Scientists Are Learning to Read —and Change—Your Nightmares

The scariest dream my now-college-age daughter ever had was the one about the running legs—or, as they became known in our family, The Running Legs, almost audibly capitalized. She was in kindergarten at the time and the dream amounted to little more than an image of a pair of black tights, filled by an invisible lower body chasing her. It was the first thing she mentioned when she got up in the morning and she brought it up again over breakfast—clearly distressed. We talked about it a bit and I asked her what she thought the legs would have done if they had caught her. “Bite me,” she answered. “With what?” I asked. That made her laugh, but not so much that she didn’t also mention the dream to her teacher, who had her draw a picture of it and then talk through it together. The fear faded after that, but the memory did not. Silly or not, childish or not, The Running Legs checked several boxes that would generally qualify it as a nightmare. It was recalled upon awakening—and may even have been the reason for the awakening. It caused distress the next day. It involved danger—in the case of nightmares, it’s most commonly some kind of physical aggression, a serious accident, a disease, or, yes, being chased. Nightmares may also involve being the person who causes harm to other people. “Humans are social beings,” says professor Michael Schredl, a sleep researcher at the Central Institute of Mental Health in Ma...
Source: TIME: Science - Category: Science Authors: Tags: Uncategorized Source Type: news