Bad Dreams - Why Are Adults Having Nightmares?

The nightmare is a nightmare, with feelings of pressure and suffocation, which you have certainly faced in certain moments. But what you probably didn't know is that bad dreams can be "interpreted" from a medical point of view.

While children are more likely to have nightmares, adults also face them, and women are more likely to be affected.

Bad dreams in adults can be caused by anxiety, stressful situations, sleep disorders, and some medications.

When they occur recurrently and affect a person's sleep quality, cause stress, affect optimal functioning during the day, or cause fear of sleep, we can talk about a medical condition called parasomnia.

Nightmares most often occur during REM sleep (rapid eye movement). Because REM sleep periods get longer during the night, nightmares can occur most often in the early hours of the morning. During a nightmare, people's testimonies indicate that they have experienced feelings of anger, guilt, anxiety, and even awakening from fear.

Although the subjects of nightmares, that is, what happens during them, actually vary from person to person, certain nightmares are experienced in many cases. For example, many adults dream that they cannot run fast enough to escape danger, they feel that they will fall into a void from a great height, they dream that they are physically, verbally assaulted, drowning, or being chased. to be killed or to kill someone else.

The themes of nightmares can vary greatly from person to person, but the most common themes include being chased, feeling down, or feeling lost or trapped. Bad dreams can provoke a variety of emotions, such as:

• anger

• sadness

• guilt

• fear

• anxiety.

The causes of bad dreams

Nightmares can be triggered by a wide range of factors, including:

• the fact that you had a snack just before going to bed;

• an illness or fever;

• medicines, including antidepressants, narcotics, and barbiturates;

• over-the-counter medications;

• excessive alcohol consumption or drug abuse;

• stress, anxiety or depression;

• sleep apnea syndrome, which interrupts breathing during sleep;

• narcolepsy, a disorder characterized by extreme drowsiness during the day, followed by episodes of rapid sleep (when you say you are taking a nap) or when the person falls asleep at the wrong time;

• post-traumatic stress disorder.

What causes nightmares?

We still don't know exactly why the nightmares occur. Possible causal factors include, but are not limited to, febrile illness and various medications. Anxiety-based disorders, intellectual disabilities, and depression can lead to nightmares. And those bad dreams that follow a traumatic event can be a sign of post-traumatic stress disorder. And pregnancy can trigger bizarre dreams and nightmares, experts say.

Nightmares are also referred to by doctors as "parasomnia," a type of sleep disorder that involves unwanted experiences that occur while you are asleep, asleep, or when you wake up.

Bad dreams can be triggered by many factors, including:

• Stress and anxiety - sometimes the sources of stress in everyday life, such as a problem at home, trigger bad dreams. A major change, such as moving or the death of a loved one, can have the same effect. When you suffer from anxiety, this is associated with a higher risk of nightmares.

• Trauma - nightmares are common after an accident, injury, physical or sexual abuse, or another traumatic event. Dreams are common in people with PTSD.

• Sleep deprivation - changes in your schedule that cause irregular sleep and irregular sleep hours, or those changes that interrupt your sleep or reduce your sleep hours may increase your risk of having bad dreams. Insomnia is said to be the one that brings nightmares.

• Medications - some of these, such as certain antidepressants, medications prescribed to treat high blood pressure, beta-blockers, and other medications used to treat Parkinson's disease, or those medications to help you quit smoking can trigger bad dreams.

• Substance abuse - alcohol and recreational drug use or quitting alcohol or recreational drugs can trigger bad dreams.

• Other conditions - depression or other disorders that affect your mental health may be related to nightmares. Bad dreams can come with some medical conditions, such as heart disease or cancer. In addition, if you have sleep disorders that prevent you from sleeping properly, these can also be associated with having bad dreams.