# Sleep and Dreams > Beyond Dreaming >  >  Nightmares after meditation: is it normal?

## Verisimilitude

Ok, so as the title would suggest, I've recently started meditating. And, generally, if I meditate before bed, I'm more likely to have uncomfortably vivid nightmares. I don't dream journal yet so I couldn't tell you what they are.

I've been familiar with lucid dreaming since I was little (though I didn't know it was a THING with a NAME that people tried to do). Back then, if I had a nightmare I'd give myself a "jerk" to wake up and then relax into a lucid dream.

But lately there have been more "layers" to my dreams, where I'll dream that I'm having a nightmare, and wake up from the nightmare in the dream and still be asleep and not totally aware of it. Does that make sense? I probably *should* try to change the dream but my instinct is to try to "jerk" out of it.

I've heard people mentioning some things about confronting their subconscious fears and such in their dreams and I'd like to make this a positive experience if I can... or at least take the proper precautions before I meditate, etc., etc.

So my questions are:
If nightmares after meditation are a common thing, why is that?
Do such dreams serve any purpose?
What are some practical ways I can adjust my meditation practice and sleeping /dreaming habits to deal with this better?

Thanks and happy dreaming! I'm pretty new to all of this and a little guidance would be great.

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## AlanZ

When a person is still new to meditation it can sometimes bring to surface a lot of mind stuff (mostly random bits of thoughts, fears, etc.) that's usually floating just beneath conscious awareness, but over time as you continue to practice these bits of thoughts will come less and less as you become less mentally cluttered. You could think of it as a mental house cleaning of sort. The contents themselves, whatever possible anxiety or fears being dredged up which presumably is leading you to have nightmares should stop as you continue with the meditation. Just don't get caught up on the nightmares or give them any undue importance -- ride it out, they should pass with time. 

What sort of meditation are you doing? Are you using your breath as the object of concentration? (Either way the above still stands: after some time the nightmares should cease; just don't get caught up in them.)

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## Dthoughts

I think the purpose of those dreams is to make right decisions. Hence they are recurring. Wrong decision? Bleep. go again. etc.

What you can do is to set intention like you are doing now, not to jerk out of it. Or.. You could focus on the content more and meditate with those things in mind. That seems like the logical next step to me. 

I myself am new to meditating. But from what i've heared, focusing on breath is an option for healing. Simply focusing on breath. Personally i have decided to use the colour purple and send it to areas of (pain, discomfort) that needs attention and this speeds up the process of healing significantly. I have learned this from an alternative meditation session i have done with Hemi-sync. They also mentioned other colours such as green for calmth and red for strength. I know the colours orange give me motherly lovey dubby felings. But i prefer purple still.

You might want to focus on physical discomforts while meditating and healing those! Starting meditation from a relaxed state and letting ur breathe adjust ur position is helpful to not force anything. You can then use your breathe and focus on different bodyparts to heal very deep parts of the body such as the spine. I am willing to bet my house on that. As a consequence, these nightmares could vanish along with the physical discomfort.

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## snoop

Meditation is known to change regular neurotransmission. These changes could easily translate into more vivid dreams, which, when you look at drugs that have vivid dreams as a side-effect, it is not uncommon at all for many to complain of these vivid dreams being nightmares. I think the longer you meditate, the more your mind will begin to achieve homeostasis and the negativity of the dream content will dwindle until eventually they are no longer nightmares. Noticing a change at all is actually a good thing, it means you aren't meditating wrong lol. Or at least that's how I'd look at it, gotta stay positive.

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## kathy86

Verisimilitude, I wish I had had warnings when I started Meditating.  You are a great dreamer and are being warned.  Thru meditation that  I thought was very beautiful spiritually, I took on an entity and now am seeking exorcism.  Meditation is opening up yourself and a number of us have taken on deceiving spirits and need deliverance.  I would say follow your warning dreams and do not meditate.  This is my 9th year looking for exorcism.  Google "new age possession" and you will understand.

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## Psionik

Meditation has given me a tons of good. I was ready when depressions came into my life and I was able to live because of meditations... day after day. They helped with stress, and they were good training for OBE. Higher dimensions than astral are more and more similar to meditative state of mind.
I never had nightmares, well I had... but that was before I started to train meditations. After I started to meditate my dreams became less frequent, but when I had them they were more vivid, and more... boring is probably right word. When you train your consciousness you also get more focused on being here and now. You find the control to your subconscious mind. My dreams are often just walking around in empty house, city, or countryside... There is nothing to write about that. But from time to time I have quite strange mystic dreams and OBE travels. Yesterday I walked for some time in my dream when I met two angels  :smiley:  They told me that I have to be careful because I can somehow(they didn't specify) destroy whole world. That I should guard my mind, conscious and subconscious, because it supposedly manifests outside into physical world. I'm not sure what they meant but they were fearful of me. 
*Kathy66*, I think, you did something wrong with your meditation. Could you explain how did you meditate? What did you do? In meditation there is only concentration on being here and now, no thoughts are present. Only observation, quiet, calm feelings... balance... I don't think possession is possible. But you may be possessed by your imagination.

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