Timothy Paradox

I wonder... why don't dreams traumatize us? The nightmares I've had this past week were so profoundly awful, if these scenarios happened to someone for real, it would surely cause deep emotional and mental damage. Murder, being murdered, horrible torture, frightening 'hauntings', ... stuff that really makes your stomach turn. Yet when I wake up, it takes only a good 10-20 seconds for the fear and horror to 'wear off', and then it's like nothing ever happened.

Does it have to do with memory? Dreams are generally easily forgotten, but even the ones I still remember perfectly (like when I've just woken up) feel like they're immediately covered in a kind of "haze" that robs them of their power over me.

Or is it just that we consciously know the events weren't real (those aspects of higher consciousness are generally turned off during regular dreaming), and when our consciousness 'boots up' after waking, it dispels the hold the dream has over us?

I had this thought because I realized I must have died a million times at this point in a million different ways, and have been hunted down by more demons than there are in Hell. But when I wake, all is hunky-dory.