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Children are especially likely to have nightmares. In fact, nightmares are common in children. Nightmares typically start at around age 3 years old and continue till about age 7 or 8.

People with anxiety disorder might also experience what experts call night terrors. These are actually panic attacks that occur in sleep. It is especially difficult to remember these types of dreams since they conjure up terrifying images that we would just as soon forget.

In poetic myth, the Night Mare is a “small nettlesome mare, not more than thirteen hands high, of the breed familiar with the Elgin marbles: cream-colored, clean-limbed, with a long head, bluish eye, flowing mane and tail.”

Mares’ nests, “when one comes across them in dreams, lodged in rock-clefts or the branches of enormous hollow yews, are built of carefully chosen twigs lined with white horse-hair and the plumage of prophetic birds and littered with the jaw-bones and entrails of poets.” Thus, in a pagan world of myth and blood sacrifice, the Nightmare was a cruel, fearful creature.

Our modern word nightmare derives from the Middle English nihtmare (from niht, night, and mare, demon), an evil spirit believed to haunt and suffocate sleeping people. And so, in today’s world, when we speak of a nightmare we mean a frightening dream accompanied by a sensation of oppression and helplessness.

The blood-thirsty aspect of the mythic Nightmare, provides a clue about nightmares in general. In psychodynamic terms nightmares are graphic portrayals of raw, primitive emotions such as aggression and rage that have not been incorporated into the conscious psyche. Thus we tend to encounter these “ugly” aspects of our unconscious lives as terrifying dream images in whose presence we feel completely helpless.

Nightmares are quite common in childhood because this is a time of our emotional development when we all have to come to terms with, well, raw, primitive emotions such as aggression and rage. Traumatic nightmares can also occur as one of the many symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

Repetitive, intrusive nightmares following a trauma often contain symbolic themes that mirror the original trauma and relate to threat to life, threat of abandonment or death, or loss of identity. Therefore, traumatic nightmares need to be treated differently than other dreams.

It is not enough to know intellectually the psychological reasons why you have these nightmares. An event is traumatic because it disrupts your previously secure—and illusory—sense of “self.” And so, to heal from a trauma, you must take the initiative to make conscious changes in your life to accommodate the traumatic shattering of your illusions about life and identity.

Some believe that nightmares have a physiological aspect. Edgar Cayce believed that Nightmares, which bring with them an inability to move or cry out, usually indicate the wrong diet. To end the nightmarish dreams, he advised that you change your diet.

We found a technique on line that can help people who suffer from recurrent nightmares. It is not meant to be a cure-all. It is just a suggested treatment to deal with frightening nightmares. The idea is to use this therapy every night until the nightmare has been resolved. It is called Imagery Rehearsal Therapy.

Here are the steps of Imagery Rehearsal Therapy:

1. Write out the text of the nightmare. Tell the story, no matter how frightening, in as much detail as you can remember.

2. Create a new ending for the nightmare and write it down. Be careful, though, to make the new ending peaceful. Remember that the nightmare is grounded in emotions such as raw anger that have been provoked by a trauma. The point of a new ending is to “tame” the emotions, not merely vent them in violence and revenge.

3. Rehearse the new version of the story in your imagination each night just before going to sleep. Do that as close as possible to falling asleep without any other activity between the rehearsal and sleep.

4. Do a relaxation exercise. Do this immediately after the rehearsal, as a way to fall asleep peacefully. You may use any technique with which you are familiar. This could be meditation, yoga, or breathing exercises. The “cousin” of nightmares is disturbing dreams with unpleasant images.

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Without the powerful personal experience of working with his own dreams, during which his forgotten or unexpected emotions and fantasies welled up from his unconscious, Freud could not have so passionately believed in his theories of dreams and the unconscious.

As in many of his theories, Freud associated dreams with sex. Fundamental to his view of dreams was the belief that the purpose of dreams is to allow us to satisfy in our fantasies the instinctual urges that society considers unacceptable, such as certain sexual practices. That was partly why he experienced such the enormous opposition and criticism from scientists and the public alike.

When Freud was young, only men were thought to have powerful sexual urges. When Freud showed that repressed but obvious sexual desires were equally at work in women this created a social uproar. Perhaps his second finding in regard to sexuality surprised even him.

During Freud’s analysis of women patients, sexual advance or assault by the woman’s father was often revealed. Freud struggled with this, wondering whether the assault was memory of an actual event, or a psychic reproduction of it. He eventually came to the conclusion that hysterical and neurotic behavior was often due to the trauma caused by an early sexual assault by the parent.

Where there was not evidence of physical assault, Freud felt that the neurosis was due to sexual conflict or a trauma caused by some other event. That conflict was often manifested through dreams. That led to his theories being rejected by university colleagues, fellow doctors, and even by patients.

Freud’s growing interest in dreams may have come about because after he gave his patients the freedom to talk and explore the associations that arose, free association, he noticed that they often found a connection between their associations and a dream they had experienced.

The more Freud allowed his patients to go in their own direction, the more they talked about their dreams. Also, talking about the dream often enabled the patient to discover a new and productive chain of associations and memories.

Freud began to take note of his own dreams and explore the associations they aroused. In doing so he was the first person to consciously and consistently explore a dream into its depths through uncovering and following obvious and hidden associations and emotions connected with the dream imagery and drama.

Although earlier dream researchers had noticed how dream images correlated with personal concerns, Freud broke new ground, seeing the connection with sexual feelings, with early childhood trauma, and with the subtleties of the human psyche.

Freud explored his dreams to deal with his own neurosis. He wrote of that period, ‘I have been through some kind of neurotic experience, with odd states of mind not intelligible to consciousness, cloudy thoughts and veiled doubts, with barely here and there a ray of light.’

Using dreams for his self analysis, Freud found that he could remember forgotten details from his childhood along with feelings and states of mind that he had never before experienced.

Freud wrote of his period of personal dream analysis,

“Some sad secrets of life are being traced back to their first roots; the humble origins of much pride and precedence are being laid bare. I am now experiencing myself all the things that, as a third party, I have witnessed going on in my patients, days when I slink about depressed because I have understood nothing of the day’s dreams, fantasies, or mood.”

Sigmund Freud actually called dreams the “royal road to the unconscious.” That statement will probably remain true in psychology forever.

Freud’s classic book, The Interpretation of Dreams, includes some of his finest work. Freud wrote that every dream is a wish fulfillment. He continued to believe that theory to the end, even though he gave up his initial idea that all dreams have a sexual content.

For Freud, the concept of wish fulfillment did not necessarily mean that the dream indicated that the dreamer was seeking pleasure. He said that the dreamer could just as well have a wish to be punished. Nevertheless, this idea of a “secret” wish being masked by a dream remains central to classical Freudian psychoanalysis.

Freud said,

“Dreams are not comparable to the spontaneous sounds made by a musical instrument struck rather by some external force than by the hand of a performer; they are not meaningless, not absurd, they do not imply that one portion of our stockpile of ideas sleeps while another begins to awaken. Dreams are a completely valid psychological phenomenon, specifically the fulfillment of wishes. They can be classified in the continuity of comprehensible waking mental states; they are constructed through highly complicated intellectual activity.”

After Freud noticed how allowing his patients to freely associate ideas with whatever came to mind, he began to seriously explore what he called spontaneous abreaction. Freud himself suffered bouts of deep anxiety, and it was partly this that led him to explore the connection between association of ideas and dreams.

In 1897 Freud wrote this to his friend, Wilhelm Fliess:

“No matter what I start with, I always find myself back again with the neuroses and the psychical apparatus. Inside me there is a seething ferment, and I am only waiting for the next surge forward. I have felt impelled to start writing about dreams, with which I feel on firm ground.”

All is Dream album cover. Image via Wikipedia

Facts about dreams and dreaming:

• Everybody dreams. EVERYBODY! Simply because you do not remember your dream does not mean that you did not dream.

• Dreams are indispensable. A lack of dream activity can mean protein deficiency or a personality disorder.

• Men tend to dream more about other men, while women dream equally about men and women.

• People who are giving up smoking have longer and more intense dreams.

• Toddlers do not dream about themselves. They do not appear in their own dreams until the age of 3 or 4.

• If you are snoring, then you cannot be dreaming.

• Blind people do dream. Whether visual images will appear in their dream depends on whether they where blind at birth or became blind later in life. But vision is not the only sense that constitutes a dream. Sounds, tactility, and smell become hypersensitive for the blind and their dreams are based on these senses.

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Dreaming Beyond Death: A Guide to Pre-Death Dreams and Visions is a book about the dreams that some patients have spontaneously that comfort them throughout the process of dying, and how to counsel them. It was written by the Rev. Patricia Bulkley and Kelly Bulkeley, Ph.D.

Patricia Bulkley is a counsellor who works with people who are dying. Kelly Bulkeley is a dream researcher. They came together to write a down-to-earth, matter-of-fact book to help patients like Patricia’s and those who care for them.

Recently I reviewed another book on essentially the same topic, The Dreamer’s Book of the Dead, by Robert Moss, whose books I talk about a lot here. If you have read some of those reviews, you know that I love Moss’s books and his ideas.

You may also have decided that his books are probably a bit out there for materialists who have no particular belief or interest in dreams. Moss’s books are extremely readable, but they also tend to be long. While they are easy and fun to read, they are also somewhat mystical. 

Dreaming Beyond Death is a short, simple book, written for those who do not believe in dreams but do want to help others make a peaceful transition. This is a book you can give to a healthcare professional or a person with a conservative, orthodox belief system. The book does not assume that the reader believes in dreams or anything mystical. And for those who are not dream believers that is a very good thing.

This book also tells vivid stories of dreams that have brought peace and reassurance to dying people. It provides guidance for helping people understand and accept their dreams. And it does all that in a simple, readable way.

Dreaming Beyond Death is a great book to give as a gift, knowing that almost anyone can benefit from it. They do not have to believe in anything metaphysical at all. I wish I had had it to use in comforting a friend who was dying of cancer a few years ago. 

So keep it in mind. You might like to read it yourself.

And it could be a wonderful caring gift for someone who needs it. In fact, it would be a great blessing.

Robert Moss, the dream researcher, teacher and author that I keep talking about, has a radio show on dreams! You can listen over the Internet on the second Tuesday of each month, from 11 am to noon Central Time.

Here is the link: http://www.healthylife.net/RadioShow/archiveWD.htm

There is even an 800 number so that you can call in with questions during the show as he interviews other dreamworkers and dream researchers. 

What a blessing for all of us!

Some people say that they do not dream, but that is an illusion. We all dream. Some of us do not remember our dreams. Certain things can interfere with dreaming, such as being constantly awakened, or taking certain kinds of medications.  

Constant Awakening Prevents Dreaming 

As you probably know, there are several levels of sleep. Most dreaming, the dreams we remember, occur during the so-called rapid-eye-movement (REM) levels of sleep.

Unfortunately it takes our bodies anywhere from 45 to 90 minutes to reach the first REM cycle of the night. If you are awakened before that, when you go back to sleep, the process starts over. 

Sleep laboratory researchers have found that by awakening people over and over before they reach the REM cycle, they can keep people from dreaming—at night. After awhile, though, people start dreaming uncontrollably with their eyes wide open. In other words, without being allowed to dream, they start to hallucinate. 

If your only choice is to try to sleep in a noisy or insecure environment, your sleep cycles may be short-circuited by constantly being awakened before you get to dream. Medical residents or interns and others who only get to doze while on call in hospitals for days at a time are good examples of this kind of sleep deprivation. 

Stop Suddenly Awakening

If you can do without the jarring sudden awakening caused by an alarm clock, studies show, you are more likely to remember your dreams. If someone in the household can quietly awaken you, that could replace the alarm. Best practice is to get enough sleep (always a good health idea) and allow yourself to awaken naturally. 

Stay still for a few moments when you first wake up. Spend that time gently allowing yourself to recall any dreams. 

Check Your Medications

If you take sleeping pills, you may be suppressing your dreams—or suppressing the memory of them. If you can learn to sleep without pills, you will have a better chance of remembering your dreams. 

Some other medications may interfere with dreaming. Unfortunately they may be something you cannot safely do without. Remembering your dreams is valuable, but no one is suggesting that you risk your health over it.

Still, if you are doing the other things suggested in this article, and you still can’t remember your dreams, you might consider asking your doctor if another medication would do the same job without the side effect of suppressing your dreams. If you plan to do that, I suggest doing a bit of on-line research on the negative health effects of dream suppression and presenting those to your doctor. That way s/he will be more likely to take you seriously.

Form the Intent to Remember

Research shows that just the act of regularly trying to recall your dreams daily and making an attempt to write them down encourages your mind to remember them. It is as though you are proving to your subconscious mind that you are willing to pay attention, and so it tries harder to reach you.

Dream recall may not happen immediately. It could take a few days, weeks, or even months. But if you make a habit of trying to remember your dreams, and you make brief notes of any dream feelings or ideas you do recall, gradually your dreams will start to come back to you. 

Writing Down Your Dreams 

Any notebook will do to record your dreams. Maybe the term “dream journaling” sounds pretentious or time-consuming to you. If so, consider just carrying a plain little notebook all the time. You can reserve it from dream notation, or you can use it for other things, too. The important thing is to do it.

Robert Moss, who teaches people to work with their dreams, says to jot down whatever wisp of dream memory you have when you first wake up if possible. But he also says that bits of dream memory may come to you at any time of the day, so you should be prepared to jot down whatever you can whenever you remember it. By doing that, he says, you often end up remembering the whole dream.

Never Give Up on Your Dreams

Remember that we all dream. If your circumstances can be changed to make dreaming and dream recall easier for you now, do so. Make sure your bed is comfortable and the room is quiet. (Falling asleep in front of the TV is not helpful!)

If you cannot change your current circumstances, sometimes they change themselves. The baby learns to sleep through the night, the doctor changes your prescription, the noisy neighbor moves away, and so on. 

Meanwhile, never give up. We all naturally dream. And we can almost all learn to remember our dreams. It just takes a little more work for some of us than for others.

Remembering your dreams is worth the effort. It can be an aid to mental and physical health. It can also be entertaining and enlightening. 

Sweet Dreams to Paulie and to You

This post was inspired by a comment Paulie made about the post that said orienting your bed north-south (instead of east-west) increases dreaming. Somehow, although I can see the comment in the control panel area of this blog, it has not shown up on the page with the post. So I want to say thank you to Paulie for the comment.

Please keep trying to remember your dreams. It is worth the effort. 

And thank you to all the other readers of blog, too, especially those who take the time to comment. I consider all of you to be a real blessing.

Sweet dreams.

Dreaming—the amount, at least—is affected by which direction your bed faces. Really. 

According to researchers, you will spend more time in rapid-eye-movement (REM) sleep, the type of sleep associated with dreaming, if your bed is oriented north-south. Apparently it doesn’t matter which end faces north, just that the bed is on a north-south alignment.  

People whose beds are aligned east to west dream much less. The article didn’t mention what happens if you place your bed on a diagonal. I suspect that very few of us do.  

I would like to read more about the research. Unfortunately the news story doesn’t give a source for the information. If you find out, please post a comment to let us all know.  

The startling information about bed orientation affecting how much you dream appeared near the end of a news story on the discovery that cattle align themselves on a north-south axis when grazing. That discovery made researchers to realize that cattle, too, are sensitive to magnetic forces.

They also found that deer align themselves north-south when sleeping. Do deer dream? Dogs certainly seem to.

It had long been known that migratory birds navigate by magnetic sensitivity. And more recently researchers have found that whales do, too.  

So which direction does your bed face? If you want to make the most of your dreaming time, make sure your bed is on a north-south alignment. Again, it doesn’t seem to matter whether the head or the foot of the bed points north. But then, given time, researchers may find that it does. 

Meanwhile, at least we know this much. To me that’s a blessing!