Dreams Blog

A man suffering from a rare sleeping disorder reportedly killed his wife during one of his nightmare dreams after he decided not to continue with his antidepressants.

According to reports, the man believed that the medications were affecting their sex life which led him to discontinue the process.
59-year old Brian Thomas strangled his wife, 57-year old Christine while they spent their holidays in Wales.

Court documents revealed that Thomas stopped taking three drugs, including one which controls his vivid dreams.

Prescription drugs expert Dr. Paul Skett said that Thomas would experience nightmares if he won’t continue taking drugs. One of the antidepressants is said to control Parkinson’s Disease while one of the drugs stops rapid eye movement sleep.

The defendant is seeking a not guilty verdict because of “insane automatism.” The defense attorneys stressed that the marriage lasted 39 years and there’s really no reason why Thomas would maliciously kill his wife.

How do you deal with problems in life? Maybe there are images or scenarios in your dreams that you can find answers with. Here are some dream meanings that could aid you in dealing with your problems:

Being chased: This common dream usually is considered a nightmare for most people. This could be because the chaser could be a monster, an animal or a person that you are scared off. Running could mean running from something that could cause fear or stress. The best way to deal with this is to face the fears or obstacles and deal with them with a strong heart.

Missing teeth: This common dream usually means being conscious of your looks and how others perceive you. Looks can be an important aspect of one’s personality but experts believe that one should build character in order to leave a lasting impression to the peers.

A group of researchers revealed in their study that bad dreams are actually our brain’s way of processing emotions. They added that regulating these emotions can be the major function of rapid eye movement (REM) sleep – the stage wherein most dreams happen to people.

Drs. Tore Nielsen and Ross Levin wrote in the journal Current Directions in Physical Science that the so-called “nightmares” happen when regulating the emotions goes wrong thus sometimes waking us up in the middle of the night. Nightmares are those bad dreams that consist of frightening images that usually startles us out of sleep.

The researchers added in the study of dreams that it is normal for everyone to have bad dreams, considering the fact that most dreams are not really positive ones. Dr. Levin said that bad dreams are usually the “default dream” because people are in some way dealing with negative emotions throughout the day.

He added that there are parts of our past memories that become part of our dream and can be exaggerated to look even more negative and frightening.

The researchers stated that about 85 percent of adults experience at least one nightmare per year. This usually happens when the individual undergoes moments of high stress.

The doctors concluded that results from study of dreams resulted to more effective solutions and therapies.

A Dutch scientist did his PHD on nightmares and made an interesting discovery:  you can change the plot of your dream by penetrating into it. Almost everybody knows what it’s like to have a nightmare. But one fifth of the people that have a severe traumatic experience develop a PTSS (post traumatic stress syndrome). 60 percent of them troubles with nightmares that keep coming back and ruin their daytime lives. Especially for these people, a therapy is being developed, which allows them to change the script of their nightmare in such a way that the nightmare gets a happy ending.

To get grip of the nightmare the patient is thought to dream lucide. So that he can be aware of the fact that he’s dreaming, but keep on sleeping and dreaming. Research has shown that a lucide dream can exist in three ways.

• Something unexpected can happen in the dream that makes the dreamer conscience, without waking up.
• A dreamer can sleap lightly and stay lucide.
• The dreamer gets himself conscience of the fact that he’s dreaming.

In every way the dreamer can change the ending of the dream himself. Is he for example dreaming of being followed by a scary man in a dead end alley, he can turn around and do something to eliminate the follower.  An ideal solution to give the bad dream a happy ending.

How do you learn do sleep lucide?
Keep a dream diary en teach yourself to be more conscious of your dreams. And you can exercise in daytime what you have to do to get lucide when dreaming. One exercise is to critically observe the reality during the day. If you get used to that, you will start to critically observe the world in your dreams as well. If something strange happens, you will get lucide. One rule in dreaming lucide: don’t panic, stay calm. Otherwise you can lose grip of your dream.

Common themes in nightmares

• Being followed
• Under water
• Falling down a cliff
• Taking a test
• Being naked in public
• Not being able to run
• Losing someone close to you
• Pent-up rage
• Losing control of the wheel