Nightmares
January 2nd, 2008Via: Psychology Today:
If dreams evolved to simulate the threats in our environment, then being exposed to more dangers in real life should activate the nightmare function, overstuffing our dreams with threats. This is precisely what happens. Even a single exposure to a life-threatening situation can plunge a person into an inferno of post-traumatic nightmares, dreams in which the threatening event—the attack, the rape, the war—is repeated over and over in every possible variation.
Studies of traumatized Iraqi and Palestinian children who grew up in extremely violent environments, some of whom witnessed their parents’ deaths, show that their dreams are phantasmagoric carnivals of threatening events. People who watched more television on September 11, 2001, and saw threatening images were more likely to dream about the events of that day; people who merely talked about it with others were less likely to dream about it.
Traumatic dreams do seem to rehearse relevant threats. Just four weeks into the first Gulf War, as Scud missiles were raining down on Tel Aviv and Haifa, the war was already encroaching on the dreams of Israeli college students, according to a study. The most prominent topic: gas masks.
Related: The Power of Nightmares
I was calibrating instruments in a twin prop that suddenly nosedived over the Irish Sea when the pilot performed a no warning stall (I was an Aeronautical Engineering student). That sickening, sinking feeling and assurance of imminent death was relived in dreams for years. A notable variation was Lake Geneva replaced the Irish Sea…
A friend who served in the police in Northern Ireland during the conflict wakens gasping for breath and reaching for his glock when his dreams relive the numerous murder scenes and close calls he experienced. Yet during the troubles, he had no such problems; it was only once he left the police that his problems began.