Don't Run from the Stalkers: Chatting with the Nightmare
I'm quite confident that the absolute majority of you, dear nightseizers, will have experienced at least one nightmare in your life.
The statistics show that around 50% to 85% of adults occasionally have a nightmare [1], and 1 out of 20 people has nightmares every week [2].
Whether that nightmare is one of that terrifying kind that leaves you feeling uneasy even when you wake up safely in your bed, heart beating fast, eyes scanning the room for any suspicious shadows, or the plain annoying kind, such as being late for an important meeting or attending school 20 years after graduating, all nightmares have one thing in common: they are obviously quite unpleasant by their very definition.
And naturally, most people would like not to have them.
A sense of calmness → sweeter dreams
One of the main factors that cause nightmares is anxiety. So if you're someone who tends to stress a lot, try working on your mindset, implementing mind-calming techniques such as meditation, exercise, or brain-dumps in your life, and adopting a more peaceful lifestyle if possible. Reducing your stress levels will lead to a much more pleasant life during both wakefulness and sleep.
Don't stress about having nightmares, rather go to sleep with a calm confidence that you'll have sweet dreams. If you're still scared, pray before sleep.
Attention, though: if you suffer from frequent nightmares that seriously disturb your sleep, consult a sleep doctor (somnologist).
What to do when you are having a nightmare?
Whether you suffer from extremely terrifying dreams or just have to run from a couple of villains occasionally, you will most likely find knowledge of what to do when you're inside a nightmare useful.
So here are the various strategies that I have used in dealing with my nightmares (I'm a naturally zen person, so it's nothing horrendous, though disturbing at the moment), ranked according to the levels of lucidity (awareness that you're in a dream) that they require and what I think is best to do.
Let's start with the noob method (the least advanced and least effective one).
Level 0: Fight or Flight
Lucidity: none to low
Mindset: fear and avoidance
Deep down, I know they will always find me no matter where and how fast I go.
I can fight them but they often seem to have unlimited respawning capacities.
One star out of five. Do not recommend.
Level 0.5: Fight or Flight + Superpowers
Lucidity: from none to full
Mindset: fear and avoidance | anything is possible if I can imagine it
Even though I don't always know that I am dreaming, in most of my dreams, I have the sense that I can make anything happen, as long as I can imagine it or will it into the dream reality.
So usually, I would use the common, easy superpowers like flying, as well as superpowers of the latest fantasy novel I've been reading or thinking about, like a shitty version of Harry Potter magic, Red Queen silver or newblood abilities, or Brandon Sanderson's allomancy. One time I travelled through pipes or buckets, but they figured it out. Another time, I teleported. This worked but only because it produced in me the kind of thinking you'll see in level 2.
Fighting with superpowers is fun. However, it is only successful when you believe it will be. Because if you don't, you can fly over a whole block in seconds, and your chasers will be waiting for you there, sneering at you, even if they can only walk. Your expectations determine the result of your actions in a dream. If you know you cannot escape, you will not escape. If you are running away from dream villains or shooting bolts of lighnting at them but believe that you are too weak to win the fight, that will be true. If you believe that you can kill them with mere thought, that will be true.
That means I should just muster some confidence and blow them away with a giant fireball?
Well... Read on, because there are better ways to get out of a nightmare. Unless, of course, a firsthand action movie character's experience is your current dream goal, which is completely understandable.
Level 1: Hit the Exit Button ASAP
Lucidity: full but brief
Mindset: fear and avoidance | helplessness | haha, try catching me now
***
"I'm in a dream!!!" I realize in the middle of a nightmare.
This is not real. And I want out. All I would have to do is to open my eyes, and this would be over. Can I do that?
I think of my real eyes and try to force them open.
The landscape shifts. I'm standing and speaking to some people. I suppose this is the reality now. Yet the dream villain is still present. No, this can't be the reality, I think. I must still be sleeping.
I open my eyes, and this time I end up in my bed.
The next morning, I tell my parents about this cool nightmare-ending method I've just discovered. At that time, I have no idea what lucid dreaming means, and I probably barely know any English.
***
I seem to be in the old house of my sister. A man is trying to get into her fourth-story apartment through the window. I'm in the house. I have gotten rid of the previous dream villains but this time, when I attempt to push him back out, I feel powerless and am 100% sure I will not be able to take any kind of control over my dream surroundings...
Dream. This is a dream.
I feel mentally paralyzed, though. I need to get out before he gets to me.
I open my eyes. Then I close them again, drifting into a better dream.
***
Usually, it works like this: the unreal feeling of a nightmare transforms into awareness that I am dreaming. At that point, I'm technically in a lucid nightmare. I don't feel like the mood will get better, so I decide to get out.
I open my eyes. If I have a false awakening (one that's not even necessarily realistic, for example, I awake standing beside the bed, instead of lying in it) and realize that it's still a dream, I open my eyes another time, and this time, it works. Nevertheless, awake for real or not, this method shifts you out of the nightmare, into the waking world or at least into a much sweeter dream.
Level 2: My Dream, My Rules
Lucidity: medium-high to full
Mindset: fear and avoidance | anything is possible if I can imagine it | I am in charge of everything here
***
I run through the woods, chased by a gang of vampires. (Or perhaps by vampire slayers? I don't remember.) I reach the sea.
There's only one way to escape.
I climb into a boat, soaring up in the air with it and ducking so that they wouldn't see my head hovering over the vehicle. I fear that they will find me, as they always do.
They only find me because I believe they will, I realize. This means that if I don't, they won't.
I decide that I have escaped. They won't find me. They can't fly. And this boat is invisible. Focusing my attention forward, I will my foes out of my mind. And so I fly in my levitating boat. And I escape.
***
Little boys run down the path near my garden. A skeleton-like monster with yellow glowing eyes seems to be chasing them. It stops, eyeing me and my best friend.
I'm scared. I know this is a dream. But I'm still scared. I feel like thinking alone will not change a thing. But I have an idea that will work.
The skeleton watches us menacingly. At any moment, it will attack. My friend is scared as well.
I touch her shoulder to comfort her. 'This is not real,' I tell her. 'This is a dream, this is not the real life, and the real life is but a dream.' Wait what? What kind of bullshit poetic phrases did I just say? Life is not a dream. This is.
Nevertheless, saying it out loud makes me believe I'm in control. This is a dream. The skeleton doesn't matter. I'm safe. And so the dream improves.
Once I wake up, I feel stupid, though. I just willed the Phantom of the Opera out of existence.
***
This is the point where you really realize that since you're dreaming, what is happening is not real. So it doesn't matter. And now you've passed from being stuck in an unpleasant situation, trying to deal with it by engaging with the dream plot and the other dream characters (I say 'other' because you act just like one of them), to an ability to directly influence the storyline. In other words, you shift from a dream character mentality to a dream author mentality.
If the previous two levels could be likened to waking up in the Matrix and realising you could do basically anything that you can imagine, this one would be like discovering that you're the host of the whole simulation. So instead of fighting the agents, you just yawn and go do whatever it is that you want.
Now that you've realized that you're dreaming, there are many things that you can do. You can ignore the nightmare. You can have fun with it. You can will a villain out of existence. Whatever suits your situation best.
This is powerful and works best in the more annoying kind of nightmare.
***
It's my first medical Latin seminary, and my teacher is handing me a test. I'm not prepared, I'd been planning to go through the materials in the morning before, but it is morning now.
Hooold on. That doesn't make sense. Am I perhaps dreaming? I look around at the students surrounding me, my middle school classmates. Definitely dreaming.
So I tell the teacher that I don't have Latin now and that this is not reality. She starts crying and I have to comfort her but that's another story, and at least I'm not taking a stupid test before the time.
***
When you know you're dreaming, you can get out of those exasperating dreams of school during holidays or being late to work because 50 minutes passed in 50 seconds.
However, there is something I would suggest that can potentially be even better for the scary type of nightmares where you're being followed or attacked by some dream villain. While the level 2 dream strategy still stems from the fear that the dream horrors will carry on and you don't want to be stuck in such a dream, the next strategy takes a completely different approach, so keep reading.
Level 3: Actually ask what they want from you
Lucidity: medium to full
Mindset: negotiation, open-mindedness, and bravery
Have you ever thought about how in most situations, we never actually ask a creepy dream character following us around what they want from us?
Overwhelmed by fear, we just assume that they're doing it simply because they're creepy and malicious. But maybe there's something more?
***
Me and my parents are in the car, driving slowly through the parking lot of a store. A woman approaches us and somehow I know she's coming for us and that she doesn't have any good intentions in her mind.
I try to lock the door but there's something wrong with it, I can't even properly close it. The car is slow and unsafe, so I get out of it while I can and run in the direction of home.
I'm not fast enough. The woman is treading on my heels, and I know any effort to escape will be unsuccessful.
Some part of me recalls reading that I should ask nightmare figures what they want from me, so I turn around.
'What do you want from me?' I ask somewhat aggressively, out of fear and anger.
'Go do your history project!' she commands.
Oh.
There is a school history project waiting for me in real life, something I've been procrastinating on, as thinking about it made me feel overwhelmed and frankly a bit dead. (Don't get me wrong, history can be amazingly fascinating.)
I meet some other monsters on the way home, their unsettling, malicious eyes fixated on me. I promise I'll do my project when I wake up. They keep staring at me sternly.
When I woke up that morning, I was so impressed that I wrote a poem. Not my best work but here it is:
I promised a monster in my dream
Who required me to do my schoolwork
That I will do it today. But my ideas stream
And here I am - writing a poem instead of doing my work.
But I will do it. I swear I'll do it now.
I'll stop being a coward, I will do it!
No, I AM doing it right now- Oh no,
My parents say we're going out, I have not done a bit.
When will I finally stop pleasing
The stupid monkey inside me who's pleading
For instant gratification, fast and fleeting,
Robbing me of time, productivity, and meaning?
For as long as my forgetful brain can remember,
Like a coward I have always been fleeing.
In all possible directions my mind likes to wander
And to become a superwoman when the deadline's approaching.
The madwoman knows it and I guess she cared
Enough about me to try make me scared.
And when I asked my chaser what she wanted,
She said: "Go finish your history project!"
Of course, I did the project and did it well, as I would have either way, since I've always been a good student. This nightmare, though, gave me a push to start working on it before it was my last chance to do so.
There have been other such cases as well.
***
I'm exploring some part of the city I've never seen before. I'm alone.
A car stops nearby, and a couple climbs out, moving in my direction. Somehow I know they're coming for me, and I try to walk away. Feeling helpless, I turn and ask, 'What do you want from me?'
My voice barely makes a sound, despite the effort I put into it. Nevertheless, the couple, without speaking a word, hands me a slip of paper.
'Gada diena, dienas gads,' it is written. In my native language, Latvian, it means something like 'a day of a year, a year of the day' or 'a day in a year, a year in a day'. What is that supposed to mean, I wonder. The words kind of don't make sense; however, they prompt me to think about how every little day is important in the long run, how the individual, seemingly insignificant days make up a whole year and how I should give more importance to how I spend each day.
***
Determined to sleep-think about a relationship problem, I fall asleep.
A younger teenage girl is attacking me with an axe. Naturally, I fight back and overpower her, taking the axe from her.
'What do you want from me? Why are you attacking me?!' I ask with frustration.
'Where is [her friend's name]?' she demands.
Me and my friends, who are right beside me, answer her question. The girl sighs, venting about the somewhat possessive hopes she'd had for her friend. 'I feel you,' I acknowledge her feelings. This reaction of mine slightly disturbs me once I wake up.
Though the dream may have been somewhat wild, the implication is clear: if I want to improve my friendship, I need to let go of some unhealthy expectations and focus on loving the person.
***
This strategy has several benefits:
- instead of avoiding the nightmare or fighting it, you calmly confront your fear, becoming a more confident dreamer,
- by listening to the villain, you calm them down, thus ending the nightmare,
- oftentimes, you may discover that the villain isn't actually a villain but rather a truth you've been trying to avoid (or maybe they become it the moment you ask them what they want).
In the worst case, you can have a fun lucid fight. Either way, this strategy will improve your night. A dream character is a part of your own mind. They can't hurt you. But sometimes they will reveal things to you, problems you were trying to ignore.
Your sleeping mind may think in the most bizarre ways, yet I've found that it can give succinct answers to complex problems in just one or a few nights. Here's how to take advantage of that.
Further thoughts, level 4?
Is there something that can be potentially better than level 3 (except in the case of the annoying nightmare, when level 2 is more effective)?
Well, potentially, it may be possible to befriend a dream monster. Maybe it's a part of yourself that you need to pay attention to, or however dreaming works (I won't claim to have some unified woo-woo theory of dream spirituality). Maybe it would simply be fun to have a quirky dream villain as a friend. But I wouldn't know, I've never tried this. If you have, please, share your story in the comments.
For now, this is how I'd evaluate different nightmare management strategies from an inside-the-dream point of view, as summed up in the expanding brain meme format:
Sources:
- https://sleepeducation.org/sleep-disorders/nightmares/
- https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/the-red-light-district/201906/15-frightful-facts-about-nightmares?amp