Nightmares

Dear Heidi

Lovely to hear from you. I'm sorry to hear about your problem with nightmares latley. Reading your letter actually got me thinking about the subject.

When I was about seven years orl I watched the movie 'The Exorsist'. My friend had seen it several times, and it was one of her favorite movies. I did not share her opinion. That must have been one of my worst days, I was shaking.

After telling my parents about the movie, we agreed that I should sleep in their bed that night. When I went to bed I had a creepy feeling that someone would crawl over me. At last I was able to fall asleep, and the dream I had is inked into my memory. I'm in a totally white place, and suddenly massive white walls are coming from nowhere and accumulates to a house. Suddenly I woke up, I was sweaty and very scared.

I really don't know why I thought that dream was so scary, because it was a really nice house. Anyway, when I got your letter and read about the nightmares you have been having, I thought about the nighmare I had. I noticed different patterns in our dreams and I started to google mightmares. I found a case written by professor Erik Harald Schultz, and his theory is that there are three different kinds of anxious dream stages. The first one is anxiety dreams, the second one is nightmares and the third one is night terrors. Anxiety dreams are the stage as normal dreaming, you are then in the lightest sleep. The dreams you have in this stage can be very uncomfortable, but you don't wake up. Nightmares are the kind of dreams that wake you up, you will then be sitting with the feeling of fright and anxiety. Nightmares occur between teh deepest dream stage and the dreamless sleep. Night terror am I not going into since it is caused by a sleeping sickness.

As you said in the letter, you do ot wake up from your dreams, but that you sleep so restless that you do not get into the deepest sleep. It sounds to me that you are having anxiety dreams. Dreams like this can often be caused by stress. I can be caused by any kind of stress. This kind of dreaming is stressful by it self. I read that many find calmness in yoga and meditation.

I hope this can be a little helpful in your struggle.

Write back soon and let me know how things are going.

Best wishes
Marit