Nightmares, Nightmares every nights.

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Literally whenever I get some sleep I get to have a nightmare. They're so vivid and I never get lucid dreams. Even when things seem off I don't realise I'm dreaming.

So last night I woke up on my couch bed feeling really dizzy and nauseous. There was no other noise than the fridge motor. I was about to close my eyes when the tv turned on and a scream-like face appeared on the monitor. It kindof looked like this with the blue and all.

I never watch horror movies! Suddendly I started floating on top of my bed and got my rib cage crushed on the ceiling.


Another time, I was walking into the forest and stumbled across a dozen of children corpses covered by morgue sheets. I went back home and went on my pc to check my mail. I only had one. It was telling me that I was gonna die. Later, during late night browsing, I heard a scream coming from upstairs. My mother was laying on the floor with her throat slit. Then I heard the sound of a powerdrill. I woke up after that.

Okay. You're possibly suffering from sleep paralysis. I happened to work on a short documentary about it, it's called 'devil in the room', and it's on vimeo.com. it's good, informative. Don't watchvit before going to bed, it's also a biy creepy and artsy.
Read about it. It's not dangerous, per se, and actually common and deeply ingrained in myths and legends all over the world. There's even jokes in anime about it.

And then there's the regular nightmares. Wow, these sound particularly frightening.
Certain, poorly digestible foods can cause nightmares. Cheese, meat, heavy stuff, but I learned from asian films that also octopus that isn't fresh anymore is said to cause nightmares. Maybe try watching your diet before going to bed.
Are you taking any medication?

Oh, I just thought because of the rib-cage crushing sensation, which seems to be a keyword when it comes to sleep paralysis descriptions- caused by the inability to voluntarily take in a deep breath, because one is still asleep and has no motor control yet.

Anyway. I used to have that a few times muself, and it was caused, as is apparently common, by disrupted sleeping patterns. In my case, it was during the final weeks of my masters course, and I needed to work on the computer and inbetween take breaks in which the computer would render, amd so I took half hour naps every few hours, regardless of daytime, and that made it happen for me.

How is your circadian rythm? Are you able to follow your internal clock, or do you have any constraints, like work or school?
Thinking aboit the last thing: are you a teenager? Because changing hormonal status during puberty can change sleeping patterns.
Scrap that, I just saw your age.
Hmm. It maybe normal to some degree, but in your case it's like, really every night.

How's your mental health?
Depression (also a thing that can happen while your body and brain are restructuring during puberty) and nightmares go really well together...

Hmm. I mean, I too get 8 hours of sleep a night- just, they're from 3am to 11am. Which is my internal clock setting. Well. That's sort of as far as my knowledge carries me. Maybe you need to mention it to a doctor at some point.

Hi, DailyPoutine1. I'm sorry to hear that you have nightmares every time you try to sleep. Interrupted sleep is pretty unhealthy, and I hope you can find some relief. A quick internet search, 'How do I stop nightmares', returned so many good articles, that I think doing the search yourself will be better than me trying to post links. Also, I agree that you should maybe mention it to your doctor, because getting a decent nights sleep is an important health issue. There seem to be lots of reasons people have frequent nightmares, including things like trauma, or medications.

The reason I thought I might reply, is because I really like to interpret dreams, and I think I see a common theme in the dreams you posted. It's not super easy for me to interpret the dream of someone I don't know, because I don't know specifically what some symbols in your dream would mean to you, personally, but I can make an educated guess, and you can tell me if that sounds reasonable, to you. I hope you don't mind if I give it a try, because I have always believed that if you can interpret the basic message that a nightmare is trying to send regarding your life, and then try to address that issue in your waking life, you may find that that particular nightmare will subside.

Not everybody believes that about dreams, but I do!

I always start with the setting, when I interpret a dream. The setting should be seen as your minds perception of the world as you perceive it, whether consciously, or sub-consciously.

So in the first dream you relate, the setting is your couch bed. This is a symbol that I can guess might represent safety and security, to you. However, you instantly notice that you feel terrible. So the dream is trying to indicate that you don't feel well in a place where you should feel safe, and find restoration.

You notice the sound of the refrigerator motor. A symbol like this is often important, even though it seems to be a minor detail. (This symbol may carry a different meaning to you, if you think about it, than the interpretation I'm about to give. Since I don't know you, I don't know if this sound has special significance to you.) My guess is that it simply represents mundane life. Your mind is trying to express that it notices life goes on normally, even though you feel you are suffering in some way.

You were about to close your eyes, meaning that you see yourself as trying to accept the discomfort of the dizziness and nausea, when the t.v. turned on with a frightening face on it. The t.v., I think, might just represent the messages that you are receiving from the outside world. They seem terrifying, and you know (as you said, you never watch horror movies) that the frightening messages are not something that you generally subscribe to.

Now, a lot of times, when you look up symbols for dreams, floating represents something good. It can mean that you have elevated your consciousness in some way, or that you feel very pleasant, or free, or spiritual. But this isn't the case with your nightmare. It would be inconsistent with the theme of the dream.

Instead, I think the floating in this dream is a way for your mind to express a feeling of a lack of control. At this point, your nightmare is telling you that you can't just close your eyes and go back to sleep. I think it means that you don't feel you can control your feelings of the outside world intruding into your safe place, and making you feel ill.

And I think having your ribs crushed against the ceiling may have two symbolic messages for you. First of all, the ceiling represents a feeling of inability to escape this lack of control, and secondly, your crushed ribs might represent the idea that you feel 'hurt to the core' by the frightening messages you receive from the outside world, and lack of control you feel in finding safety and comfort where you normally would . . . your bed.

I think that if you feel that interpretation is close, it might help you to identify why your mind is generating such graphic images. Your mind wouldn't do that if it wasn't important in your waking life. So, maybe you can think if there was something going on in your life at the time that made you feel similarly, and then try to address those issues during your waking life. If the problems are resolved in real life, your mind will not need to focus on it when you are dreaming.

The second dream, I think, even though it's imagery is horrific, might not have such a terrible message.

The setting is a forest. You didn't note how you felt in the forest, so I'm not sure if it was a pleasant feeling forest, or unpleasant feeling. So I'm going to guess that it was somewhat unpleasant because you said the forest floor was littered with the corpses of a dozen children, and that certainly is unpleasant imagery. If that's the case, then I would describe the forest as probably representing, generally, the maze of childhood.

I will guess, based partly on your age, that the setting of this dream represents the end of childhood.

The mail on your pc is another representation of messages you receive from the outside world, like the t.v. in the last dream. The message is that you're going to die. In this dream, it isn't a literal death that is being expressed, but the death of childhood, or innocence.

When you found your mother with her throat slit, it was your minds way of reinforcing this symbolic message. You are growing up, you can't be a child forever, and you can't depend on your mother forever.

The sound of the power drill, frightening enough to wake you up, I think represents your anxiety about moving into adulthood.

It's not necessarily a 'bad' dream, even though it's a nightmare. It is only your minds way of coming to terms with this rite of passage . . . one of the most difficult ones anyone could face in life . . . growing up.

I think that you might eventually find some of your nightmares subside if you could learn to interpret your dreams, and use that information to tweak your life in ways that relieve your anxiety. For example, if you think my interpretation of your first dream is correct, you might try adjusting your home environment in ways that make you feel safer, or healthier. If you think the second dream interpretation is correct, maybe you could seek out books or websites, or advice from the adults in your life that would help you navigate your way into adulthood with more confidence, and less anxiety.

If it turns out that that was what your mind was trying to tell you, then that should eliminate those types of nightmares.

It wouldn't mean that you would never have another nightmare. It would just mean that when you do have one, you could interpret it, and know why this issue is so important to your mind that it is generating graphic, startling images and plots that wake you up.

In the meantime, do talk to your doctor if you can, and see if you can do an internet search on other ways to reduce nightmares! Getting a solid nights sleep is very important in every aspect of waking life, from what I understand. I wish you the best of luck!

There are some medications that sometimes help with nightmares. It might be a good idea to talk to a doc & maybe get a referral for a sleep study.

I had something very similar to this in the early part of the year. For several weeks I would have very vivid nightmares on a daily basis. Especially in the beginning, I would often wake up unable to distinguish what I had dreamed from reality. You may want to look into Nightmare disorder.

My doctor gave some prozasin, which I still take sometimes to help control the nightmares. It wasn't some sort of magic quick fix, but it did help somewhat. How are your stress levels? I was going through a lot of stressful events around when that had happened, and ultimately it was removing the stressful trigger from my life that got rid of the nightmares.