Nightmares are a universal occurrence that we all experience at some time in our lives. Nightmares can cause terror in children and adults. Nightmares are disturbing dreams which may follow us for years worrying us with their persistence and their vividness. In some cases the same scene occurs over and over never giving the dreamer any relief or achance to rest. Sometimes, even for adults, nightmares become sointense they believe they are interacting with evil from outsidethemselves. Nightmares in ancient times were thought to becaused by evil spirits that would haunt and suffocate people whilethey slept. The nightmare is oftenaccompanied by feelings of oppression and helplessness. Edgar Cayce believed that evil thoughts are actually material things manifested by us. In otherwords by believing in raw evil you can actually create it. Nightmares seem very real. They become more disturbing as they unfold.
Nightmares tend to occur during rapid-eye-movement (REM) sleep. There are five stages of sleep that make up one sleep cycle. Younormally complete four to six sleep cycles in one night. The fifth stage of each cycle is called REM sleep. With normal sleep patterns, people cycle though thefive sleep stages about every 90 minutes. REM sleep makes up about 20-25% of your total sleeptime. The first REM period tends to last for only a few minutes. The REM stage gets longer duringeach sleep cycle. Your last period of REM sleep may last as long as an hour. This means that nightmares are more likely to occur in the last third of the night. Nightmares that arise due to a trauma can also occur in earlier, non-REM stages of sleep. They may depict some of the events from the trauma. They may even replay the event in the dreamer’s mind. Nightmare disorder can be confused with sleep terrors or REM sleep behavior disorder (RBD). A person having a sleep terror often screams, kicks, thrashes and even bolts out of bed. He canbe very hard to wake up. When he does, he is very confused. He only recalls fragments of a dream. Sleep terrors tend to occur in the first third of the night. RBD involves a person acting out his dream. It can even result in physical injury. It is mostcommon in middle-aged men.
In both adults and children, nightmares and night terrors canbe caused by unresolved psychological conflicts or traumatic events. They are a frequent feature of post-traumatic stress disorder. Emotional traumas that disturb the sleep of children can be overlooked easily by adults – such as the loss of a favorite toy or overhearing a loud argument between parents.
But sometimes you might have a nightmare for no reason at all.
Historic use of term : Such nightmares were widely considered to be the work of demons and more specifically incubi, which were thought to siton the chests of sleepers. In Old English the name for these beings was mare or mære , hence comes the mare part in nightmare. The word might be etymologically cognate to Hellenic/Mar?n/ and Sanskrit /M?ra/ .
Folk belief in Newfoundland, South Carolina and Georgia describe the negative figure of the Hag who leaves her physical body at night, and sits on the chest of her victim. The victim usually wakes with a feeling of terror, has difficulty breathing because of a perceived heavy invisible weight on his or her chest, and is unable to move i.e., experiences sleep paralysis. This nightmare experience is described as being “hag-ridden” in the Gullah lore. The “Old Hag” was a nightmare spirit in British and also Anglophone North American folklore.
Nightmares tend to occur during rapid-eye-movement (REM) sleep. There are five stages of sleep that make up one sleep cycle. Younormally complete four to six sleep cycles in one night. The fifth stage of each cycle is called REM sleep. With normal sleep patterns, people cycle though thefive sleep stages about every 90 minutes. REM sleep makes up about 20-25% of your total sleeptime. The first REM period tends to last for only a few minutes. The REM stage gets longer duringeach sleep cycle. Your last period of REM sleep may last as long as an hour. This means that nightmares are more likely to occur in the last third of the night. Nightmares that arise due to a trauma can also occur in earlier, non-REM stages of sleep. They may depict some of the events from the trauma. They may even replay the event in the dreamer’s mind. Nightmare disorder can be confused with sleep terrors or REM sleep behavior disorder (RBD). A person having a sleep terror often screams, kicks, thrashes and even bolts out of bed. He canbe very hard to wake up. When he does, he is very confused. He only recalls fragments of a dream. Sleep terrors tend to occur in the first third of the night. RBD involves a person acting out his dream. It can even result in physical injury. It is mostcommon in middle-aged men.
In both adults and children, nightmares and night terrors canbe caused by unresolved psychological conflicts or traumatic events. They are a frequent feature of post-traumatic stress disorder. Emotional traumas that disturb the sleep of children can be overlooked easily by adults – such as the loss of a favorite toy or overhearing a loud argument between parents.
But sometimes you might have a nightmare for no reason at all.
Historic use of term : Such nightmares were widely considered to be the work of demons and more specifically incubi, which were thought to siton the chests of sleepers. In Old English the name for these beings was mare or mære , hence comes the mare part in nightmare. The word might be etymologically cognate to Hellenic/Mar?n/ and Sanskrit /M?ra/ .
Folk belief in Newfoundland, South Carolina and Georgia describe the negative figure of the Hag who leaves her physical body at night, and sits on the chest of her victim. The victim usually wakes with a feeling of terror, has difficulty breathing because of a perceived heavy invisible weight on his or her chest, and is unable to move i.e., experiences sleep paralysis. This nightmare experience is described as being “hag-ridden” in the Gullah lore. The “Old Hag” was a nightmare spirit in British and also Anglophone North American folklore.
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