By Gary Dickson
I remember having vivid nightmares when I was a child, especially after watching a scary movie. One that gave me recurring nightmares was Edgar Allan Poe”s “Premature Burial” starring Ray Milland. As an adult I don”t seem to have nightmarish dreams much anymore, and I found out that is fairly normal. Statistics indicate that, while we all have dreams, the number of nightmares go way down after we reach our adult years. I guess we get to the point that not much scares us. Fifty percent of adults still have the occasional nightmare, though, and 2 to 8 percent continue to experience them regularly. My wife appears to be in that relatively small category. It”s probably due to being married to me for so long.
About a week ago my wife was telling me about her nightmare from the night before. She said that the entire episode was so realistic that she felt that it was really happening to her. She recalled that she was in a bed and it was spinning around and the walls were shaking. She couldn”t escape. Her story reminded me of the start of Dorothy”s dream in the Wizard of Oz, which takes place in our home state, so all I could think to say to her was, “Well, you”re definitely not in Kansas anymore.”
Dr. Richard J. Corelli, of Stanford University , wrote, “The nightmare serves to get our attention to something that is psychologically important to us, often something that has been seriously neglected in our waking life. Sometimes it is possible to deal with the nightmare by coming to terms with it and understanding what our fears are about.”
My wife”s nightmare caused me to do some reading. I found a list of the 10 most common nightmares and one person”s theory of what those nightmares might be trying to convey. By a huge margin, the most frequently reported nightmare is of being chased. It may be by a person or an animal. Perhaps there is something that the dreamer doesn”t want to face. It is supposedly a sign that you should take more control of your life.
Have you ever had the nightmare in which you are trapped, often in an enclosed space, and not able to move? It is very common, too. It is believed that this often occurs when an individual is dealing with a situation in which she feels there are limited options.
Many people have awakened to report that they experienced the nightmare of being naked in public. Of course, not far from us, in San Francisco , many people have actually been naked in public. Those of us who have only experienced it while asleep might be dealing with a lack of self-confidence or discomfort around new people that we meet.
There are those who experience natural disaster nightmares where they are besieged by a hurricane, flood, tornado, earthquake or some other catastrophe. Often, these folks are dealing with monumental changes in their life; going from what is safe and known to something new and unknown.
It has been documented that lots of men and women have nightmares about being abandoned by their significant other. I suppose for the unhappy couple it”s not a nightmare, but a sweet dream. If it”s a nightmare it generally emanates from a sense of insecurity or doubt about the future of the relationship.
Believe it or not, a large number of people have nightmares that involve their teeth falling out. I can”t remember ever having that nightmare, but the data suggests that those who do might be having a hard time making a difficult decision. It can also be a fear of public speaking.
OK. So what did my research tell me about my wife”s nightmare? I came to the conclusion that she experienced two nightmares rolled into one; trapped and natural disaster. I have no idea what a combination nightmare means.
Gary Dickson is the publisher of the Record-Bee. Call him at 263-5636, ext. 24. E-mail him at gdickson@record-bee.com.
