Conquering Nightmares

Your nightmare is a gift, really, and if you approach it as such, it can heal you or teach you something. Strephon Kaplan-Williams says in Dream Working (1991), "Nightmares are incomplete dreams." They are dreams people wake themselves up from because they are not able to deal with the implications of the dream. Most often it is the dream ego itself that is under attack. Often a nightmare represents a daily circumstance or situation that the dreamer does not want to face but won't go away without a resolution. Here are some tips for working with nightmares and recurrent dreams. "A nightmare is a call to action," says Joan Mazza, M.D. in Dream Back Your Life (2000).

Recurrent Dreams

Work with recurrent dreams the same way you would work with nightmares. Recurrent dreams are usually nightmares. Helena McLean and Abiye Cole say in their book, The Dream Working Handbook (2001), "The fact that a dream keeps returning means that it contains a vital message that needs to be listened to. Such a dream becomes more and more exaggerated the longer it is ignored." They also say, "We need to recognize and acknowledge our own reflection in the monsters of our dreams. Then they will lose their power to make us afraid." Jung calls this technique "facing the shadow."

Steps To Understanding Nightmares & Recurrent Dreams

• Write your nightmare down on paper without any attempts to understand the dream.
• Circle all the words that catch your attention.
• Write down all the feelings you had while in the nightmare.
• What are the metaphors and waking life scenarios that might be reflected in the dream?
• If the dreams were a message, what would you hear?
• What would you do if you were fearless and had unlimited resources?
• Can you make this change that the dream signifies? If not, what is in the way?
• What do others say about your nightmare?
• After what events do your nightmares happen?
• Has anything in your diet changed?
• What fear is the dream bringing up?

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