Why Do We Have Nightmares?

Nightmares are hallucinations that occur during certain stages of sleep. According to Sigmund Freud, who is a psychoanalyst and neurologist, the reason why we get bad dreams, is the satisfaction of our desires. He claims that it is easy to prove. Our minds produce stories and visuals in our dreams. They can be real. They can make you feel sad or terrified. They even can be perplexing and completely sensible.

Nightmare disorder is called parasomnia by doctors. This is a sleep disorder in which undesirable experiences occur before going asleep, during sleep, or upon waking. Nightmares usually occur during the sleep stage known as rapid eye movement (REM) sleep.

Even if there is lots of theory about why we have nightmares, no one knows why we have nightmares. Some of the researchers say that there is no reason or explanation for dreams. Other researchers say that we need dreams for our mental, emotional and physical health. 

Some of the dreams can help our brain process our thoughts and events of the day. Others can happen just as a consequence of normal brain activity and express a lot fewer things. Researchers are still trying to understand why we have bad dreams.

If you are having specific nightmares, again and again, your subconscious may be trying to tell you something. You should listen to him or her. If you do not know why we get nightmares, you should keep reading this paper. This can help you to understand why we have scary dreams. And it can give you some tips that can make you feel relieved.

No matter how scary a nightmare is, don’t forget that it is not real and probably it is not going to happen in real life.

4 Reasons Why Do We Have Nightmares

In this article we will see nightmares, why do we have them?

1. Stress or Anxiety

Daily life’s ordinary stresses such as problems in school or home can trigger nightmares. Also, something like a move or the death of someone you love can affect you in the same way. Living anxiety is related to having nightmare risky

2. Trauma

Nightmares are common after an accident, an injury, physical or sexual abuse, or other traumatic events. Nightmares are more common among people who have post-traumatic stress disorder. 

3. Medicines

Some medicines – antidepressants, blood pressure medicines, beta-blockers, and drugs used in the treatment of Parkinson’s disease or make you quit smoking – can trigger having nightmares.

4. Medical Problems

If you suffer from sleep apnea and restless legs syndrome, you may find that nightmares are a common side effect. This is due to experiencing lower blood oxygen, which has been linked to nightmares that disrupt normal REM sleep in adults. This causes disturbances and bad dreams of more peculiar content. So, if you notice that you’re having some pretty weird nightmares that shake you up or keep you awake, it could be explained by an underlying medical issue that you’re unaware of.

Analyzing dreams and nightmares we have helped us learn about their underlying causes and what they are trying to tell us. For this, it is recommended to keep a dream diary. Online dream diaries, which can be accessed at any time, are preferred more often than dream diaries kept using paper and pen. One of them, The Dreambook app, offers its users a unique experience with its privileges. By typing your nightmares, you can see the meanings of the symbols inside and easily interpret dreams yourself!