Nightmare

What does a nightmare that jolts you awake and leave you shaking and cursing mean?

Does it have any underlying meaning, or just a bad dream. It involved a fear I didn't realize I had until this morning.

 

Probably just means you were stressed about something. I don't think the specific content of dreams is all that meaningful, but it could relate in a general way to anything particularly memorable you'd been focusing on during the day.

 

I appreciate the help. All I can say is that it involved a person in my past that means a lot to me, and that the person had hurt me in the worse possible way. The fear I have is of being hurt like I was in the nightmare, and what scares me the most is that it's a possibility.

 

It does actually. It makes a lot of sense. I was reading the second site you linked and its interpretation made sense too. Thank you very much.

 

Simon, I have had some of these dreams in the past, but I dismissed them and later they did prove to be true.

I am wondering if you ever had any of those dreams? How do you think these things happen?

Edit: You answered before I typed my question! That's prophetic

 

If I'm remembering my psychology correctly, the important thing to remember about sleep is that our brain internally generates a level of electrical activity instead of it being stimulated by sensory input. In the absence of stimulation from our senses, the brain still continues producing activation and even produces certain patterns of electrical activity that are distinct to sleep.

The electrical activity being generated while you sleep will find it easier to travel along pathways that are "fresh" (i.e. have been sensitised by being used recently) - so you're likely to find themes, images or scenarios that have been sensitised either by being recent, repeatedly accessed or emotionally vivid showing up in dreams; they're just the neuronal pathways that are more readily "fired" by the electrical activity your brain generates.

Sleep can do some bizarre things. When I'd been travelling round Japan and got back home after a really stressful 'plane journey and a lot of sleep deprivation, I had hypnopompic hallucinations for the first couple of days where I saw the walls of my bedroom as being ricepaper panels like a Japanese inn.

 

I've noticed that, it usually takes a few days of being stressed out or thinking too much about a thing and it pops up in my dreams. I am beginning to understand why I had that particular nightmare after giving myself sometime to think.

 

That sounds psychologically rather more interesting then the nightmares I have that jolt me awake. It's nearly always snakes. Snakes or sharks. Neither of which I have a phobia of, but I think it's something about the powerlessness of being either in the water with a shark or constricted/poisoned by a snake. I confess I do have issues with feeling powerless. I don't tend to have dreams which relate terribly closely to events in my life, and most of them i don't remember, but the nightmares tend to follow a trend.

Edit:That's not really helpful in terms of your question, but I just thought I'd open things up a little with my own experiences of dreams and a brief idea of how I choose to interpret them. Should I happen to die by snake then I gues they'll have been prophetic after all, but I'll be too dead to rescind my scepticism

 

No, not at all. Thanks for sharing that.

 

I've only been scared awake by a dream once in my life but I did sit up in my bed instantly and was sweating as well.

Cant remember what the dream was about at all , just remember the shock of how I woke up.

My dreams tell me the future a lot of times, it may sound stupid but its not really something I speak about, they aid ME and sometimes even guide me down the right path.

 

I've had two nightmares I can recall in my life. Once was right when we got back from Afghanistan. I woke up to punching my wall locker. I wasn't scared but the impact of "wow, we did some really crazy and borderline insane stuff" hit me. During the whole deployment it was just one foot in front of the other and things like "yeah, we're going to move 6K east of furthest east PB through the hills into a known enemy rally point where nobody can get to you, and you're going to carry a 100 lbs pack too. Stay safe!" didn't really impact me at the time. When we got back though the feelings of nervousness and "really man, that's what you want us to do?!" hit me pretty good. I would sit around and get anxious for no reason.

The second time was a dream where I watched my wife get run over by a car after I told her not to walk down the middle of a dirt road. She got ran over and her guts were all over the place but they looked like jelly fish. Some people grabbed her and took her up to a house and I tried to keep her jellyfish insides clean so they could be put back in, but in the dream I knew she was going to die regardless. The feeling of hopelessness, sorrow, and feeling bad because the last thing I said to her was yelling at her in anger to stay out of the road woke me up.

The funny part is I was awake and still had all the feelings of regret. I shook my wife awake to tell her and tell her that I loved her and she sleepily hit me, yelled at me that she was sleeping and she didn't care. She rolled over and went back to bed. I told her the next day and she felt really bad : P.

 

Dream are often the result of anxiety in the subconscious brain. Many of the things that are too uncomfortable for us to think about during our waking, conscious hours get pushed to the background... then once you begin your sleep... the hard drives wind down as it were and you get to this stuff. If the anxiety is heavy enough it moves towards the surface as the brain tries to figure out how to label it and deal with it. This is why a solid nights sleep is important.... it's your brains way of clearing off the hard drives and giving them a bit of a break so that when you start your day you're fresh and hit the ground running.

Often dreams don't make much sense as they tend to be a bit of a surreal blur of people places and times. That's memories and anxieties bumping up against one and other in your head as your subconscious mind deals with it.

Obviously not all dreams are the anxiety ridden type... as for most people there are plenty of good memories for the subconscious brain to categorize, sort and label as well. So often times dreams can be funny and relaxing as well. It's usually a mixed bag. Some people are more prone to worry and anxiety just by their make up.

 

You know what's the best, when your wife for some reason thinks you're going to leave her and go sleep with another woman and actually has some of that anxiety over it. Mine is Dominican and I'm white. I can't tell you how many times I've come home to "I had a nightmare!" . . . "Well, what was it sweetie?" . . . . . "I dreamt you cheated on me with a perfect white girl with blonde hair and blue eyes!"

I actually get blamed for this crap, hit, and the mean face all day and I had absolutely nothing to do with it. The whole ethnic difference just makes it so much more entertaining. I don't even like blondes that much. I feel like I'm being blamed for being a nazi or something.

 

ahhahaha... if your wife is Dominican then that comes with the territory.

 

I am assuming that no one can control their dreams, if i said word for word what i dreamed about i would sound like a very sick deranged person i have no idea why i dream these things but i have never acted out any of these things in real life but i do think why do i dream these things, quite often sometimes, i don't know it makes me think allot thank goodness i don't sleep walk.