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[V-Norrec]

I've been wondering if you guys have any experience some truly terrible nightmares.  Last night I had one where, for some reason I was actually being eaten in my own dream.  The night before that the building I was in came alive. (a recurring theme in my nightmares is actually buildings coming to life)  The dreams are so bad that sometimes I just elect not to sleep so I just don't have to deal with it.  You have any idea what could be causing this / how to fix it because I'd really like to sleep peacefully again.

[Soulwynd]

Don't eat heavy food before going to sleep, drink (half) a glass of milk before laying down.

Those help quite a bit.

You're not the only one, I dreamed my father had died a couple days ago, I was creeped out the entire day and still am a little.

[V-Norrec]

I can say safely that I almost never eat directly before bed.  Milk might help though.

[Vector]

Probably stress, possibly caffeine too close to bedtime... ?  My worst dreams have always come in times of stress when I know I can't actually relax.  I actually solved this by always having something interesting to think about as I was going to sleep, because then my subconscious was way too busy with that to bother me.

Don't go to bed super-hungry, and try to have the computer off at least an hour before bedtime.  Make sure you're warm, and don't sleep on the floor or anything.  Maybe read a cute story right before bed.  I know that's a weird thing to say, but try anything, right?

Hmm... if I think of anything else, I'll be back.

[Moddan]

Try work out strategies how to decern dreams from realilty. The simplest one is the following: if you are awake, you know that are not dreaming; if in doubt, you are dreaming. Keeping this in mind can help because dreams usually end not long after one is aware of its nature.

[Lordinquisitor]

1. Go to sleep
2. Realize it`s a dream.
3. Punch the dream into the face until it becomes something pleasant.

[Knight of Fools]

You could try becoming a lucid dreamer, as described above.

Realizing something is a dream is quite a bit harder than it sounds, though, because dreams tend to draw from reality and our brains are sometimes good at tricking us into thinking something is real that isn't.  For example, if you're watching a scary movie where a house comes alive you can easily say, "It's not real."  However, people still get scared, because somewhere in their brain something is saying, "It is real."  It's the same with dreams, only so much more vivid because your brain is presenting it as reality.

Try asking yourself, at random intervals throughout the day, "Am I dreaming?"  I've tried this before without results, but I wasn't very diligent about it.  Unlike you, though, I didn't have any real reason to put myself to it besides simple curiousity.

The more you try and discover, the closer that you'll be to conquering that brain of yours.

[smigenboger]

I love nightmares. They allow you to experience feelings and situations you rarely get in life.

While on this topic, what are some things you can do to achieve the opposite of the OP's situation? I'd love to have more dreams and nightmares.

[Vector]

Do the opposite of everything I suggested... get stressed, sleep at odd hours, drink coffee or tea right before going to sleep, read/watch a bunch of weird stuff.  That does it for me, anyway.

[smigenboger]

Do the opposite of everything I suggested... get stressed, sleep at odd hours, drink coffee or tea right before going to sleep, read/watch a bunch of weird stuff.  That does it for me, anyway.

If I drink caffeine before I go to sleep, especially if I've been up for less than 17 hours, I won't be able to sleep. Perhaps some irrationally set up movies would help.

[Korbac]

Like smigenboger, I enjoy "nightmares". I had an odd dream the other night where I was turned into an android, a spare brain was implanted into my hand, and my best friend chopped the ears, noses and limbs off people who wouldn't allow us into this convention thingy. It was horrible at the time, both of us were crying almost constantly. The dream finished with me projectile vomiting this blue stuff all over a nice clean room (most likely DF's influence there)

In retrospect, damn cool.

[Knight of Fools]

One thing I did try to encourage more dreams, and succeeded at doing, was keeping a dream journal.  I would wake up in the morning, hop on the computer really quickly (Within 10 minutes of waking up) and type out every last detail I could remember.  Looking back at this dream journal, I noticed that the dreams became more and more frequent, I remembered more from the dream and the dreams became more vivid.  It was my most successful dream experiment.

I think it's something anyone can try and get results from.

[smigenboger]

My mind still thinks I'm in high school, college, work, and time be damned.

I love how non-cannabis drugs are a crapshoot in my mind. Sometimes I dream that I smoke something, turning the world into a mellow dreamy land of softness and cuddles, and sometimes it causes partial paralysis and weakness.

As a dream of the former, I took LSD and went to the world's most friendly, radical, loud, colorful, crowded rave, and as a nightmare of the latter, I ended up smoking something and skydiving without a parachute. I hit the ground, literally painfully, which I guess made the effects wear off. Of course, it did no damage.

[smigenboger]

One thing I did try to encourage more dreams, and succeeded at doing, was keeping a dream journal.  I would wake up in the morning, hop on the computer really quickly (Within 10 minutes of waking up) and type out every last detail I could remember.  Looking back at this dream journal, I noticed that the dreams became more and more frequent, I remembered more from the dream and the dreams became more vivid.  It was my most successful dream experiment.

I think it's something anyone can try and get results from.

Did you get excited to go to sleep? Your mind will dream more if you connect it with good feelings. The trouble is starting it up in the first place.

[Knight of Fools]

I enjoyed sleeping, but I don't know if you could say that I got excited about getting to sleep.  For me, dreaming is like starting a new book - You don't know what you're getting into until you've started it, except it's a great deal harder to reread a dream.

I actually can't get to sleep if I'm excited or concentrating on falling asleep.  Before I learned tricks to falling asleep, I generally let my mind wander while lying in bed.  I enjoy thinking up stories for books, and when I get a particularly good idea I keep following the idea, which I get excited about and it makes it difficult to be calm enough to actually get to sleep.  So excitement about getting to sleep right before getting to sleep is a bit counter-intuitive for me.


I never thought about making a direct connection between events in a day and the frequency of my dreams, though.  I tried the dream journal experiment as a young teenager, and I was a pretty happy, healthy young man, so it could have had some major effects on my dreams and their frequency.

I wonder if that could be reversed.  Good moods can produce dreams, so could dreams produce good moods?  I may try the whole experiment over again to test that out.  I could see if encouraging dreams and remembering them can help with stress.  Dreams are already beneficial for us, so they could be improved to become more frequent, thus relieving more stress (In theory).  I imagine most stressed adults don't dream much, so encouraging dreams could help manage stress.  It could even snowball, since a person in a good mood dreams more, they get in an even better mood.  Though, like most matters of the mind, I think it would need to be trained to do something like that.