Nightmare Disorder

Nightmare disorder is characterized by disturbing dreams associated with negative thoughts and feelings that causes anxiety and awaken you, causes distress and fear of going back to sleep. In children aged between 3 and 6 years old nightmare begin. Nightmares are common but nightmare syndrome is quite rare.

Symptoms

Symptoms include:

Vivid, real and upsetting dream
Feeling of fear, anxiety, sad or disgusted as a result of dream
dream storyline is usually related to threats to safety or survival
Feeling sweaty and have palpitations while on bed
Frequent occurrence of nightmares
Daytime fatigue or sleepiness
Disturb functioning at school

Causes

Nightmare disorder is known as parasomnia which means a type of sleep disorder that involves undesirable experiences that occur while sleeping. Nightmares commonly occur during Rapid eye movement (REM) stage of sleep. Following are some triggering factor of sleep:

Stress or anxiety
Trauma
Insomnia
Certain medications like antidepressant, blood pressure medications, beta blockers.
Alcohol use or substance abuse
Reading scary books or watching frightening movies

Complications

Daytime sleepiness
Depression, anxiety
Suicidal behavior
Resistance going to sleep

Diagnosis

Diagnosis of this disorder depends upon detailed medical history and complete general physical examination of the patient. Polysomnography means nocturnal sleep study is done if sleep is severely disturbed.

Treatment

Treatment options include:

Treating of underlying condition that causes nightmares
Stress and anxiety management
Imagery rehearsal therapy.
Medications are rarely used in the treatment of nightmare disorder

Lifestyle and home remedies

Maintain a regular and relaxing routine before bed
Offer reassurance to the the child to keep child calms
Rewrite a happy ending of your dream
Use night light in the bedroom

Nightmare Disorder