This Is How Nightmares Are Linked To Brain Creativity

By Tiffany Harper

Etymologically speaking, the word ‘nightmare’ is weird itself. It's obvious why it has a night in it, but there's a history to the mare part of the word. ‘Mare’ was the word used to describe demons thought to people during their sleep in old English. So the word 'nightmare' originally was a term used to describe spirits. It was much later that it was used to refer to dreams these demons caused.

This term has remained, even in our modern world; however, there seems to be a new twist to the whole idea of nightmares. There's more to nightmares, and they may indicate something in people. According to psychologist Michelle Carr, who works on dreams at the Center for Advanced Research in Sleep Medicine, University Of Montreal, there are two dominant theories to explain nightmares. The first is that nightmares are a reaction to some negative experiences people have during their waking hours. The second one is the ‘threat simulation theory.’ This is the idea that humans evolved to have nightmares to prepare them for future adversity, so when something terrible happens in real life, they can handle it much better.

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It’s hard to say if nightmares are rehearsals for negative real-life experiences. However, one thing that has been noted is that nightmares have benefits for those that have to live and fight through them in their sleep. According to a study, as stated in college paper reports in 2013 [1], people that suffer from frequent nightmares tend to be more empathetic towards others in real life. They also tend to mirror other people unconsciously in different ways, like contagious yawning, which studies have revealed is a good indicator of empathy. Meanwhile, Carr's studies [2] have found that people that have nightmares constantly tend to think outside of the box when dealing with word-association tasks. There has also been other research to support the idea that there's a link between nightmares and creativity in people. A previous study by Ernest Hartmann, a sleep researcher, and psychiatrist at Tufts University School of Medicine in Boston, during the 1980s, discovered that people that seek therapy for nightmares didn’t do it because they were more anxious or fearful, but because they were generally sensitive to all emotional experiences. According to him, the driving force for intense dreams is sensitivity. When a person’s sensitivity is heightened towards fear or threat during the day, they're likely to have nightmares and bad dreams. In the same way, if a person has their passion or excitement heightened during the day, they may have intense positive dreams. It's also possible that both forms of dreams find their way into the person’s waking life and may increase their distress after a nightmare or promote their empathy and social bonding after positive dreams.

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There are still other effects to this. During Hartmann’s study, he found that people's sensitivity spills into their thoughts and perceptions. So, people that have experienced nightmares constantly also experience some dreamlike qualities in their waking thoughts. This is the kind of thinking that gives them an edge and heightens their creativity. Studies reveal that people like this may have higher artistic expression and creative aptitude. This is something that Carr confirmed in her research with two of her subjects, Chris and Jess, scoring exceptionally high on a boundary thinness scale, which was a test measuring their artistic expression and creative aptitude. It comes as no surprise that both of them are artists. Chris is a musician, while Jess is a photographer and painter. As nature likes to balance things up, Carr also discovered in her research [3] that people that experience frequent nightmares also have a higher tendency to experience positive dreams than other people. There is evidence pointing to the idea that instead of interfering with their normal activity, people that unfortunately suffer from lots of nightmares also have an opposite dream life that’s as vivid, positive and creative, as they have the terrifying and distressing one as well. It’s also interesting to note that their imaginative richness isn't confined to when they’re asleep alone. It permeates through to their daydreams and waking thoughts. So after these people shake off the demon and wake up from their nightmares, there are still traces of it left behind, which they possess throughout the day. As Carr admitted, these new views of nightmares have their roots in the work of Dr. Hartmann and his research associate, Dr. Van Der Kolk. Their research found that nightmares play a role in a person’s mental life, even though they were more speculative with their conclusions at the time. During their research, they studied 50 women and men reported to have at least a nightmare per week since childhood. These subjects were recruited through an ad in the Boston newspapers.

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The commonest nightmares that people had were being chased, hurt, or threatened by someone or something. However, unlike ordinary dreams, nightmares mostly come in colors and also have other sensations that are very vivid, like pain that people rarely experience in ordinary dreams. One thing that struck Dr. Hartmann was that many of the research subjects had trauma-free childhood. From his research, he indicated that when a disturbing incident occurred very early in the subjects’ lives, such as being raped or mugged, that incident found its way into their nightmares for weeks. It combined with old themes before fading out later. Traumatic incidents
like that caused them to have frequent nightmares for a while, just like other stresses like having a hard time at work or school. In his view, one thing that stood out for him significantly is that the nightmare sufferer has a general personality. People like this are primarily defenseless and open and have failed to develop the psychological protection most people have. According to him, they have what he called thin boundaries. As a result, they’re likely to let things through. The majority of his study subjects also described themselves as being unusually sensitive from their childhood. They’re hurt easily and particularly more responsive to other people’s feelings.
They weren’t happy as children even when they weren’t experiencing any family problems. It was also common among them that some of their relatives were hospitalized for schizophrenia, and even some of the subjects themselves claimed to be schizophrenic. These are why Dr. Hartmann proposed that people who continue to suffer from constant nightmares through their adolescence have a greater risk of suffering schizophrenia. When reporting his study in an article for The American Journal of Psychiatry, he wrote that his study subjects were not particularly anxious and weren’t neurotic. However, he also noted that his subjects are biologically vulnerable to schizophrenia, but most of them hadn't developed any chronic mental illness signs. According to him, the same factors that set these people apart and make them more susceptible to suffering mental illnesses have also allowed them to be more creative in pursuing activities in the arts. This will enable them to use their vulnerability, openness, and sensitivity more positively and creatively. Dr. Hartmann’s study subjects included people mainly in creative arts, such as musicians, poets, movement therapists, and art therapists. However, many of the other people saw themselves as artists somehow even though they were doing other things to support themselves. This was the first link between nightmares and brain creativity before Michelle Carr’s more recent work. There has also been other research over the years to support this claim. So, the next time you find yourself trying to escape from zombies in your movie, wake up and remember that you can put that energy into creative use.

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Tiffany Harper is a training guru who’s been working in the corporate sector as a technology expert for several years now. She is a management graduate and loves to share her experience through blogs and expert articles. For her love of writing, she provided online consultations for one of the dissertation help writers, while working with UK Best Essays. Please do not hesitate to contact her on LinkedIn.

by Emma