Can I stop seeing nightmares?

Waking up in the middle of the night from nightmare episodesThe stories of which the best screenwriters and writers in the horror style would envy, we are relieved to realize that what was seen was just a dream. Nevertheless, the body needs time in order for the heart rate to normalize, and the whole body to release a trembling numbness, sometimes reaching sleep paralysis. Considering how frightening and unpleasant nightmares can be, experts are interested in the possibility of preventing them, including a complete “shutdown”. Despite the fact that not much research has been carried out in this area, scientists suggest that people who know the techniques of lucid dreams can answer this question.

Nightmares appear only in the REM sleep phase and last no more than half an hour

Why do we see nightmares?

Experts are convinced that nightmares arepart of the human experience and are a kind of interpretation of the experienced stresses and psychological stresses, even though in most cases children from 7 to 10 years old are exposed to it. Doctors do not consider rare nightmares a pathology, but if disturbing dreams happen too often, they can significantly affect the upcoming day and the life of a person as a whole. Frequent nightmares can be a symptom of a psychological disorder that could be caused by extreme stress, trauma, or certain types of drugs.

See also: What is sleep paralysis?

Despite previous sleep studies,nightmares still remain only partially studied. At the moment, it is known that often nightmares dream in the REM phase or in the so-called REM phase, which is characterized by rapid eye movement and increased brain activity. It was found that while a person is in the REM sleep phase, his brain is almost as active as in the wakeful phase.

Lucid dream is a borderline state between the phases of REM sleep and wakefulness

Can nightmares be prevented?

According to an article published on the portallivescience.com, Japanese scientists have confirmed the existence of lucid dreams and continue to conduct research to study them. For a lucid dream, it is customary to consider those dreams in which a person is fully aware of his condition and can even, to some extent, control the content of night vision, as well as leave it. Experts attribute “lucid dreaming” to a borderline state that lies between the REM and Wake phase.

Despite the fact that medical practice isthe development of conscious consciousness has not yet been used by doctors, some experts have already developed several methods for their development. For example, research results published in 2019 in the journal Frontiers in Psychology confirm the positive consequences for people suffering from constant nightmares after applying such an unusual therapy in a dream.

According to one of the methods, a person sufferingfrom nightmares, you need to set an alarm 30 minutes earlier than he usually wakes up, conduct his daily morning routines, and then go to bed again. According to experts, it is the awakening and the break between sleep that can help the human brain go into the intermediate stage between the phase of REM sleep and wakefulness.

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According to experts, it is the intermediate phaseIt makes it possible to control a dream, and subsequently to prevent nightmares, since brain activity in this phase of sleep gives a person the opportunity to distinguish reality from dreams. Experts also note that lucid dreams are only one of the methods to prevent nightmares, although they do not give guarantees of their complete deliverance.