Why do we have nightmares psychology

By M.Farouk Radwan, MSc.

Why do we have nightmares psychology

Why do we have nightmares? and what is the psychology of bad dreams?
Do nightmares and bad dreams have superstitious meanings or are they just reflections of disturbances taking place in the person's psychology?

Most people interpret dreams incorrectly because of believing that they represent the future without knowing that 99 percent of dreams represent a reflection of events that had already occurred.

Nightmares and bad dreams are no different as they are usually the reflection of your thoughts about the stressful life situations you are going through. In this article i will explain the psychology of bad dreams and tell you why do we have nightmares.

The psychology of nightmares and bad dreams

Lets suppose that you saw yourself falling off a cliff and dying. For a normal person that might seem like a frightening nightmare but for a person who knows about psychology it wont be hard for him to conclude that falling in the dream was just a symbol that represents his belief about falling somehow in his real life.

Maybe that person did lots of bad things and felt guilty thus unconsciously believed that he had fallen then saw that dream as a result of his new belief. Or maybe the person is afraid to lose his status and thus this nightmare is nothing more than a reflection of his fears.

According to psychology you can understand a nightmare easily if you related its symbols to the recent events that are taking place in your life.

Trying to interpret nightmares and bad dreams using online dictionaries that have fixed symbols will certainly lead to incorrect interpretation because according to psychology symbols can have different meanings depending on the person who saw them. (see What dreams really are)

What to do when you get nightmares and bad dreams

Nightmares are just signals representing the disturbance that is taking place in your mind as a result of some stressful life events you are going through. You need to interpret these signals correctly in order to understand the message your subconscious mind has decoded into a nightmare.

Once you understand the psychology of the nightmare and the real life event it refers to you must then work on dealing with this real life event so that you prevent the nightmare from visiting you again.

One of the theories of dreams psychology states that dreams (including nightmares) are the result of the work of the subconscious mind when it stores the events that happened at a certain day in its long term memory.

so again this shows that nightmares are in most cases the representation of bad events that already happened in your life decoded into a format that is understood by the subconscious mind.

This can lead us to conclude that solving your problems in real life would prevent nightmares from visiting you. (see How to have good dreams)

2knowmysef is not a complicated medical website nor a boring online encyclopedia but rather a place where you will find simple, to the point and effective information that is backed by psychology and presented in a simple way that you can understand and apply. If you think that this is some kind of marketing hype then see what other visitors say about 2knowmyself.

The Solid confidence program was launched by 2knowmyself.com; the program will either help you become more confident or give you your money back.

Want to know more?

Dreams where someone is chasing you

The meaning of teeth falling out in a dream

What does it mean when you dream about someone?

How to get over anyone in few days (book)

How to make anyone fall in love with me fast (book)

How to end Depression instantly (book)

How to control people's minds (Course)

How to develop rock solid self confidence fast (course)

Hundreds of Psychology Videos






2knowmyself Best Selling Books


How to make someone fall in love with you.
Based on the psychology of falling in love

How to get over anyone in few days
Breakups will never hurt like before.

How i became a dot com millionaire
The ultimate guide to making money from the internet