Nightmares and Sweet Dreams

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Nightmares and Sweet Dreams

By Kelly Florence & Meg Hafdahl

As horror fans, we love a good jump scare in the movie theater. There’s nothing better than physically reacting to a moment in a film with a group of people. Inevitably, we’ve found that we collectively laugh at what we’ve just experienced, and murmurs abound throughout the theater among strangers. We also hold our breath for a drawn out reveal in a horror novel. Tempted to skip ahead, we can’t betray the storyteller and instead sit transfixed as we read paragraph after paragraph, sentence after sentence, word after word until…discovery. Shock!! If you’re like us, sometimes you need to physically put down the book you’ve been reading, pace for a bit, then regroup and dive back into the narrative. 

We cover our mouths as a surprise killer point of view is shown on a television series. A shot of the potential (or future) victim, filmed behind bushes or through a window while the bad guy (probably breathing heavily) is heard. “Get out! Run!” we shout from our couches or armchairs, but the characters never hear us. These shocking moments occur in our favorite horror media and the adrenaline rush is fun! It’s safe, this feeling of fear. We know it’s fictional, and we are not directly involved. But what happens when we suffer from nightmares in real life? Nightmares that are, perhaps, based on our own lives?

We’ve written about the horrifying origin of the iconic villain Freddy Krueger, who kills people in their dreams, in our first book The Science of Monsters (2019) but have recently become aware of a technique that everyone can use to defeat their nighttime scaries. Specifically, recurring nightmares. And, to our surprise and delight, it involves writing.

While we both agree that our recurring nightmares are usually a bit on the nose for day-to-day problems (forgetting something while packing that was needed for travel or going back to high school and having to pass a math final) we also have had dreams of those who suffer from depression, anxiety, or trauma. They can be extremely disturbing and it’s important to change the narrative to take care of your sleep schedule and mental health. 

Marsha M. Linehan, in the 2015 edition of DBT Skills and Worksheets, recommends choosing the nightmare you want to change and write down every detail you can remember. It’s important to include details made up of everything you see, smell, hear, and taste during the dream. What do you smell? Something unpleasant or something alluring? What do you hear? Your favorite song or a sound you detest? Can you taste anything? Are you spitting out your teeth or gorging on ice cream?

While writing, make sure to include thoughts and feelings that you have about yourself and the situation you’re in. For example, you may feel stressed during the dream or deem yourself inadequate. You may feel resentful towards someone, angry at the situation, or feel defeated. These details can help reveal the core of what’s bothering you and will inform you how to follow through with the second step in this process. 

Next, change the outcome of your scary dream to defeat the problem or change the assumptions about yourself. Imagine what will make you feel better! This step doesn’t have to be realistic. For example, you can turn into a werewolf and fight your aggressor. Or you can sprout wings and fly away from the situation you’ve found yourself in. You can say, “whatever” and walk away. This is the “choose your own adventure” portion of the exercise to regain control of your thoughts and dreams.

Finally, write down this epic new ending for your nightmare. Relax and visualize the entire changed dream multiple times during the day and each night before you go to bed. This technique should help you to rewrite, literally and figuratively, the things you’ve been dreading when trying to slumber. This feels similar to manifesting, which we wrote about in The Science of Witchcraft (2022) and speaks to how our thoughts influence our lives.

Could we defeat Freddy Krueger with these techniques? Hopefully! In the meantime, we can practice reimagining the endings we want and deserve while kicking out all the “bad guys” who haunt our dreams. Nothing feels better than experiencing a happy ending during a period of sleep imagination. Some of ours have included befriending someone we admire and celebrating a triumph in a tough situation. Don’t get us wrong, we still love a scary narrative, but sleep should be pleasant and not unsettling. 

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