A way to have fewer nightmares?

One way I've found that often works is to consciously think about horrible things during the day ... only for a brief while, but with a sense of enjoyment (as much as you can muster). Also, adopt the view that you don't care if you dream about scary, nasty things, and you might even be looking forward to it. I know this sounds bizarre, but the strategy has worked for me and friends.

Don't eat close to bedtime, either.

When I'm having long bouts of nightmares, I cue up my favorite scenes from my favorite movies.

Never the whole films, just those absolute best moments. Then I watch them, five or six at a time, right before bed. That always worked for me.*

Sometimes, if things are particularly bad, I read bits of Something Wicked This Way Comes, and roll around some spontaneous Bradburyesque turns of phrase in my head, to take my mind off things - a nice, meaty passage from a favorite book fills up my brain wrinkles, and squeezes out the nightmares like so much mucky, black toothpaste.



*If your favorite movies include Cannibal Holocaust, and/or the rest of Italian shock horror ouvre, results not guaranteed.

I hardly ever remember my dreams. The closest thing that I get even close to a nightmare is tripping over something in a dream and waking up trying to keep myself from falling forward, while still in bed.
That happens like once or twice ever 3 months or so.

Once I had just had major surgery on my hand and was finally out of the hospital trying to get to sleep with a completely immobilized bandaged up hand.. As I started to fall asleep, this happened and I instinctively reached out to grab the railing in my dream to keep from falling.

With the hand I just had surgery on. Needless to say I screamed my head off in pain, and the crumby doctors had only prescribed Tylenoll 3

I got a new prescription for hydrocodone and had trouble sleeping because of the ever so slight narcotic hallucinations.

don't eat right before you go to bed...unless on a binger

smoke pot.

Especially greasy diner food.

I think this is a desensitization thing and probably good advice on the whole, but certain personality types are more adaptable to it than others. There are people who are extremely hard to freak out, and then there are people who get freaked out realy easily.

Not to be too serious abou it, but I wonder if some sort of counseling or psychotherapy might not be in order?

Hm. Things that give me nightmares:
Alcohol
Vicodin (every. time.)
Seeing/hearing/experiencing something even slightly disturbing during the day or week and trying not to think about it. If I don't hash it out in my conscious thoughts, then my subconscious attacks me while I sleep.

So...stay away from those, I guess. And if she's having terrifying nightmares every single night, then I'd second the vote for some psychotherapy, cause that sounds torturous.

I was gonna say work out and eat well, but pot will knock her out

learn to enjoy them? I've always been aware that I'm dreaming when I dream and I always love a good nightmare ..but I'm told that most people don't have the awareness thing, I guess I don't have anything else to add that hasn't been mentioned ..welp .. bed time.

whatever you do, don't watch Lost before going to bed

I was a prisoner/citizen of this group of these people trapped in a warehouse with caves in it. It wasn't really a nightmare but everything seriously creeped the shit out of me. Sentient icecubes that moved and spoke on their own with a hive mentality. People vanishing or going mad. I pushed a shopping cart and went faster as it went up a hill and then around a corner.

It all ended up being apparently just being some really fucked up insulation that we figured out when we realized or sweat was the colour of diluted wine from the toxin but the government was going to kill us before we alerted the public and they deliberately ran over this poor old black man with a cane and everywhere I went there were undercover government agents and they were all people that died in the caves

Hmm. I dunno. A while back I started to find a sword in my hand whenever I started to recognize that I was in a nightmare. I don't really know why I started to have a sword, but It meant that instead of having a nightmare I had a fairly tense dream about fighting unpleasent things.I still occaisionally have freakout portions of a dream, something particularly disturbing that jerks me awake, but no running nightmares that I can remember.

hmm, though while we're on the subject I've been having more and more dreams that leave me unhappy to wake, like being awake is painful after whatever was in the dream, wakefulness just can't measure up in comparison. It's not a nice feeling.

Apparently it's caused by neurons in the brain 'firing' too late, so they quickly do so, causing you to jerk awake.
Something like that anyway.

As for trying to have less nightmares - Tell your friend to avoid eating chocolate or cheese late at night (especially cheese, woah that gives me awful nightmares!)
Nightmares can also be caused by a stressful lifestyle, so if you have something on your mind, try to sort it out or do some sort of stress-relieving activity before you go to bed.

Could be.

Often, when the unconscious is compensating, as it does, for what the conscious is doing all day, people who deliberately cultivate rosy thoughts end up with horrendous nightmares. I seldom have nightmares, possibly because I am thinking about ghastly shit most of the day. A lot of the high-up Nazis loved puppies, and were ridiculously sentimental ...

[Edited on Jan 28, 2006 by StickyRice]

I'd recommend learning how to do lucid dreaming.. then you can have absolute control of your dreams and work on nightmare prevention. This is viewed as being one of the best books on the subject...



[Edited on Jan 29, 2006 by Lemonkid]