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There’s no sweeter relief than waking up shaking and sweating after a gruelling fit of late-night purgatory and realising that it was merely a nightmare – a figment of your imagination.

Oh, woe is us who have to struggle with a relentlessly thinking, conscious mind.

An estimated 50% to 85% of US adults report having occasional nightmares, per Sleep Education. with up to 5% of the US experiencing regular nightmares as a result of nightmare disorder, parasomnia, or disruptive sleep disorder.

That second one is particularly devilish, often causing sleep paralysis and scary sleepwalking.

For those of us who have regular old nightmares – often in the vein of stress, bad sleep hygiene, anxiety, and the adrenaline spike of a scary movie and illnesses (especially fever) – the reasons are pretty straight edge.

But when a nightmare is so vivid and terrifying that it not only ruins your whole night but your whole day, then perhaps it is something worth noting, per CNET:

According to sleep psychologist Dr. Dan Ford of Auckland’s Better Sleep Clinic, trying to interpret dreams once you’ve woken up can only be helpful if it makes you feel comforted.

“The general interpretation is, something’s not quite right and that’s why you’re getting nightmares, so I’d probably stick at that kind of level,” he said. “Because what do you see with dreaming in general, right? It’s pretty nonsensical.”

To help you understand the devastation witnessed when your eyes are closed, it helps to understand how the human brain generally cycles through four stages of sleep over the course of a night:

Stage one consists of the brain and body slowly settling into sleep – your heart rate regulates, your system begins to calm and it normally lasts for up to five minutes.

Stage two is light sleep, where you’ve settled but haven’t quite sunk into the depth of sleep required to initiate tissue growth, system repairs and cell regeneration.

Stage three is the deep sleep stage, known as slow wave sleep. In this, the body is fully relaxed, delta brain waves are present and there is no eye movement. Your body regenerates cells, your immune system strengthens and your heart rate is at its slowest.

Finally, stage four is what’s known as rapid eye movement sleep, or REM sleep. It’s here that you’re able to dream, with your brain activity escalating and your eyes moving rapidly. For most people, their limbs become paralyzed as they sleep.

Settling into REM sleep typically takes about an hour and a half and, thus, nightmares often happen in the second half of the night.

That dreaded 3AM witching hour, so to speak.

“Essentially what we’re doing is we’re processing emotion,” said Ford, “What we’re probably seeing is someone who is potentially hyper aroused, so their arousal levels or sympathetic nervous system is triggered or activated, and so that’s then bleeding into their sleep and into the nightmares.”

Since horror movies and thrillers stimulate the production of adrenaline in a controlled environment, from a psychological perspective, it’s best to steer clear of them before bed.

Especially if you’re susceptible to internalising sensitive material, or suffer from the daily horrors of anxiety, depression, or PTSD.

Unless it is all just a bad dream.

[source:cnet]