Nightmares why

Is there anything I can do to get them to stop? Almost everyone has nightmares from time to time. But some things can contribute to persistent bad dreams.

For some people, medicines, alcohol, drugs, lack of sleep, fever, or anxiety sometimes cause nightmares. Often, though, nightmares seem to be triggered by emotional issues at home or school, major life changes such as a move , trauma, and stress — even if what happens in the nightmares seems unrelated to your life.

For example, death in nightmares and dreams symbolizes a new beginning. If you dream that you are dying, perhaps you are going through an important personal change in your real life.

You might need to reevaluate your sleeping habits and overall lifestyle. For example, you may need to make any or all of the following changes:. Try to go to bed around the same time each night and wake up around the same time each morning. If you recently began having nightmares and you just started taking some kind of medication, contact your doctor. You should also talk to your doctor if you experience bad dreams more than once a week or if they keep you from getting adequate sleep for a prolonged period of time.

You may need to get a physical, neurological or psychological exam to determine the underlying cause. If you experience especially intense or recurring nightmares, you may benefit by talking about it with a counselor or psychologist.

Sometimes just talking through your nightmares can be enough to dispel them. In other cases, bad dreams could be a subconscious manifestation of some emotional or psychological problem that you need to sort out. We know so much about the human body, yet nightmares and dreams continue to remain a mystery.

Perhaps that is why they hold such a power over us. By subscribing you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Health Topics. Health Tools.

Healthy Living. By Ashleigh Frank. Reviewed: November 15, In fact, you can probably still remember your worst bad dream. What is a nightmare? Sometimes, nightmares can be more than just a bad dream. Who gets nightmares? Adults can also have nightmares, although they do not usually have them as often as children. About 50 percent of all adults claim to have bad dreams on occasion. For medication-induced nightmares, dosages might need to be altered or different drugs administered.

People with post-traumatic or chronic nightmares can be treated with psychological therapy or with medication. Psychological therapy for nightmares is called image rehearsal therapy, or IRT.

In this form of cognitive therapy, individuals, especially those who repeatedly experience a given type of nightmare, are asked to recall and write down their nightmares, then asked to rewrite the nightmare and give it a positive ending. The individual then rehearses the rewritten version before going to sleep with the aim of displacing the unwanted content during sleep. IRT has been investigated in a number of studies, says Winkelman, and found to reduce nightmare frequency and distress.

A study published in in the "American Journal of Psychiatry" reported that the drug prazosin could help relieve nightmares in people with PTSD. The drug, traditionally used to treat hypertension, reduced the level of neurochemicals in pathways that become overstimulated in PTSD. The Harvard Mahoney Neuroscience Institute hosts a public lecture series to continue its efforts to educate the public on the latest scientific discoveries in neuroscience and translate how these discoveries are relevant in our daily lives.

Since its founding in , the Harvard Mahoney Neuroscience Institute has helped advance neuroscience at Harvard Medical School by promoting public awareness of the importance of brain research and by helping to fund research at the School's Department of Neurobiology. Campus Alert. Returning to Campus. Nightmares and the Brain. Terror-filled sleep Nightmares are often confused with night terrors, a phenomenon more likely experienced by children than adults and usually more dramatic than a nightmare.