You feel scared, anxious, angry, sad or disgusted as a result of your dream. You feel sweaty or have a pounding heartbeat while in bed. You can think clearly upon awakening and can recall details of your dream. Your dream causes distress that keeps you from falling back to sleep easily.
Nightmare disorder, also called dream anxiety disorder, is a rare type of sleep-related disorder (parasomnia) affecting about 4% of adults, causing distress and sleep problems.
Studies have reported that nightmare disorders were present in 50- 70% of the cases for PTSD, in 17.5% for depression, in 18.3% for insomnia, in 16.7% for schizophrenia and in 49% for borderline personality disorder.
Sleep terrors differ from nightmares. The dreamer of a nightmare wakes up from the dream and may remember details, but a person who has a sleep terror episode remains asleep. Children usually don't remember anything about their sleep terrors in the morning.
Nightmare Disorder Fast Facts
An estimated 4% of adults experience the symptoms of nightmare disorder. Frequent nightmares may be associated with stress, anxiety, or trauma.
Nightmare disorder is a pattern of repeated frightening and vivid dreams that affects your quality of life. It ranges from mild to severe and can be short-term or chronic. Nightmare disorder is treatable with various psychotherapies and medications. It commonly affects people with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
They occur more often during rapid eye movement (REM) sleep, the stage of sleep associated with intense dreaming. Nightmares arise more frequently in the second half of the night when more time is spent in REM sleep.
If nightmares cause concerns about sleep disturbance or underlying conditions, consider seeing a doctor. The doctor may refer you to a sleep specialist or a mental health professional.
Nightmares are considered the hallmark of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
Behavioral intervention with imagery-rehearsal therapy is currently the only treatment strategy recommended for all patients with recurrent nightmares. Prazosin may be used to treat both PTSD-associated and idiopathic nightmare disorder.
Disturbed sleep is common in people suffering from bipolar disorder. Often people experience nightmares, night terrors, combined with either insomnia or too much sleep depends on whether person is experiences a manic or depressive episode.
Barrett says that in post-traumatic nightmares, the region of the brain involved in fear behaviors, including the amygdala, a structure deep in the brain that works to identify potential threats, may be overactive or overly sensitive.
The average human has at least one nightmare a week, said Bill Fish, a sleep science coach and co-founder of the online sleep resource Tuck, but whether they remember it is a different story. “If someone has frequent nightmares, that's not normal and something that should be treated.”
For some people, medicines, alcohol, drugs, lack of sleep, fever, or anxiety sometimes cause nightmares. Often, though, nightmares seem to be triggered by emotional issues at home or school, major life changes (such as a move), trauma, and stress — even if what happens in the nightmares seems unrelated to your life.
Being mindful about your bedtime routine and creating optimal conditions for sleep can help prevent nightmares, but if those techniques aren't working, it's a good idea to talk with your doctor and ask for help.
Depression causes bad dreams for many people. One study found that 28.4% of participants with severe depression reported frequent nightmares and that depression was one of the strongest indicators of frequent nightmares.
“According to the American Psychological Association, trauma is an emotional response to a terrible event. Trauma can occur once, or on multiple occasions and an individual can experience more than one type of trauma.” PTSD is the mental health disorder that is associated when someone experiences or witnesses a trauma.
In addition, nightmare disorder is specified by duration: acute (less than 1 month), subacute (1–6 months), persistent (more than 6 months); and by the severity based on frequency: mild (less than one episode a week), moderate (multiple time a week), severe (nightly).
The three types of nightmares are idiopathic, recurrent, and post-traumatic. Idiopathic Nightmares – are dream sequences that are not the result of trauma but often happen when a person is very stressed.
A nightmare usually involves replaying the traumatic event, feeling like they are right back there again. For veterans, this might mean re-witnessing horrific events or even deaths of people they witnessed while on combat missions.
Lucid Dreams
These are the rarest type of dreams where the person is aware that they're dreaming, while dreaming. Not just that, people actually feel like they're in complete control of their dream. Because of the awareness that you have, you can easily interpret your own lucid dreams.