I was reading EWLD and the section on nightmare and it said “Whatever horror you personnally belive to be the worst things that could happen, these are the most likly things to be the subjects of your nightmares” and I realised I havn’t had a nightmare in years, despite being haunted by them in my younger years. I think it all comes down to your waking fears (ooohhh master of the obvious) but I realised as my outlook on life changed so did my dream life, I used to be worried about everything, I even went to counselling because of my hypochondria and I often had nightmares, now I take things as they come and I don’t have any major fears (not saying I don’t get scared) my outlook is I can fix this if I put my mind to it (I like fixing things) and I havn’t had a nightmare in years.
I don’t like nightmares. I don’t like how my SC plays with them and forms a visualization. I totally agree with the author of the book b/c my fears of my children’s safety has played major roles in my nightmares. Especially since my daughter was born.
My nightmares usually involves one (or more) of the following:
Horror movies (not surprising, seeing as they are my main source of fear throughout waking life),
Spiders (this usually aren’t to bad though),
Not being able to see the attackers (fear of the unknown?),
The creatures often resembles the ghosts from The Ring or The Grudge (Japanese horror movies). No other horror has ever scared me as much as though two movies,
Being unable to kill the monster - my gun won’t shot, or else it has no effect (fear of being unable to defend myself),
Being unable to escape - usually I’m trapped in a room which is completely surrounded by zombies (no escape route - forced to fight, and I know I can’t win),
Watching the horror unfold in front of me (have no power over the situation).
So it does indeed seem that pretty much all the themes present in my nightmares can be traced back to waking life fear.
I don’t have a lot of nightmares, though I used to have them all the time. Actually I don’t hate them, because that’s how I first started getting lucid. I was like, “Hey- those zombies have chased me before. Let’s change the scene around a bit.” The worst ones have my mom yelling at me though, those are the only ones that shake me to my core.
One of my friends has a recurring nightmare, he is at his parents wedding (they are now divorced) and a black snake slithers through, he says this one scares him much more than the one he has where he is gutted alive on spikes.
Your mom yelling at you, I bet thats a Nightmare more than any nightmare, and then to awake and find its all true and she is bellowing and shouting on the stairs for you to get up and go to school.
I used to have intense nightmares where I would wake up sweating and jump out of bed as though I had just been jabbed with a hot poker. It all seemed to calm down after I started to meditate again, and after I got into lucid dreaming.
