Nightmares and anxiety dreams get a bad rap. We wake up from them appalled or upset, and push them out of our mind as fast as we can. We reassure ourselves that it was “only a dream,” and we hurry off into our stressful lives, never suspecting that the very dream we wish to avoid could harbour a healing gift for us.
I like to think of unpleasant dreams as gifts in ugly wrapping paper. When we engage with them to unwrap their meaning, we uncover the gift of wisdom within. A lifetime of working with my own dreams and nightmares, and studying dreams at doctoral level, has taught me that all dreams – no matter how unpleasant! – come to help and heal us.
Dreams are honest mirrors that reflect our current emotional state and concerns. When we have upsetting dreams, our dreaming mind is flagging up our distress so that we take steps to deal with it before it reaches unhealthy levels and begins to impact our mental state and deplete our resilience. When we work with nightmares, we have the opportunity to reach for healing resolution and do the inner work we need to do in order to feel balanced and strong.
Sometimes, we have distressing dreams that we just can’t understand. “Why would I dream of something like that?” we wonder. Yet when we take steps to unwrap the meaning of the dream symbolism, we can reach meaningful insights.
A woman in one of my workshops had a nightmare in which she was desperately trying to save a cat who was about to fall to its death from a high window ledge. Although terrified, she was leaning further and further out over the deadly drop, putting her own life at risk to save him. She had no idea what this nightmare could mean or why she had dreamt it. When we worked on the nightmare, she realised that the cat represented her disabled husband, who she was desperately worried about. She shed some tears as she understood the immense pressure she was under, trying to “save” him at all costs, yet never taking time for her own self-care.
Nightmares like this are a call to action. The nightmare shouts at us: “There’s a problem here! You urgently need to take care of yourself or something terrible may happen!” Our dreaming mind wants us to heal and be whole. That’s why it creates shocking or terrifying scenarios, to force us to sit up and pay attention to how we really feel, so that we can take steps towards healing.
Here are ten simple steps we can take to unwrap a nightmare or an anxiety dream to reach the gift and wisdom within. These appear in my book, The Art of Transforming Nightmares.
Ten Key Questions for Unwrapping a Nightmare
- Who are you in this nightmare? (An observer, an older/younger version of yourself, an animal, a different person, or you as you are today?)
- What is the core image or scene in this nightmare? (“Core” means the central, most energised and powerful image.)Write downyour associations with this core image without pausing to think or analyse.
- Imagine that every part of this nightmare represents an aspect of yourself. Which part of you might the core image represent? Use your keywords and associations to connect with the image.
- How do you feel in this nightmare? What are the strongest emotions?
- Are these emotions present in any past, current, or upcoming life situation? Consider what was going on in your life at the time this nightmare appeared; it could be mirroring your feelings about a current situation.
- If you ask the most frightening or disturbing part of your nightmare if it has a message for you, what might it say?
- Is there anything positive, light, loving, or beautiful in your nightmare? Close your eyes and ask it, “What do you want me to know?”
- What does this nightmare want? View it as a movie and consider the possible meaning of the plot, characters, and any resolution or climax. Be alert for surprising plot twists and try to sense the message behind the imagery.
- If you could experience your nightmare again and change the ending, what would happen?
- When you have a clearer idea of what your nightmare wants to tell you, ask yourself, “What action does my nightmare want me to take in my waking world?”
One woman dreamed she was standing alone on top of a precipice, and a fearsome dragon was swooping dangerously around her, threatening to knock her into the abyss. When she unwrapped her nightmare, she realised the dragon symbolised her “draconian” boss, who was bullying her in the workplace and making her feel extremely unsafe. Once she realised the extent to which this man was dominating her life, she knew she had to take active steps immediately, and decided to take a job in another firm.
The changes that nightmares encourage us to take need not be dramatic. Sometimes simply dreaming that we are at the wheel of a car and driving terrifyingly fast, can provide us with a reminder that we are hurtling through life too fast with too many tasks, and that we need to “slow down” and take time to relax before we do ourselves damage through overwork.
Once we become familiar with the symbolic language of nightmares, it gets easier to grasp their message and work out how we can create helpful change in our lives.
The beauty of working with distressing dreams and nightmares is that we can turn the darkness and fear associated with nightmares into healing and illuminating gifts. When we befriend our dreams and nightmares, we gain wisdom, insight, and energy. We learn to transcend fear in all areas of our life. We gain clarity about our life path, and we become empowered.
