I think I have already established on several occasions that I am a fraidy cat at night (if you didn't know this about me, see here). This is not improved by my tendency to have nightmares. The women in my family seem to have a lot of nightmares. I was hoping that this trait had skipped me, and for 29 years or so, it seems it did. But in the last year, I've started having nightmares a lot more frequently. Whereas I used to have a nightmare and just wake up in a sweaty panic, the last few nightmares have sent me either scurrying to the other side of the bed or bolting out of the bed all together. It's really disorienting to suddenly be awake and panting, standing by your bed. Last night I dreamt I woke up and someone was lying beside me, and unfortunately it wasn't anyone like say, Brad Pitt. When I woke for real, I was at kneeling at the bottom of my bed saying "no, no, no." Scary. Disconcerting.
I decided to do some quick research on nightmares. Here's what I found on the website for the International Association for the Study of Dreams: The most common nightmare is one where you are being chased. In adults the chaser is usually an unknown male figure, but for kids the chaser is more commonly an animal or some sort of fantasy figure. I think that's really interesting. I wonder if that has to do with children being more innocent and less likely to associate a person with wanting to harm them? Just a thought.
Sidenote - does the dream where you feel like you're falling and then jerk awake count as a nightmare? Because I actually have that dream several times a month and have had as long as I can remember. An interesting sidenote to that sidenote is that I heard it theorized that the dream comes from the collective unconscious' memories of the time when we were swinging through the trees and a fall could mean death which led to this ingrained fear of falling which eventually led to the dream. Something like that. I don't believe in evolution that way, but it's quite a convenient theory for the dream.
All that to explain why I'm tired and somewhat cranky today. Dreams like that don't make for peaceful sleep later in the night.
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For a span of 12 years that ended two years ago, I had what I call "running nightmares". Every couple of weeks or months, I would have a nightmare about spiders that would find me running into the living room. I wouldn't actually wake up until I was in the living room. When they started, running to the living room meant leaving my room and turning left. When my family moved to a new house, I was worried I would run into the wall because the living room was now to the right. My subconscious obviously adapted because it was always the living room I ended up in. When I moved into residence for college, I worried about getting locked out of my room. Luckily the only time I had a running nightmare at college, the door stayed open enough that I could get back in. I went to the doctor about it but the only suggestion they had was that it was due to stress. Ever since I moved out on my own, I've been okay. *knock on wood*
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