We all have had a nightmare a time or two. Waking up in the midst of the nightmare in terror and we have learned long ago as a child that nightmares are not caused by the monsters under our beds. What is the cause of these horrible dreams that bring strong feelings of fear, terror, distress and anxiety? They are a way for your unconscious to get your attention about a situation that you have been avoiding. They can also be caused by childhood and family relating to past neglect, life your perception of the world, health, natural disasters and crime. The most common reason in by relationship problems between people or how you feel others see or think about you. Nightmare expert Ernest Hartmenn states that “Nightmares simply translate our own fear into a dramatic context.” His research also shows that people who tend to have nightmares are more open, sensitive and trusting.
Nightmares can occur for many different reasons, such as the way you sleep. If you sleep facing a wall or you have your face in your pillow you may experience nightmares of you drowning or smothering. Even eating before you go to bed can cause your brain you have continuous activity that can trigger nightmares. Having nightmares are normal but nightmares that occur over and over are ways to signal that your body is tired and stressed out by being overwhelmed.

When I was a child I commonly had a dream about a clown living under my bed. I became so scared of my bed I would run and jump onto it so the clown would not grab my legs and pull me under. Eventually my mother took the bed frame from under my bed so it touched the ground, there was no longer a place for the clown to live. I was able to sleep without the fear of the clown, so I had thought. Just when I thought I was free of the clown under my bed, I had a dream of him in my closet. I had to keep my closet door open every night before going to bed, still to this day I don’t have a bed that comes off the ground and I don’t sleep with the closet door open.

These horrible dreams that we wake up from with sweat and a pounding heart, are horrible little pictures that our minds play through our heads at night, not to entertain us while we sleep but to relieve the stress that has built up in our minds throughout the day and to get our attention about something we may have set aside or tried to ignore to make our lives easy.