Thread: Help with nightmares

Originally posted by bookends4u
Hi all first post here!

I have been trying to achieve lucidity lately...
One of the step is dream recall... *

What I recall is somewhat scary... I always find myself fighting something... Lots of times, time itself...

I'm in an exam and time is running out... Or I have a project for the next day and cant get home...

I also have others nightmares such has my mom gives me the bla bla bla for finding my stash of drugs...

Never the monster type nightmares...But always unleasant dreams... *

Then I wake up soaked wet...

Any of you could help me out with this?

Actually, what you are experiencing is more typically termed 'Anxiety Dreams'. The term 'Nightmare' is rightly reserved for the more terrifying kind of dream expressive of murder and mutilation by monsters and such. You should be rightly greatful that you have the one and not the other, no matter how miserable these Anxiety Dreams are, the true Nightmares would indeed be quite worse.

The good news here is that studies have shown that those who have the most Anxiety Dreams typically have the least to be anxious about in their Waking Lives. Those who dream of being late for work are typically never late. Those who dream of not preparing for tests always arrive fully studied. Those who dream of being publically naked often are the most modest. And those who dream of ever losing cherished objects in Dreamland are in waking life too well organized to ever misplace a thing. It is as though the very Anxieties which the Dreams stir up always contribute toward fostering a competent state of mind which makes any anxiety superfluous. If anything can be said to be both a Blessing and a Curse, it is the prevalence of Anxiety Dreams, since those who have the most Anxiety in their Dreams have the least Anxiety in their lives.

But, yes, one can work with one's Anxiety Dreams, just as I suppose we are supposed to. What I think is happening is that our Dreams are trying to emphasize the relative unimportance of material and temporal concerns. For instance, I found I was always wasting my dreams looking for lost objects, or looking for lost friends. Finally it occurred to me to suggest to myself to simply stop 'going backward' in dreams. When once an Object was gone in a dream, or a friend or loved-one seen to be absent, then my concern should be more toward moving onto the next object, or the next person. I decided that looking for the lost was nearly always futile, but that finding new things and new people always very possible. If the Dream meant us to find out way, or find this or that, then almost at the instant where we would decide to move on, the lost thing would be shown us. So, therefore, the cure for Anxiety Dreams is simply to not allow them to make us anxious.

I had had dream of going back to High School and going back to College for years. Once in a dream I added up my number of High School Graduations and my number of both Pre and Post Graduate Degrees and Majors, with even my many duplicated efforts, and I was astounded at how much time I had wasted in scholastic activities in my dreams and rightly decided that past a certain point it is no longer important that I study, or attend class, or take these tests... that I no longer needed to worry about any more. Well, after such a decision, the Anxiety Dream is no longer an Anxiety Dream, is it?

The same with Dreams of being naked in public. Simply stop and look around. Nobody cares, do they? No, you don't have to return home to get any clothes. Simply keep doing what you were doing and allow no anxieties to interrupt and you will either forget your nakedness, like everybody else seems to be either ignoring or oblivious to it, or you will simply find yourself again fully dressed.

But I am not sure that once one has cured oneself of one's Anxiety Dreams that it is not so much similar to killing the Goose that laid the Golden Egg. Remember what I had said before, that those with Anxiety Dreams have the least to be anxious about. Maybe we are meant to feel anxious about certain things. Afterall, what separates the Civilized Man from the Primitive but a certain level of acquired anxieties.

Wow.. that was a good response.

Originally posted by Matchbook
Wow.. that was a good response.

Thank you.

It seems like I must have had a certain amount of Anxiety Dreams about inadequately answering inquiries about Anxiety Dreams...

That was a very helpful response for me too! I suffer terribly from true nightmares which involve pain i can actually feel and murders and what have you...when that's not happening I get anxiety dreams. All I can say is that they tend to come in big blocks then let up for about a week or so before happening again.

Hey Leo!

Very nice reply!

I will try to look more into upcomming adventures, just living the moment rather than worrying the moment...

But I can tell you one thing about me... I'm also quite anxious in waking life ...
I had OCD at very young age and today have social anxiety...

So it makes a pretty anxious life I guess...

Anyways I will look more into changing that somehow!

thx!