Why do we have nightmares? This morning I woke up anxious and feeling sad because I had a nightmare. It was not a big deal but frightening me enough to feel bad when I woke up. Thus, I wondered how and why we have nightmares and this is what I found in a newspaper article on internet : According to a Canadian psychiatre, Tore Nielsen, based in Montréal, a nightmare follows a specific structure in five steps : 1) The sleeper elaborates a nightmarish story based on his real fears 2) This story creates a feeling of fear for the sleeper during his sleep 3) This fear is analysed by the brain 4) This fear is turned into a bearable memory 5) If the fear is unbearable, then the sleeper awakes from his sleep. A nightmare is created in the hippocampus where the contextual memories are, then it activates the amygdala (in the brain) where the feelings of fears are. This organ makes us feel as if we were "reliving" a dangerous situation so it creates a feeling of fear. Then, the feeling activates the cortex that turns it into a bearable memory. Nightmares often happen during the rapid eye movement phase of the sleep. The sleeper seems to be deeply asleep but he already shows signs he is about to be awoken (the eyes move but the limbs don't). Some medicines and events in our life can be the cause of nightmares. It seems that nightmares are useful to help us deal with our emotions and memories. A bad dream aims at turning unbearable fears of some events that happened during the day into bearable memories. The fears are often staged into weird, strange or unbelievable situations in the dreams. The stress and negative emotions follow some steps made by the brain in order to alleviate them through the dreams. If a nightmare goes on and on every night, it seems that the brain isn't working enough on it or just can't solve it. The only solution is that the person has to go and see a doctor or a therapist in order to solve his problem. It may mean his anxiety is too deep and needs to be treated medically. It may be a sign of a depression for example. I thought of writing about it because I had a nightmare early this morning before waking up. I am going to change school in some months (on September) and I dreamt about that and of course in my nightmare, everything was negative from being rejected by everybody and doing bad work. I woke up a bit anxious and sad. After talking about it to my husband and a friend, I felt better. I just hope I won't dream about it anymore.