Hello! I am trying to find a way to stop this recurring nightmare I keep having. I searched around a bit and most of what I found were people wondering the reason for their nightmares.. but mine is very straight forward because it has to do with my past.

So first, here's the history.... When I was younger I was plagued with TMJ, which for those of you who might not know, causes one's jaw to lock up. This would happen to me only in my sleep, and for years my jaw would lock up at least three or four nights per week. I would wake up in terror, unable to open my mouth, and have to painfully move my jaw bone around until it clicked back into place and I could open it again. Sometimes it would just immediately lock up again and I would be up for hours dealing with it, terrified to go back to sleep in fear that it would lock up again. When I was 17 I had jaw surgery to fix the problem; and it worked. Now, at 23, my jaw has not locked up in 6 years.

Now, however, I am plagued with recurrent nightmares that my jaw has locked up. Sometimes it's locked closed, like it used to be in real life, sometimes locked open. Sometimes I can move my jaw but it just doesn't fit together right, and it's really painful (yes, I can feel pain in my dreams). Upon awakening in terror, I always realize my jaw is just fine. I thought these would go away eventually since it's been so long since it has happened in reality, but it doesn't seem they are going to cease. I've always heard that recurring nightmares have to do with a real life problem that are unsolved, or underlying in the subconscious, which is why I just don't get it. I don't feel any anxiety about my jaw since it has been fixed for so long.

So any ideas? I think if I try, I can become lucid while having these nightmares since it never happens in real life.. but then what? What do I do once in control of the dream? Obviously, stop the current nightmare, but how do I prevent them in the future? I've considered hypnotherapy, but I can't afford that just to cure a nightmare. Any insight would be appreciated.