Amanda – To help you understand I will have to quote pieces.
One of the common features of a nightmare is that we are desperately trying to get away from a situation; feel stuck in a terrible condition; or meet fear or disgust in almost overwhelming degree, so that on waking we feel enormous relief it was just a dream. Because of the intensity of a nightmare we will remember it long after other dreams; remember even if we seldom ever recall other dreams. We may even worry about what it means for a long period of time, perhaps even years. Many people, on waking find the feelings, or sometimes even the imagery, continuing for some time. So for instance they may feel so much fear they have to switch all the lights on in the house.
A little Kuwaiti boy survived the Iraqi invasion of his country and was living without his father, a prisoner of war. But a recurring nightmare, of Saddam Hussein stabbing his brother to death, was prolonging the trauma.
One night he had a different dream: This time he carried a knife, becoming a hero who kills his nemesis. The emotional weight he carried disappeared. Altering recurring nightmares may hold a key to recovery for many victims of trauma, says Dr. Deidre Barrett, a professor of behavioural medicine and hypnotherapy at Harvard Medical School. Barrett spent a month in Kuwait City after the Gulf War training other therapists to treat post-traumatic stress disorder. She says, “Just changing something in the dream gives people such a sense of mastery in controlling things.” See
https://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/secrets-power-dreaming/ Usually nightmares are caused by childhood fears and trauma such as loss of parent; being lost or abandoned; fear of attack by stranger or parent; anxiety about own internal drives such as anger. These fears or trauma may also arise from having experienced a difficult birth. These childhood emotions are, when so young, overwhelming and are usually blotted out entirely because they could not be faced. But such childhood traumas cause blockages and interfere with our ability to mature fully, and so our being tries to release them when we are older and can face them – thus nightmares. See also
https://dreamhawk.com/approaches-to-being/lifes-little-secrets/ Tony
