It has recently come to my attention that I don’t really have a basis for determining whether a dream I’ve had should be classified as a “dream” or a “nightmare”. I have dreams which I consider unpleasant quite frequently, but I have never thought of those as nightmares.
I usually only consider my dreams to be nightmares if I wake up crying.
So, my question is: how do you personally define dreams and nightmares?
Thanks bunches!
-Danielle
I consider nightmares any dreams whose situations I wouldn’t wish happened IRL.
In my opinion nightmares are just unpleasant dreams that nobody likes to have, but for some reason I don’t have nightmares anymore I don’t know if this is because of lucid dreaming or what but my dreams use to be all nightmares. I dreamt about walking down my hallway in my house and all the pictures use to scream and shout at me and I screamed for my mum but she never came. But what I do believe is dreams are inspired by what we think and feel.
Nightmares have become very rare for me. 0-1 in a month or two. Anyway, what I would consider a nightmare is a dream which I couldn’t stand at all. A dream that is horrifying (i.e. someone killing someone that I loved or someone hurting or chasing me etc.) could qualify for a nightmare. Otherwise the dream can be exciting, pleasant, neutral or unpleasant. The other category is horrifying, which is nightmares 
A dream where I’m feeling constant fear of dying and pain. For example, once had a dream where some kinda mafia gang terrorized a mall and put cut off limbs and carcasses everywhere. It was disturbing, in a really damn horrible way.
But I don’t think all unpleasant emotions make a dream a nightmare. I’ve had some dreams in which I was really scared, but it was a different kind of fear. It was more mysterious and surreal, not such graphic violence. Maybe sounds stupid, but it was even kinda… enjoyable fear?
It’s really all a matter of opinion. I have many dreams that I consider unpleasant, unhappy, or awkward, but I don’t consider them nightmares. In my opinion, nightmares are extremely long, detailed, frightening and horrifying. When you wake up you don’t want to go back to sleep. I don’t have them often, but I did when I was younger and it was horrible.
Dreams: the everyday thing that I wake up from and think to myself ‘gosh that was cool/exciting/awesome’ or ‘huh that was crazy/weird/annoying’
I define nightmares as something experienced where a lot of negative emotions are in play. Personally, my nightmares include a great deal of fear typically from being chased and surrounded by unnatural and distorted things (or spiders 
).
If I have to force myself awake, it’s a nightmare. As for crying, there have only ever been extremely sad dreams that I don’t consider nightmares because it doesn’t contain the fear and horror. Most often the nightmare itself wakes me up and the image of the last thing I saw is in my head, in which case I’m afraid to go back to sleep incase I go back into the nightmare so I force myself awake long enough to start think about something else.
Well in my opinion a nightmare can be anything that you consider as a nightmare. For example I have dreamt many times seeing a very large stone thats spinnin on the spot really slow and I was feeling really uneasy. I woke up really sweaty and terrified. Althought I find no real reson for this dream to be a nightmare it still is. So I think there is no way to compare one nightmare to other cuz every one haves his/hers own nightmares.
I share the op’s view. I have unpleasant dreams every now and then, but I don’t think of them as nightmares, because after I wake up, I find most of them quite amusing, in some sort of twisted way.
I don’t mind having such dreams because constant flowers and bright colors can become mundane, even in dreams.
I have had a select few, true nightmares that have been so horrific I have ended up waking up crying. However, I have also had pleasant dreams that were simply so great or touching that I have woken up crying as well.
I would consider a nightmare a dream where you become terrorized by some element of the dream.
I classify nightmares in two groups (personally I find the second one more terrifying):
Nightmare = A dream where you are afraid of what may happen to you in a given situation.
LN = A dream in which you are aware of being in a dream and are afraid of being afraid that situations may alter for the worse in spite of your will.
For me, it’s a dream in which I feel uncomfortable for large parts of the dream, and in situations I really wish wouldn’t happen.