Does anyone know how to make the nightmares stop?

that's very interesting...I'll see if that's occurring for me, also (I usually wake after 4 hours as my pain med wears off...)

Hope y'all are getting relief.

jan i have 2 foolproof methods you could try whilst experiancing a nightmare to break the cycle,

method 1 is imajine you are in a libary chose any book and try to read it, it scrambles the images in your brain has you cannot read whilst asleep, dont believe me try it.

and method 2 is to imagine a clock or watch and try and tell the time, the face of the clock will either be frozen or running backwards, it also scrambles the thought process and tells your body you are dreaming/ haveing a nightmare taking you safely out of the nightmare situation.

I once tried the library idea. a therapist asked me to think about being in my local library reading my favorite books before I went to bed and then when in the nightmare imagine there is a library in my dream and go there and read.

I have also tried the therapeutic approach of rewriting the out come.

It didn't work. My nightmare is basically a memory of a situation that I repressed. When that memory happened I was not in a library so my nightmare does not contain even the idea of a library and because I am only dreaming what has actuallly happened I cant change the nightmare in any way.

As for rewriting the outcome it does not work for me because I only remember a small portion of the nightmare. I have tried to write what I would like it to be but that has not worked iether.

And the clock thing does not work for me because when there are any clocks in my dreams they are actually moving and telling time. Probably because watching clocks is sometimes what I did during abuse situations.

so sorry to hear that, you dont have to imajine a libary per se, just think of a book, magazine, any reading matter you can think of and one will always appear, or it does for me.

Thanks

Basically what works for me is going through the nightmare and remembering the situation that caused that nightmare. once I have all the memory pieced together the nightmare fades away.

I love to read. Imagining a library will be a wonderful thing. Thank you for the idea of the clock and the books. I will certainly imagine reading a book.

Jan