Submitted by Dream Doctor on
What are nightmares, and why do we have them? Patrick McNamara, an experimental neuroscientist who studies the neurobiology of sleep, dreams, and religion, believes nightmares have both important spiritual and emotional functions for our minds. While nightmares can be deeply unpleasant, they have been experienced and recorded by humans for thousands of years, and historically those who were able to withstand and control their nightmares were held in high societal regard — appointed as spiritual guides, or shamans. Beyond the spiritual, McNamara explains that nightmares can provide insights into the neurobiology of our REM sleep, where we can confront and process trauma. Nightmares can create a kind of exposure therapy, assisting emotional regulation and helping to maintain healthy emotional responses to the environment. That’s why REM sleep is crucial for processing emotional trauma: it allows us to integrate traumatic experiences into our long-term memory stores.