science of nightmares

But, enlighten us science! What is the reasons we’re having nightmares?

So, brain really does works all the time. There are different types of activity in completely different areas of the brain when we are awake vs. when we sleep.

During sweet dream sleep, the emotional brain remains online even when our bodies are long gone offline.

The frontal cortex, the area that helps us make sense of images and control them, is far less active and pumped up during the sleep.

What does it “do” to us during a dream state, then? — Well, when we have this intense emotional brain activity aka dreaming, the brain doesn’t know how to make sense of it, and random negative mental images can come up. Dun dun dun — here’s Johny!

Nightmares.

Definition time. Scientists define nightmare as a dream which causes us to wake up in the middle of the REM sleep cycle and experience a deep negative emotion, such as fear, cofusion, anxiousness, sadness, or even anger.

Fast btw fact: REM sleep occurs approximately 90 minutes after first falling asleep and then again every 90 minutes throughout the night, and eventually, if you’re lucky, REM lasts longer as the night goes on.

1. Fear is not the most common emotion in a nightmare; rather, confusion, guilt, and sadness are most common. What’s more, these emotions tend to stick with you longer than if your dream is fear-based.
2. The study showed that the participants experienced abnormal sleep architecture and that the results of having a nightmare during the night were very similar to those of people who have insomnia. This means that, like insomniacs, people who have nightmares do not get as much rest as those who do not have chronic nightmares.
3. Physical aggression is the most reported theme in nightmares.
4. Being too warm at night can trigger nightmares. Experts suggest the reason for this is because heat triggers the body’s fight-or-flight response, a mechanism linked to survival and heightened anxiety/anticipation.
5. Gamers are more likely to be able to turn a nightmare into a regular dream during sleep. Bam. Kudos to those lucid dreamers gamers <3
6. Most people have experienced nightmares, but this kahm, “phenomenon” seems to occur quite commonly while we are kiddos between the ages of 3 to 6. This may be because this is the age at which normal fears develop and a child’s imagination is very active. If nightmares occur repeatedly, the possibility of a nightmare disorder should be considered..
7. For humans, rats are often the stuff of nightmares, but it seems that the rodents may be as likely to experience bad dreams themselves as they are to star in ours. In a new study in Nature Neuroscience, researchers placed rats in a maze and allowed them to explore. At a certain point in the maze, the scientists blasted the animals in the face with a bit of compressed air from a keyboard cleaner—a harmless but uncomfortable experience for the rats. Later, as the researchers monitored the animals sleeping, they could see patterns of connectivity in the rats’ hippocampi corresponding to their mental map of the maze.
8. There a few common symbols in nightmares, such as death, murder, or free-falling.