"reality checks" and flashbacks

I read through the site with great interest as I get nightmares pretty much every night and was thinking it would be nice to find a way to stop them or control them even a bit to make them more bearable.

I have a concern though. Quite often my nightmares are sort of flashbacks to nasty things that happened when I was a teenager.

The system of "reality checks" makes sense to me. But I'm a little afraid of what might happen if I do a "reality check" in a flashback nightmare. I worry it would only make things worse - what happens when my dream self can't find anything to indicate that it's not real.

I wonder if anyone else has had experience with this?

i've never had that problem but i have heard a really good reality check that you can do that really has nothing to do with what environment you're in. what you do is plug your nose like you might if you were swimming, but the cool thing is you can still breath. so, if you can still breathe you're dreaming and if not you're awake. hope this helps!

problem is, if during the dream you think you cant breathe, you wont be able to

if you did another reality check b/4 that though did get your mind thinking that you might be dreaming and then do the plugging your nose thing it should work. i've read about it on another forum and everyone, w/ the exception of 1 person, who has tried it was very successful.

If I were to plug my nose in a dream, I'd stop breathing in real life and end up waking up... I've had similar things happen in dreams where I hold my breath underwater... Research suggests that dream breathing might be tied to the real body's breathing...