What Causes Bad Dreams Every Night

I went to sleep really, really disturbed the other night. I'd seen a car wreck on my way home and it had left me completely shaken. The image of the broken glasses and the splattered blood on the road kept coming back over and over to haunt me. That night when I pulled the covers over me and tried to get some shut eye, I couldn't get the image to leave. It took me a long time to lull my mind into sleep and even when I did, a slight noise from the garden woke me up and I lay staring at the ceiling. I don't remember when I slept, but I do remember how I woke up - panting, sweating and my heartbeat imitating a thousand drums being beaten at a single time. I had dreamed of horrible things while I was asleep. I had twisted around and thrown the covers to the floor. My lips were trembling and my hands felt cold. I gulped down a glass of cold water and coaxed myself to sleep again. But when the same nightmare started making way every night after that for over a week, it got me worried. Why was this happening? What was causing those bad dreams every night?

Really. What causes bad dreams every night? Bad dreams, more commonly referred to as nightmares, are a common phenomenon and to say the least, can leave a person anxious, fearful, paranoid and disturbed. Most of us have had disturbing dreams at sometime or the other, so the degree of panic and anxiety that a person can experience need not be explained. Depending on the kind of dream that it was though, the degree of the panic attacks will vary. The effect that bad dreams have on an individual are not pleasant either. It can lead to a lot of stress and worry and this can have an adverse effect on a person's overall life. It is due to this that we need to look into the causes of bad dreams so that we can hope to find a way to make it stop. In the following article we will look into this aspect in more detail and understand how to go about controlling this recurring phenomenon.

Meaning of Bad Dreams

The phenomenon of bad dreams is quite simple to understand. When a dream evokes feelings of anxiety, fear, horror, nervousness and/or paranoia, it is considered to be a bad dream or nightmare. When one brings in the angle of psychology and the aspect of delving into one's mind to understand the phenomenon of bad dreams, that is when things become more interesting. It is said that bad dreams signify certain aspects about a person's life that are impossible to decipher at the plain surface. The meaning and significance of bad dreams goes way deep and is said to be the evidence of certain fears, trepidations and traumas that a person has, which make way through these nightmares.

Why Do We Have Bad Dreams

So we have bad dreams. But why do we have bad dreams? One interesting theory that needs to be mentioned here is the one that was put forth by Sigmund Freud. Freud suggested that a person's hidden fears, anxieties and trepidations find an outlet through bad dreams. What we fear, we keep playing in our heads over and over again. That is how the subconscious mind gets a message and produces bad dreams.

Trauma
The next time you have a recurring bad dream, think back to the events of the day. Was there something disturbing and traumatic that happened? It has been proven that a traumatic experience(s) can lead to nightmares in a person. Trauma that is experienced due to death, accident, sexual assault and the like can be one of the main causes of bad dreams.

Illness
Have you ever had a high fever and then tried to sleep through it, only to be thrown into this weird in and out of conscious and unconscious states of mind? Sickness and illness is something that can lead to bad dreams. Add to that the effect of sleep inducing drugs and there is a chance that the occurrence of bad dreams will increase furthermore.

Negative Thinking
It has been seen that a person who constantly swirls around negative emotions and thoughts in his mind is more prone to bad dreams. Why does that happen? It's cause you are introducing those bad thoughts to your subconscious and conscious states of minds, thus forcing it to process the information and then produce dreams that stress on these thoughts. The result? Bad dreams.

Psychological Conditions
It has been seen that there are certain psychological conditions that can increase a person's chances of experiencing bad dreams. These include high levels of stress and tension, depression and a disturbed state of mind in a person.

The causes of bad dreams could be several, as we have seen. To know what these are helps because it lets us deal with the unpleasant emotions. But along with understanding what the causes of bad dreams are, we need to also know how to stop bad dreams. Why? So that it does not lead to a more severe and destructive outcome like a nervous breakdown or depression. Here's hoping that you will take all the necessary steps for the purpose of curbing these dreams and thereof have a night of pleasant dreams, one that is not plagued by horribly disturbing nightmares.