow a sleep specialist in Albuquerque, new Mexico. She maintained that you could be fiercely chased by an attacker in a dream but it wouldn't be termed a nightmare if its thrilling like a Jackie Chan action movie.

• You can't dream of stuffs you've not seen or heard of...

Dr Breus also explained that when we sleep, our brains processes both long term and short term memories and these informations gathered makes up most of the images we see in our dreams (nightmares).

He continued that one can also dream of what they've seen in movies or read from novels/books. However there maybe an identification of new/strange faces or objects or animals in a nightmare but they're technically an amalgamation of already known or seen things. work done by the brain.

• What wakes you up is your emotional response

Dr Micheal Breus stated that a lot of dreaming occurs in the visual cortex which is linked to the amygdala (an emotional response center of the brain). While a nightmare progresses, a combination of both parts of the brain triggers the automatic arousal of the body- this happens as heartbeat increases, breathing becomes difficult and one can start sweating profusely.

• Nightmares relates to the REM sleep

The brain is most active during the rapid eye movement (REM) phase of sleep. Dreams can happen any time from the start of a sleep period to the final hours but nightmares have a specific period which is during the second part of the rapid eye movement sleep. Dr Jim Pagel an associate clinical professor explained that this stage of REM sleep is closest to waking consciousness, he said "at this stage the brain neurons are firing and brain wave increases or accelerates in frequency so the mind becomes more active". At the peak of the whole situation is when you wake up at 4 am and suddenly realise you are not in a zombie island.

• Memories of nightmares doesn't leave...

After a terrifying nightmare, the memories of what happened back there sticks in your head for a while after you're awake to full consciousness, unlike ordinary dreams where sometimes you may find it difficult to recall.

this could be partly because nightmares happened right before you're awake and partly because visuals that control negative emotions are more memorable than visuals of positive emotions. People can remember the the whole scenes of there worst nightmares for as long as ten years or even more and the bad thing with nightmare is that if it still disturbs you up till the time for your next sleep, it may interfere with your sleep moving forward and may lead to insomnia which in-turn can also cause more nightmares.

• Nightmares and dreams are part of an emotional processing system...

Statistically stating, over 70% of adults experience nightmares at least once a month Dr Pagel said that as an adult, things that bother you during the day also continues bothering you at night and nightmares can help cool off.

• Stress increases nightmares

Sometimes a particular nightmare can occur more than once infact it kindda refuses to stop for quite a while. In this case, they are called stress dreams. According to Dr Breus, stress dreams usually lack disturbing images, they often come as ordinary life issues in a negative manner like going late to an interview or an examination.

Stress conditions causing nightmares may include; relationship break ups, new jobs, death etc. most times the stress conditions and their dreams have no direct link in scenario judging from ordinary observation. For example, i am stressed that the business am investing in may not work out but in my nightmare I'm late for an exam.

• Nightmares can't predict the future

Sometimes some nightmares are so strong that one may think that they are supper meaningful and pointing at something in real life yet to happen, like a terrible accident or partner cheating. The logical truth here is that these kind of nightmares are often engineered by an extreme fear or a perceived threat of possible trauma.

Know that some intense, anxious or fearful feelings due to a previous experience like rape either in real life or in movie or novel can manifest as physical aggression in a nightmare. According to Dr Breus there is no solid evidence that a nightmare can foresee the future, hence you don't have to experience trauma in the past to dream about the future.

He further stressed that if a traumatic nightmare messes with your emotion then you really need too see a doctor or a psychologist.

• Nightmares cannot lead to heart attack

Dr Breus has explained that there is no harm or whatsoever on a persons health associated with nightmares, however he said, people with existing heart conditions maybe badly affected by the pulse racing experienced during a nightmare. Breus explained that because nightmare causes pulse racing which is not good for people who "already" have heart problems does not mean it causes a health hazard as there are also other factors that can also cause pulse racing (increase in blood pressure).

• Nightmares are bad? also nightmares are good.

Sometimes people really don't want their nightmares to stop and once awake wishes to go back into the wonderland this occurs especially when the nightmare doesn't present distress. According to Dr Pagel, people who experience nightmares more frequently are usually more creative, this is because they are more imaginative.

• Nightmare can be source of inspiration...

"Geopoliticus Child" (CC BY 2.0) by  Damian Gadal 

Do you remember the author Stephen king who is known for using his nightmares to create complexity in his novels? yes! such people exists he is not the last of his kind though there are others like Salvado Dali the Spanish artist who painted the amazing "Geopoliticus" above claimed the source of the drawing solely came from a nightmare. He drew the image immediately he woke up knowing it could be useful in his future works.

Generally, the alternate perspective of the world in your nightmare can be very useful for careers that require imagery and creativity in writing. says Pagel.

• Rate of nightmares varies  among individuals

Some factors basically affects or induces nightmares, these factors includes; Depression, anxiety and psychiatric disorders.
Also sleep disorders like apnea or psychiatric disorders also affects nightmares. due to the fact that sleep disorders are genetic, the above stated (rate of nightmares...) also becomes a fact.

Sometimes medical experts are forced to include gender as one of the factors that affects nightmare occurrence since reports for nightmares are higher in women than in men.

Some medications can cause nightmares this includes- antidepressants, beta-blocker,melatonin, smoking cessation drugs and antihistamines.

• Nightmares are not night terrors and PTSD

All three doctors in the house agreed that it is important to know the difference between these three...
Night terror- are very different from nightmares in the sense that they do not occur at the REM phase of sleep and thus is difficult to remember because the brain is less active at the moment. The main significant of a night terror is that after a night terror people just wake panting, screaming and crying without remembering anything from a dream. And because they are not fully conscious, they go back to sleep with little or no memory of what had happened.

PTSD- associated nightmare is  very similar to flashback it occur as a more detailed reliving of trauma. soldiers from a war scene always report positive for this case. Also rape victims suffer from this.

• You can be diagnosed with "nightmare disorder"

Nightmare disorder may be referred to as sleep-wake disorder which involves fragmentation of night sleep with each fragment having a frightening dream accompanying it. This situation can lead to clinically significant distress and impairment. According to Dr Krakow many people don't know that the occurrence of nightmares in an individual can reach a stage where it becomes a legitimate disorder that requires treatment. He explained that it is not the amount of nightmares a person has each night that matters but how much it disturbs him.