If you suffer from recurrent nightmares – what modern sleep science calls nightmare disorder – then I am sure that the image above sums up what it feels like. It’s tormenting. Sometimes just getting into the bed triggers all of the fear demons lurking beneath the surface of your consciousness.
This I know from personal experience with my own inner demons. The thing about nightmares is that they are trying to tell you something about your life – most likely, nightmares are telling you something about your conscious attitude. Clearly, the message is that something needs to change, but what?
Naturally, the most common question I get is “how do I stop having nightmares” and start having better dreams? My answer is always the same:
In order stop having nightmares and have better dreams, you have to become more conscious yourself.
I thought it would be interesting to take a look at the stats on who tends to have recurrent nightmares. The statistics are interesting because there is a common thread amongst the groups in which chronic nightmares tend to occur:
Keep in mind that this list comes from a selected group of people, if you don’t fit into one these, it doesn’t matter. Just stay with me.
The common thread amongst these five groups – as well as with anyone who has constant nightmares – is dissociation.
Constant nightmares aren’t a punishment. Nightmares don’t mean that you are a bad person. If you are having constant nightmares, then something is amiss in your life and you have to figure out what that is.
You cannot do anything to start having better dreams, per se. Your natural dreams are an autonomous factor in you. They happen to you, outside of the control of your will.
I say natural dreams in order to delineate them from lucid dreams, the latter of which for me are more along the lines of what Jung called imaginative activity. Both have the potential to be fruitful, as long as ego-consciousness does not get too inflated about its position in the process.
The only way that the content of your dreams will change is for you to change something about the way you live your life. Dreams are a response to your current conscious situation.
You have to get at the meaning of your nightmares. In general,
[if] a person has a nightmare, it means he is either too much given to fear or too exempt from it…
C.G. Jung, The Spirit in man, Art, and Literature, par 161
So, start with what Jung said and ask yourself which one applies to your life.
Next you have to look at the context and content of your nightmares. You give no information about the actual content of your nightmares. Only an elaboration of the content will render the meaning of your dreams.
What is happening in the dreams? Who are the players?
Make your associations to this content and then translate that into psychological terms. For example, take your dream content and say to yourself: this situation in the dream is similar to this situation in my life.
Remember, the dream-image is not an analogue, it’s a symbol. You’re looking for something that you cannot otherwise see. Looking at yourself through a dream is like looking at the back of yourself in a mirror.
I have found it helpful to use Jung’s loose guidelines on types of dreams. In another Quora post, I gave a general outline of types of dreams, three of which I will list here:
They are an unconscious reaction to a conscious situation.
You are too one-sided or driving yourself at full-speed ahead. This is usually indicative of too much will power and not enough soul. Continue down this path and you will breakdown.
The dream depicts an unconscious conflict you.
You are doing something in your life that conflicts with your true nature. Usually, an ego-driven issue. If you don’t listen to your unconscious, then Fate will change your circumstances for you.
Dreams can aim at changing your attitude.
You have left behind some crucial aspect of yourself and if you don’t change it, you will become an empty man or a hardened bore, as I shared in another Quora post:
Jung told a story about a grumpy old Swiss army general who dreamed that he was in a military lineup and was asked to define the word beauty instead of something about strategy or policy. He fumbled his words and could not respond. A younger officer standing next to him gave an eloquent answer. When Jung asked that old guy who that young man reminded him of, he said, “me when I was younger and more free.” Jung said (basically), “There you go. You have forgotten something precious about yourself in your drive for organization and power.”
Any dream – and mostly especially a nightmare – is message that should be looked into. I say that about nightmares because they tend to have a stronger emotional tone.
Consider them a gift. Don’t try to change your dreams. Try to change yourself. Once you do that, your dreams will change on their own.
all the best
Rebecca, dreams are a response from the unconscious to your current life situation. In order to find out the meaning of the dream, you are going to have to reflect on your life and your current attitude.
Clearly, the dream pictures a dangerous, anxious, and destructive situation, but it’s not enough to say, “this dream pictures your anxiety” or anything else like that. Though a lot of people say it, that is not dream interpretation.
Your dream isn’t an analogue of your life situation – it is a symbolic image of some aspect of your life that you cannot see.
You have to ask yourself, why does the dream depict volcanoes and asteroids in particular? What kind of destruction is each of those versus a tidal wave or hurricane?
What you see from this dream is the effects of something you are doing, either in your behavior or in your attitude, or, of some situation that you are in.
It is as if something rises from below and erupts, as well something hits from you “above”, so to speak.
Try to match the dream image with the way something feels in your life. What is that something?
Make your associations to your dog: what qualities does he or she represent for you? Then look up the dog as a mythological symbol and amplify that.
Babies often represent new life. It would appear that something is threatening the new life in you. Don’t read this as “my actual child”. It’s something new and delicate as a baby in yourself.
Rebecca, dreams are a response from the unconscious to your current life situation. In order to find out the meaning of the dream, you are going to have to reflect on your life and your current attitude.
Clearly, the dream pictures a dangerous, anxious, and destructive situation, but it’s not enough to say, “this dream pictures your anxiety” or anything else like that. Though a lot of people say it, that is not dream interpretation.
Your dream isn’t an analogue of your life situation – it is a symbolic image of some aspect of your life that you cannot see.
You have to ask yourself, why does the dream depict volcanoes and asteroids in particular? What kind of destruction is each of those versus a tidal wave or hurricane?
What you see from this dream is the effects of something you are doing, either in your behavior or in your attitude, or, of some situation that you are in.
It is as if something rises from below and erupts, as well something hits from you “above”, so to speak.
Try to match the dream image with the way something feels in your life. What is that something?
Make your associations to your dog: what qualities does he or she represent for you? Then look up the dog as a mythological symbol and amplify that.
Babies often represent new life. It would appear that something is threatening the new life in you. Don’t read this as “my actual child”. It’s something new and delicate as a baby in yourself.
Dreams about being chased have a significant meaning for our lives because whatever is chasing us, wants to come to…
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