Zeke Newbold
Carbon based biped.
- Joined
- Apr 18, 2015
- Messages
- 1,169
The reason I ask this is because I don't - or at any rate haven't for a long, long time.
Just to be clear: by `nightmare` I mean a very frightening dream involving an unusual and traumatic incident of the kind that makes you wake up with a start.
Don't get me wrong. I have a very active dream life and have long and complex dreams almost every night. A lot of these get forgotten, or partially forgotten. None of them, however, could be called nightmares. What I do get a lot of are general anxiety dreams of the kind that reflect my day-to-day concerns: suddenly remembering I have to teach a class and not being prepared for it, getting lost en route to a class...that sort of thing (I'm a teacher). But nothing that has me waking up in a sweat.
The last nightmare I remember having must have been when I was about ten - since then nothing.
In my more smug moments I apply a sort of Freudian approach to explain this and tell myself that I don't have nightmares because I don't really repress anything. (I think his theory was that nightmares were repressed feelings being represented by dream symbols)For example, if I hate somebody or something, then I am honest with myself about it and just let myself feel it in my conscious mind.
In my less smug moments I tell myself that maybe it's because I haven't had any really traumatic incidents happen to me in real life - and maybe nightmares are caused by such traumas.
Anyway, this reflection was prompted by this thread:
https://forums.forteana.org/index.p...st-fortean-thing-ever-to-happen-to-you.38959/
In there you will find a few stories about nightmares - and there's a particularly delicious one by David Plankton (post 297).
You see, there are times when I almost - almost - envy other people their nightmares!
Just to be clear: by `nightmare` I mean a very frightening dream involving an unusual and traumatic incident of the kind that makes you wake up with a start.
Don't get me wrong. I have a very active dream life and have long and complex dreams almost every night. A lot of these get forgotten, or partially forgotten. None of them, however, could be called nightmares. What I do get a lot of are general anxiety dreams of the kind that reflect my day-to-day concerns: suddenly remembering I have to teach a class and not being prepared for it, getting lost en route to a class...that sort of thing (I'm a teacher). But nothing that has me waking up in a sweat.
The last nightmare I remember having must have been when I was about ten - since then nothing.
In my more smug moments I apply a sort of Freudian approach to explain this and tell myself that I don't have nightmares because I don't really repress anything. (I think his theory was that nightmares were repressed feelings being represented by dream symbols)For example, if I hate somebody or something, then I am honest with myself about it and just let myself feel it in my conscious mind.
In my less smug moments I tell myself that maybe it's because I haven't had any really traumatic incidents happen to me in real life - and maybe nightmares are caused by such traumas.
Anyway, this reflection was prompted by this thread:
https://forums.forteana.org/index.p...st-fortean-thing-ever-to-happen-to-you.38959/
In there you will find a few stories about nightmares - and there's a particularly delicious one by David Plankton (post 297).
You see, there are times when I almost - almost - envy other people their nightmares!