Most people have nightmares that they’ll be naked in public.
I have nightmares Trace will be naked in public.
Hey Julian!
Hello Jacks and Sallys, Julian here for DNews.
In the comments of a recent video Luke Hutton asked us why we get nightmares.
Well Luke today’s the day you’ve been dreaming about.
Or had nightmares about, if you don’t like my jokes.
Yes the common knowledge holds true that nightmares are often a reflection of your waking mental
state.
Stressing about a looming unpleasantness, as well as anxiety from events passed can
cause nightmares.
Really traumatic events like car accidents or wars can lead to nightmares with recurring
themes, or reliving the event over and over.
Healing from the trauma should cause the nightmares to become less frequent and intense over time.
If you’re among the 5% of people who have nightmares often enough to affect your waking
hours, consider seeing a therapist.
Working through stress or trauma in real life will help you sleep peacefully.
Nightmares can also be caused by medications or drugs, especially ones that affect neurotransmitters
like antidepressants or narcotics.
People who have what psychologists define as “thin boundaries of the mind” are more
prone to nightmares too.
These people tend to be more creative and imaginative, and sometimes have trouble separating
fantasy from reality.
There are also idiopathic nightmares, meaning we don’t know why they happen, they just
do.
So if you have a nightmare every now and again, it’s nothing to worry about.
85% of adults report having nightmares on occasion.
They’re more common for children, particularly young girls, and are likely caused when the
child is struggling to cope with normal childhood fears.
To understand nightmares, and to a larger extent dreams, it helps to know what’s happening
in your thinking meat while you’re unconscious.
Dreams and nightmares happen during REM, the last step in the sleep cycle before it starts
over.
During REM your brain becomes much more active than when you’re in deep sleep.
Your amygdala in your temporal cortex starts humming along during REM, and that little
guy is responsible for processing memory, decisions, and emotional reactions.
Some areas have even more activity than when you’re awake, like the hippocampus, which
is the storage center of memory and emotions; and parts of your cortex, particularly your
temporal and occipital lobes.
These regions handle sensory input and visual information, respectively.
There’s also some spikes in some fast wavelengths, likely caused by the cortex communicating
with the thalamus, which is thought to be a hub for information sharing.
One area of your brain that doesn’t light up in REM though is the prefrontal cortex,
which is used in information integration and episodic memory.
With all that brain talk I just threw at you in mind, the why and how of nightmares and
dreams starts to make a little more sense.
The parts of your brain that are involved in long term memory, emotion, vision, and
language are all hard at work, but the prefrontal cortex is literally asleep at the metaphorical
wheel, meaning nothing’s really guiding what the rest of your brain is doing.
The result is bizarre dreams or nightmares, especially when something has had a strong
emotional impact.
And since the REM stage gets longer with each cycle and is the one you have right before
you wake up, dreams or nightmares get longer and more intense until finally you come out
of it going, “What on earth was that about?”
So nightmares can be caused by stress or emotions, but do you have the ability to control them
while you sleep?
Anthony has the answer here.
This question was asked by a viewer and we hope we answered it to his satisfaction.
If you have questions, lay it on us.
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answer, and I’ll see you next time on DNews!