Nightmares

[Gabriel]

What do you do to make yourself feel better when you wake up from one?

[ravenscape]

I read for a while. If I don't stay awake for a few minutes, I fall back into the nightmare imagery.

[David Gould]

I create a methodology for defeating whatever it was that I was afraid of. For example, I once had a nightmare about vampires surrounding our house. When I woke up, I imagined our taps all running with holy water. This removed the power of the nightmare.

The worst nightmares I had was after watching the Blair Witch Project - yes, laugh if you want to. I dreamt about coming into the room and seeing a friend standing in the corner. I was unable to find a way to defeat this and upon falling asleep again the nightmare returned.

[ravenscape]

Another thing to think about is if the nightmare is related to something that's bothering you in your waking hours. Sometimes just recognizing the connection is enough to defuse the nightmare cycle, even if you can't solve your daytime problems.

[David Gould]

I had a pretty cool 'nightmare' the other night. It was flying dream, which I love, but it involved zombies. (for some reason, I have a fair few undead in my nightmares). The zombies couldn't fly, so the only thing to do was to make sure I stayed in the air (which is actually tricky at times - my dream flying is Hitchhiker's flying, which is throwing yourself at the ground and missing). I did not really work out a solution to the zombie problem in this one, so they likely will return in a few weeks or so. Any suggestions?

[BigToe]

It depends on the nature of the nightmare. If it is something that I know is fake, I can go back to sleep no problem and not have another nightmare. If it was more a nightmare that could be real (generally bad things happening to my loved ones), I pretty much can't go back to sleep so I'll watch a movie or something to calm down. Sometimes I have to get up and take a shower and tell myself silly stories. If the dream involved something bad happening to my dog (for me those are the worst heh) I look for him and make him get in bed with me to snuggle until I feel better (I sort of feel guilty having dreams where he dies). If the dream was just awful about my mom or sister, and I can't go back to sleep, I'll have to wait until I know they are awake to call them to make sure they are ok. Then I can go back to sleep.

One of the first nightmares I remember having was at my Grandmother's house. My sister and I would stay in my Mom's old room and she would sleep upstairs in what had been her older brother's room (none of them were the same as when they lived in the house). I had a dream she fell into a block of concrete and her head cracked open to where I could see her brain (it looked like an orange nerf ball in the dream heh) and her fingers all cracked open too (her bones looked like baby carrots). While I knew that wasn't what a brain or bones really looked like, I still had to sneak out of the room and up the stairs to check my mom's head and fingers. She woke up with me combing through her hair.

I had a lot of nightmares in that room growing up. My mom gave me a soft feather pillow to sleep with at one point, saying it would make me dream about flying. I still have that pillow and to this day, every time I use it I dream about flying. I try to keep it in reserves after nightmares.

[Gabriel]

Another thing to think about is if the nightmare is related to something that's bothering you in your waking hours. Sometimes just recognizing the connection is enough to defuse the nightmare cycle, even if you can't solve your daytime problems.


The villain of the movie I watched in the afternoon reminded me of one of my abusers fairly strongly, which was made worse by an unrelated character looking like him.

That probably has something to do with the unusual severity of my dreams, and why I woke up feeling dirty.

[David Gould]

That sucks. I don't have nightmares like that, because I have never had those kinds of bad experiences. I am not sure I have a solution for you. I have heard that meditation can improve control of dream/nightmare experiences, but I am not sure if this is actually true.

[monkeywrench]

I had a pretty cool 'nightmare' the other night. It was flying dream, which I love, but it involved zombies. (for some reason, I have a fair few undead in my nightmares). The zombies couldn't fly, so the only thing to do was to make sure I stayed in the air (which is actually tricky at times - my dream flying is Hitchhiker's flying, which is throwing yourself at the ground and missing). I did not really work out a solution to the zombie problem in this one, so they likely will return in a few weeks or so. Any suggestions?You could always try webslinging!
;)

I had the weirdest dream a week or two ago but it wasn't quite a nightmare cuz I wasn't too scared. I was in a city downtown setting being chased by flying aliens blowing shit up left and right. Then I realized I could do the Spidey web thing to get away. Then I was being chased by Venom...who also had webs. lol And my webs kept getting all tangled up.

I've had plenty of vampire dreams, but no zombies so far!

[BigToe]

Maybe you can rest assured that the cast of Shaun of the Dead will come to your rescue and kill off the zombies while making a funny movie at the same time? Seriously though, I don't really know how you would kill a zombie so I'm not sure what you could do to take care of that.

[Wyvern]

In the brain and not the chest...

Headshots are the very best...

[ExOh]

usually my dreams are pretty graphic and hitting on some sort of tragedy. i don't think i've slept through the night peacefully for about a month. there's always something.

usually i wake up in a cold sweat, or screaming, or something. sometimes i go downstairs and put on a movie [silent, with CC on]. or i'll get my personal CD player. or i'll go find my dog & lay down next to her & just snuggle. sometimes i climb out my window onto the first level roof.

big glasses of water calm me down too.

[gomichan]

I use humor. Try to think of something funny about the dream. Nightmares are often really campy and over-the-top when you look at them from a waking perspective. If the sense of dread lingers, I get up and read or watch something funny. An episode of Kung Faux, some cat videos on YouTube, something goofy. That generally does the trick.