nightmare

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Classification according to ICD-10
F51.5 Nightmares (anxiety dreams)
ICD-10 online (WHO version 2019)
Nachtmahr , Johann Heinrich Füssli (1802)
Dream face , Albrecht Dürer documents one of his nightmares (1525)

A nightmare , also nightmare or nightmare , out of date Nachtmahr (compare English nightmare or Dutch Nachtmerrie ) or night damage is a dream that is accompanied by negative emotions such as fear and panic in the dreaming. The dream can contain threatening, but also quite banal situations.

Nightmares are non-organic sleep disorders and belong to the group of parasomnias . The nightmare is to be distinguished from the pavor nocturnus or paralyzed sleep when waking up .

Occurrence

In the nocturnal sleep rhythm, nightmares predominantly occur during REM sleep , usually in the second half of the night. The duration varies between a few minutes and half an hour and usually ends with a shock. Afterwards, you are usually immediately aware and have a spatial and temporal orientation. Unprocessed daily events, traumatic or traumatizing experiences, stress or psychological problems, but also physical factors are assumed to be the causes of nightmares.

Frequent nightmares (several times a week) put a strain on the psyche and the body and reduce sleep recovery.

treatment

One method to positively influence especially regularly occurring nightmares can be lucid dreaming . The dreamer becomes aware of his (night) dreaming state and can then control the course of the dream. This experience is also referred to as " lucid dreaming ". However, dealing with the nightmare in this way proved difficult for those who had previously been unable to become aware that they were dreaming while they were sleeping. The method therefore seems to be less suitable for this group of people.

Nightmares are also dealt with by confronting the nightmare content. The point here is to imagine the nightmare during the day in as much detail as possible in order to get used to the feelings experienced during it. The method is considered to be one of the most effective treatments for nightmares, but those affected can experience it as very stressful at first.

Another method that has proven to be effective in numerous scientific studies is “imagery rehearsal therapy” (IRT). The aim here is to change the "nightmare script". It is assumed that the frequent repetition of individual nightmares creates psychological stress. A certain path, a certain script, loops in the brain, which is then run through again and again. So someone can dream again and again of falling into the depths from somewhere. The more often the script is run, the less the impetus has to be for a dream to be experienced again. The aim of the IRT is now to change this nightmare script in such a way that a dream that is as boring as possible is created, which is then no longer stressful. That way, wings could grow to the person who keeps falling. You now practice this new dream during the day, every day for about 15-20 minutes. It was found that compared to exposure methods, IRT led to more rapid alleviation of the nightmare problem.

etymology

The nightmare , around 1530, successor to Hieronymus Bosch, Musée des beaux-arts, Strasbourg

Albums - derived from Alb or Elb - is the original name for elves (Germ. Albi , old Saxon. Alf , English eleven ). In Germanic mythology , the elves / elves were the nature spirits responsible for dreams (see Nachtalb and Mahrt ). The bad dreams were attributed to these treacherous, goblin-like creatures. In particular, one imagined the albums, mostly in a human-like shape, crouching on the chest of the sleeping person, which triggered an uncomfortable feeling of pressure, hence the older term Alb - or Alpdruck .

The German term " nightshade family " is, according to tradition from the old word for nightmare "night damage" originate. Extracts from alkaloids Solanaceae such as the belladonna ( Atropa ), the black henbane ( Hyoscyamus niger ), the Bittersweet nightshade ( Solanum Dulcamara ) and black nightshade ( Solanum nigrum ) were used in medieval times for medicinal and Zaubermixturen to the night damage - so the nightmares - to drive away.

Notation

In Old High German , the two spellings “Alb” and “Alp” are equally important. The Duden dictionary from 1991 names both "Alb" and "Alp", but only "Nightmare". In 1996, in the course of the spelling reform, the spelling "nightmare" was added to the dictionary, where since then both spellings have been used side by side and are equally valid.

The editors of the well-known dictionaries give different recommendations for writing use: Duden for "nightmare" and Truig for "nightmare". The German-speaking news agencies have decided on the uniform spelling “nightmare”. This notation corresponds to the lemma "nightmare" in the Springer Lexicon Medicine . In terms of pronunciation, both words sound the same because of the hardening of the final voice.

literature

  • Brigitte Holzinger: Nightmares: What they tell us and how we can change them. Nymphenburger, 2013, ISBN 978-3-485-01427-4 .
  • Johanna Thünker, Reinhard Pietrowsky: Nightmares. A therapy manual. Hogrefe, Göttingen 2011, ISBN 978-3-8017-2297-5 .

Web links

Wiktionary: Nightmare  - Explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations
Wiktionary: Alpdruck  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations
Wikibooks: lucid dream  - learning and teaching materials
Commons : Nightmares  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Nocturnal health risk - people suffering nightmare  - article in the Süddeutsche Zeitung
  2. ^ AL Zadra, RO Pihl: Lucid dreaming as a treatment for recurrent nightmares. In: Psychother Psychosom. , 66 (1), 1997, pp. 50-55.
  3. ↑ Brigitte Holzinger: Nightmares: What they tell us and how we can change them. Nymphenburger, 2013. (Chapter Taking the horror out of the Alb , in particular pp. 215–231).
  4. ↑ VI Spoormaker, J. van den Bout: Lucid dreaming treatment for nightmares: A pilot study. In: Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics , 75, 2006, pp. 389-394.
  5. ↑ AJ Celluci, PS Lawrence: The efficacy of systematic desensitisation in reducing nightmares. In: Journal of Behavioral Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry , 9, 1978, pp. 109-114.
  6. ↑ a b R. Kellner, J. Neidhardt, B. Krakow, D. Pathak: Changes in chronic nightmares after one session of desensitization or rehearsal instructions. In: American Journal of Psychiatry , 149, 1992, pp. 659-663.
  7. ^ B. Krakow, R. Kellner, D. Pathak, L. Lambert: Long term reduction of nightmares with imagery rehearsal treatment. In: Behavioral and Cognitive Psychotherapy , 24, 1996, pp. 135-148.
  8. ↑ J. Lancee, VI Spoormaker, J. van den Bout: Long-term effectiveness of cognitive-behavioral self-help intervention for nightmares. In: Journal of Sleep Research , 20, 2011, pp. 454-459.
  9. ↑ Sleep Therapy: Happy Ending to Nightmares . In: Die Zeit , No. 32/2011
  10. ↑ Alb . In: Friedrich Kluge : Etymological dictionary of the German language. De Gruyter, Berlin / New York 1975.
  11. ↑ DWDS. The German vocabulary from 1600 to today.
  12. ↑ Duden: The dictionary of origin. 1989
  13. ↑ Duden: The German orthography. 1991.
  14. ↑ Dictionary (PDF) in accordance with the recommendations of the Council for German Spelling (revised version from February 2006); see there page 114
  15. ↑ Duden online (October 26, 2012)
  16. ↑ Brockhaus WAHRIG, German spelling. 8th edition. 2011.
  17. ↑ word lists of the German-speaking news agencies
  18. ↑ nightmare . In: Peter Reuter: Springer Lexicon Medicine. Springer, Berlin a. a. 2004, ISBN 3-540-20412-1 .