A simple Dream vs. Bad Dream vs. Nightmares- A self-differentiation base from experiences  

I am certain that all of us had our dreams whenever we sleep either at night or by day. Scientifically, having a dream while sleeping is normal. A dream is actually a perspective of our unconscious mind projecting images, ideas and emotions. Most likely, we tend to have a dream about something because we thought about it right before we sleep or sometimes our minds project something we experience from the past and show it as a dream. In my own opinion, stress and/or depression might give rise to horrific dreams which a person wouldn’t want to think about. Probably our unconscious minds are being affected because we ought to think too much while we are still conscious and because our brain doesn’t stop working, it continues to project those images and emotions even at the state of unconsciousness. My Purpose of writing this article is to share how I categorize dreams based on my experiences.

By the way this might sound a little bit superstitious because my sixth senses “Third Eye” is widely open.

Dream

Basically, a dream for me is just like having an idea when you are awake. You are simply projecting an event or a person in your mind, the only difference is that you are unconscious whenever you dream about it. I personally had a dream about someone I cared for, someone I love or something about my work or my past experiences or anything. Actually, whenever I have dreams, I tend to feel the emotions and tried to communicate. Sometimes I can hear unfamiliar voices or I can see unfamiliar person but because it was a dream I can’t see their faces and after I woke up I don’t remember the whole thing, I can’t even imagine some parts of it but I know and I still feel the emotions in that dream until it will gone throughout the day. I’m pretty sure that simple dreams like dreaming about something not so important will be forgotten after we woke up but sometimes, we can still remember a fracture of our dreams yet we choose to forget it anyway. However, there are kinds of dreams in which we can never forget.

Bad Dreams

This type of dreams is a further representation and projection of our minds about something. Usually a bad dream occurs after a person experience a traumatic event in his/her life. Say for an instance, I joined my friend in a summer vacation at the beach then while we are enjoying ourselves swimming, someone from our company got drowned, He drowned right in front of us and yet we can’t do anything about it. A tragic event like that would cause me phobia or depression if it gets worst then because of trauma, I dreamed about it every time I sleep. You see, bad dreams always occur whenever we sleep with unbalance emotions and because we are emotionally disturbed and psychologically unstable, our brains interpret it with horrific dreams.

 Sometimes, we experience bad dreams despite of the absence of terrifying accidents or events in our life but most likely we had those dreams because we think too much about our daily problems in life before going to bed as a result our brain again interprets all of our thoughts uncontrollably and project it as a bad dream because we didn’t gave our minds a time to relax before going to sleep.

Now, I think we are all familiar with “Lucid Dreams” this dream is a state where you feel everything, you know you are really inside your dreams and you are free to think while you’re in that state, in short, you are completely aware and conscious. This dream is unforgettable because you really feel it and witness every inch of what’s happening around you. Base from my experience, this kind of dream happens at midnight and trust me sometimes it’s awful to have a lucid dream. Like in my case for example, sometimes I dreamed about a woman, I don’t actually know her but she’s kind and base from my dream we’re close, and every time she touches me holding my hands or hugging me, it feels so warmth and so real, take note I don’t even know who the girl is but every action, every sensation and the emotion I felt were real.

In fact, one time we make love, well don’t get it wrong, I can’t control my mind while at sleep but it feels like it really happened. I can feel her kisses and every gentle touches she made towards me that even when I woke up, I can still feel it and remember everything, sadly, I can’t remember her face. I also had a dream about something I am running away from, I can feel the exhaustion and I can even decide which direction I will go and then I fell from a cliff and it feels so real to the  point that I even felt the winds and the whole sensation of falling from a tremendous super high cliff then suddenly a big bang slaps my face and that was when I snap out from that dream, but upon waking up there was this tingling sounds in my ears which lead me to think that I was really there and fell from that cliff. So, I check the google and gather some information about that. It turns out that the whole feeling of falling from a super high place is actually real thus I felt it but don’t get carried away because the only fact about it is the sensation of falling from a super high place but the place that your mind projects in which you fell from were all imitation created by your brain and nothing more. The truth is that when we fell asleep our muscles tend to relax and from that moment in time our body releases a go signal to the brain then the brain will interpret it. Because our muscles are relax it feels like we are floating or falling, so the brain acts and project an image of a high place where we start falling from thus commanding our body to react like we are actually falling from that place then suddenly we will wake up because of the impact which is another imitation of our brain. Hence, we think that we really fell upon waking up.

 Nightmares

Now, this is in a different level of lucid dreams. It’s really awful and sometimes can lead to your own death if you didn’t manage to overcome it.

I personally had a bunch of nightmares since young but my nightmares get worst and worst recently, probably because of what they called third eye. My sixth sense is open since I was in my 6th grade so I’m used to lots of nightmares, in fact there some cases that I’ve experience horrific/terrible nightmares 5 times in a row. This type dream is really dangerous, it really can kill you.

In my own definition, a nightmare is a sub type of lucid dreams where it really feels so real but unlike a simple lucid dream, this is a total hell.

I still remember when I had a nightmare about a demon which were actually true because the demon really shows his face to me while I was awake and it was actually noon time. In my dreams the demon were chasing me and trying to get rid of me because he said he hate me so much thus he doesn’t want me to escape his world “my nightmare” so I tried to check and count my fingers while in the amid of that dream then it make sense because my fingers exceeded 10 so it must be a dream then I wake myself up while inside of my head. Then luckily, I woke up but I’m not so lucky enough because when I finally did it, my eyes were freeze to what I saw. I saw myself silently sleeping on my bed. I even touch my phone but I can’t touch it then I was thinking and questioning myself “am I dead already?” upon asking that to myself the blanket suddenly move upwards and slowly form the disgusting posture of that pesky demon. He laughs and laugh and laugh then told me that he won’t let go of me and there’s no way out of his world so, I tried to wake myself again and calling for help while doing that. A few moments after, I heard my big sis voice's calling me but I did not saw her in front of my door but it works I actually woke up for the second time around but it’s not yet the end. The demon is still there, this time I’m on my body again but I can’t move, all I can move is my fingers and my eyes and my lips. I kept on shouting for help but nobody answered so I had to do something. That moment I performed the deliverance, I prayed and bravely push the darkness away from me he then followed and disappeared. A few second after I felt someone spanking my legs. It was my niece, she immediately asked me why am I crying while sleeping? I just said nothing but honestly, I remembered everything but I don’t want to scared them so I kept it as a secret until now. Aside from that, even if I explained myself, they wouldn’t believe me anyway.

I know a lot of you here have the same experiences or perhaps even worse than mine but what is more important is that we don’t lose ourselves, our faith and our love. It true that these dreams are part of our life as a human being but having it frequently  is not normal at all, if you happened to have nightmares or bad dreams more frequently than normal then I think you should reflect on yourself, are you emotionally disturbed? Are you psychologically imbalance? Or probably you are experiencing too much stress or depressions? If it’s true then find someone who can help you, don’t let it get worst because if you do, who knows what will happen. Remember, sometimes our dreams tell us something about ourselves, something we lack or something too much.