Causes of bad dreams

What are the causes of bad dreams

Even though a nightmare is just a dream it will produce the feeling of fear and danger. The most frightening part of the nightmare is that a person has zero control over what is going on. Some researches claim that 5% of the whole population suffer from constant bad dreams.

When a person is in a state of REM or rapid eye movement, then he or she dreams. A person who has a nightmare will feel some very real physical effects. The pulse rate will rise while the person is having a bad dream. Similar pulse rate is seen when a person is under a lot of stress. Even nowadays people cannot determine what causes these bad dreams and nightmares to occur. Causes

A lot of experts think that the stress that builds up during the day is then released during the sleep and in the form of bad dreams. Sigmund Freud thought that it is the repressed and suppressed fears are what causes nightmares to occur and that these nightmares can be cured only via psychotherapy. A lot of people agree that some traumatic life experience can definitely cause bad dreams. Illness is another thing that people agree upon. Bad dreams happen a lot more often while the body is fighting some disease. In this case the use of medications can only boost the effect of bad dreams.

Most people are more likely to remember a nightmare in the morning than a normal dream. This is because of the upsetting nature of a bad dream. Everybody has nightmares at least once during their life but the problem is when they start recurring.

Some experts claim that people who are sensitively emotional are more likely to have bad dreams than people who are not. These people tend to get emotionally upset and that can be one of the causes of nightmares but it is not for sure. A person whose attitude is negative can have bad dreams more often as well. These negative thoughts are being processed by the brain and that can lead to bad dreams. Scary images appear when the subconsciousness deals with the negative feelings.

Prevention

A good advice is to avoid watching violent and scary shows for a couple hours before going to sleep. A person should watch a funny film before going to bed and then he or she will not have nightmares. Thinking of a perfect place while going to sleep also helps.