What Is a Nightmare and Why Do We Have Them
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A nightmare is a bad dream that frightens you enough to wake you up. You may be running from something, or lost in a dark place, or watching something happen to a person you love and feeling helpless to stop it. You wake with your heart beating fast, your breathing quick, and your body tense, as if the danger were still in the room. Then you look around, you see your own bed, your own walls, and the quiet of the night, and slowly you understand that it was a dream. The fear takes a little longer to leave than the dream itself. That is the part people remember most: not just the picture, but the feeling that stayed after the picture was gone.
This is general information only, not personal advice. Nightmares are common, in children and in adults, and having one now and then does not mean anything is wrong. Most people have nightmares from time to time, and most of them pass on their own. A nightmare is a normal dream with a frightening feeling inside it. The brain makes dreams every night, and sometimes the dream takes a frightening turn. The question is not how to stop dreaming altogether, because dreaming is part of healthy sleep. The question is why some dreams turn frightening, what makes them more likely, and what helps when one wakes you in the night.
It helps to start with the plain definition. A bad dream is any dream that feels unpleasant. A nightmare is a bad dream that is strong enough to wake you up, and that you can remember clearly when you wake. That memory is part of what makes a nightmare different. You wake knowing what frightened you, even if the details are strange. A night terror is different again, and it is worth knowing the difference. A night terror usually happens in deep sleep, not in dreaming sleep, and the person may sit up, shout or cry out, and look very frightened, but they are not fully awake and they usually do not remember it in the morning. Night terrors are more common in young children. Nightmares happen in dreaming sleep, the person wakes fully, and the dream is remembered. Knowing which one you are dealing with helps you respond in the right way.
What Happens in the Brain During a Nightmare
During dreaming sleep, which is called REM sleep, the brain is busy. The eyes move quickly under closed lids, breathing becomes less regular, and the brain becomes almost as active as it is during the day. The part of the brain that handles strong feelings is especially active, and the part that checks facts and thinks in a careful, step-by-step way is much quieter. That combination is the ground in which a nightmare grows. Feeling is strong, checking is weak, and the dream is free to become frightening without being tested.
In a nightmare, the feeling part of the brain is sounding an alarm. The same small deep area that reacts when you are frightened in waking life reacts in the dream too. It does not know that the danger is only a dream. It only knows the feeling, and it sends the same signals to the body: heart beats faster, breathing quickens, muscles tense, and stress hormones rise. That is why you wake up in a state that feels like real fear. Your body has been through a real physical response, even though the danger was not real. The body cannot tell the difference between a frightening dream and a frightening event, because the message comes from the same place inside the brain.
The quiet checking part explains why the nightmare feels believable while it is happening. In waking life, if you saw a door open on its own, you would look for a draught, or a person, or a loose hinge. In a dream, the checking part is resting, so the open door is simply frightening, and the fear grows without being questioned. The dream can jump from one frightening scene to another, and you accept each jump, because there is no voice saying, wait, this does not make sense. Only when you wake up does the checking part come back to full strength, and then you can look back and see the gaps in the story. The fear, though, takes longer to fade than the story, because the body needs time to slow down after an alarm.
There is another part of the picture that matters, and it is memory. The dreaming brain does not invent a nightmare from nothing. It uses pieces of the day, pieces of old memories, and pieces of stories you have heard or seen. A nightmare about being chased may borrow the feeling of being late, or the feeling of being unprepared, or the feeling of a real argument from earlier in the day. The scene is new, but the feeling underneath it is familiar. That is why nightmares often feel personal, even when the pictures are strange. The brain is not showing you a random horror film. It is showing you a feeling you already know, dressed in a frightening scene.
Why the Brain Makes Frightening Dreams at All
People often ask why the brain would make a frightening dream at all, when sleep is meant to be restful. There is no single agreed answer, and it is honest to say that researchers are still learning. But there are a few clear ideas that help make sense of it. One idea is that dreaming is a way for the brain to practise dealing with difficult feelings in a safe place. During the day, you meet small threats: a deadline, a disagreement, a worry about money or family. You cannot always deal with them fully at the time. At night, the brain may replay the feeling of threat in a dream, in a different scene, and work through it without any real danger. In this view, a nightmare is not a failure of sleep. It is the brain doing a difficult job, and sometimes the job feels frightening.
Another idea is that dreaming helps the brain sort memories. During the day you take in far more than you can keep. At night, the brain sorts what matters from what does not, and it files the important pieces away. Feelings are part of that sorting. A memory with a strong feeling attached to it is more likely to be kept, because the brain treats feeling as a sign of importance. A nightmare may be part of that sorting process, when a difficult memory or a strong feeling is being filed away. The dream is not trying to hurt you. It is trying to make sense of something that was difficult, and the sense-making can feel rough while it is happening.
A third idea is simpler, and it is about the balance of sleep itself. Dreaming sleep is a time when the brain is active and the body is still. That stillness is important, because it stops you from acting out your dreams. But the activity of the brain means that dreams can be intense, and intensity can turn into fear. A dream that starts quietly can become frightening if the feeling inside it grows. A small worry can become a large danger in a dream, because the brain is not checking the size of the worry against the size of the real world. It is simply following the feeling where it leads. That following can lead to a nightmare, and it can also lead to a joyful dream. The same freedom that lets a dream become wonderful lets it become frightening too.
None of these ideas means that a nightmare is a message about the future, or a sign of a hidden problem. A nightmare about losing someone does not mean you will lose them. A nightmare about failing does not mean you will fail. The dream is using the language of feeling, not the language of fact. It is worth remembering this when you wake from a bad dream, because the fear can make the dream feel like a warning. It is not a warning. It is a feeling, given a shape by the sleeping brain, and the shape will fade as the morning goes on.
Stress, Worry and Difficult Days
The clearest link between daily life and nightmares is stress. When life is tense, nightmares become more common, and when life calms down, they usually become less common. This pattern is so steady that it is one of the most reliable things we know about bad dreams. A person who is worried about work, about family, about money, or about health may find that their dreams become more frightening. The worry does not vanish at bedtime. It goes into sleep with them, and the dreaming brain gives it a scene. The scene may have nothing to do with the real worry, but the feeling inside the scene is the same feeling they carried through the day.
Difficult events can have the same effect, even after the event itself has passed. A frightening or sad event, a loss, an accident, or a time of great change can leave the mind unsettled, and the unsettled feeling may appear in dreams for weeks or months. The dreams may replay a piece of the event, or they may use a different scene to carry the same feeling. This is a normal part of how the mind works through difficult experiences. It does not mean the person is broken. It means the mind is still processing what happened, and sleep is one of the places where that processing happens. If the nightmares after a difficult event do not settle over time, or if they make it hard to sleep at all, that is a reason to talk to a health professional, who can help with the whole picture.
Everyday pressure matters too, not only big events. Exam time, a new job, a move to a new home, a new baby in the house, or a period of long working hours can all make dreams more vivid and more frightening. The days are fuller, the mind has more to sort, and the feelings are stronger. Children feel this as well. A child who has started a new school, or who has had a difficult day with friends, may have more bad dreams that week. The link is not mysterious. The brain dreams about what the day gave it, and a difficult day gives it difficult material. When the difficult period passes, the dreams usually soften again.
It is also worth noticing the hours before bed. A heated argument late in the evening, a frightening film, a long session of worrying news, or a tense conversation can all leave the mind active as it falls asleep. The brain carries that activity into the first dreams of the night. A calm evening does not guarantee a calm dream, but it gives the brain less frightening material to work with. A quiet hour before bed, with dim light and no screens, is not a cure for nightmares, but it is a gentle way of telling the brain that the day is over and the night is for rest. For many people, that small change makes a real difference over a few weeks.
Sleep, Food, Illness and the Body
The body itself can make nightmares more likely. When sleep is broken, the brain wakes briefly many times through the night, and each waking can land in the middle of a dream. A hot room, a noisy street, aches and pains, a full bladder, or a baby crying can all break sleep in this way. A person who sleeps in short, broken stretches often remembers more dreams, and the dreams they remember feel sharper, because they were caught close to waking. A fever can also make dreams more vivid and strange. Many people remember having frightening dreams when they were ill as children, and the same thing can happen in adult life. A high temperature changes how the brain works during sleep, and the dreams can become more intense and more frightening.
Being short of sleep has a similar effect. When you miss sleep for a night or two, the brain tries to catch up, and it often spends more time in dreaming sleep on the next night. The dreams in that catch-up sleep can be longer, busier and more emotional than usual. People who work night shifts, or who travel across time zones, often notice this. Their dreams become vivid, and waking from them feels more abrupt. A very tiring day can do the same thing. The brain has more to sort through, and it sorts it in dreams that feel full and urgent. The remedy is not to fear the dreams, but to return to a steadier sleep pattern, with similar bedtimes and waking times, so that the brain does not need to catch up in a rush.
Food and drink in the evening can also play a part, though the effect is smaller than people sometimes think. A very heavy meal close to bedtime can make sleep less comfortable, because the body is still working to digest it while it is trying to rest. A drink with caffeine late in the day can make it harder to fall asleep, and can make sleep lighter and more broken. Alcohol can make a person fall asleep quickly, but it can also make sleep lighter later in the night, and can make dreams more vivid in the second half of the night. None of these is a cause on its own, and none of them means that a single late meal will cause a nightmare. But a pattern of heavy late meals, late caffeine and broken sleep can make frightening dreams more likely over time.
Some medicines can also affect dreams, and if vivid dreams or nightmares begin soon after a change in medicine, it is worth mentioning to the doctor or pharmacist who prescribed it. This article does not name medicines or give advice about changing them, because that is a personal medical matter. The point is simply that dreams are connected to the whole body, not only to the mind. Sleep, food, illness, tiredness and medicines all feed into the same system, and a change in any of them can show up in dreams. When nightmares begin suddenly and there is no clear reason in daily life, it is worth looking at the whole picture, including the body, rather than searching for one single cause.
Nightmares in Children and in Adults
Children have nightmares more often than adults, and there are good reasons for that. A child’s brain is still learning how to tell the difference between real and imagined, and a child’s feelings are strong and close to the surface. A child also has less experience of the world, so new things can feel larger and more frightening. A story, a film, a loud noise, a change at home, or a difficult day at school can all become material for a bad dream. For a young child, a nightmare about a monster or a dark room is not silly. It is the child’s brain working with the fears that are real to a child, in the only language it has.
As children grow older, their nightmares change. A young child may dream about monsters or being lost. An older child may dream about school, about friends, about being embarrassed, or about something happening to a parent. The fears grow with the child, because the child’s world grows. That change is normal, and it is a sign that the child is learning to understand the world in a more grown-up way. Most childhood nightmares fade as the child grows, especially if the child feels safe at home and has a steady bedtime routine. A child who knows that a parent will come when they call, and that the house is safe, will usually settle back to sleep more quickly after a nightmare.
Adults have nightmares too, though they often talk about them less. An adult may dream about being late, about failing, about losing someone, or about being in danger. The scenes are more grown-up, but the feeling underneath is the same: fear, helplessness, or being unprepared. Adults are more likely to link their nightmares to stress, to work, to family worries, or to a difficult event in the past. An adult who has nightmares after a frightening experience may find that the dreams replay a piece of that experience, or carry the same feeling in a different scene. This can go on for a while, and it is a normal part of how the mind works through difficult things. If it goes on for a long time, or if it makes sleep feel frightening, it is worth talking to a health professional.
The difference between children and adults is not in the nightmare itself, but in what helps afterwards. A child needs comfort, a calm voice, and the presence of a trusted person. An adult needs the same things, though they may be better at giving them to themselves: a light on, a glass of water, a few minutes of quiet, and the knowledge that the dream has ended. In both cases, the help is simple and human. It is not about explaining the dream away. It is about making the real world feel safe again, so that sleep can return.
What Helps in the Night, and What Helps Over Time
When a nightmare wakes you, the first minutes matter most. The body is still in a state of alarm, and the mind is still holding the frightening picture. The simplest help is to make the real world clear again. Turn on a soft light. Look around the room and notice something ordinary: the colour of the wall, the shape of the door, the sound of the house at night. Sit up, take a few slow breaths, and drink some water if you want it. These small actions tell the body that the danger has passed. Trying to push the dream away often makes it stick. Noticing the real room gently replaces it, and the fear fades as the body slows down.
It also helps not to go straight back to sleep while the fear is still strong. A few minutes of quiet wakefulness, with a light on and a calm activity like reading a few pages or listening to soft sounds, can make it easier to fall asleep again. Going back to sleep too quickly, while the heart is still beating fast, can lead straight back into the same dream, because the brain is still holding the frightening feeling. A short break lets the feeling settle. For a child, that break is best spent with a parent nearby, in a calm voice, without long explanations. A child does not need to understand the nightmare at three in the morning. The child needs to feel safe, and safety comes from a familiar person and a familiar room.
Over a longer time, a steady sleep routine helps more than any single trick. Going to bed and getting up at similar times, keeping the bedroom dark, cool and quiet, putting screens away before bed, and leaving the worries of the day for the daytime can all make sleep steadier and dreams calmer. It also helps to keep the evening calm. A frightening film or a long session of worrying news just before bed gives the brain frightening material to dream about. A quiet hour, with a book or a gentle conversation, gives it calmer material. These are not guarantees. A nightmare can still come on a calm night, because dreaming is free and the brain is busy. But over weeks, a steadier routine usually means fewer frightening dreams, and less fear when one does come.
For some people, it helps to write down the nightmare in the morning, in a few plain lines, and then to think about how the dream could have ended differently. This is sometimes called rewriting the dream, and it is a simple idea: if the dream ended with you running away, imagine it ending with you finding a safe place, or with a kind person helping you. You are not changing the past. You are giving the brain a calmer version to hold on to, so that the frightening version is not the only one it remembers. This can be done alone, or with the help of a health professional, especially if the nightmares are frequent. It is not a quick fix, and it does not work for everyone, but many people find that over a few weeks, the dreams become less frightening and less frequent.
When a Nightmare Is More Than a Bad Dream
Most nightmares are occasional, and they pass on their own. But there are times when it is sensible to talk to a health professional, and it is important to name them plainly. If nightmares happen almost every night for weeks, and they leave you afraid to go to sleep, that is worth mentioning. If they regularly leave you exhausted in the morning, as if you had not slept at all, that is worth mentioning too. If a nightmare is so strong that you shout, kick, or get out of bed and act it out, that should be mentioned, because it can be a sign that the body is not resting as it should during dreaming sleep.
The same applies if nightmares begin after a frightening or painful event and do not settle after a few weeks, or if they come with strong feelings of sadness, worry or fear during the day that do not lift. These are not reasons to panic, and they do not mean anything is seriously wrong. They are reasons to ask for help, because a health professional can look at the whole picture: sleep, mood, daily life, and health. Help for frequent nightmares exists, and it often starts with talking, with sleep habits, and with simple ways of working with the dreams themselves. Asking for help is not a sign of weakness. It is a sensible step, like asking for help with any other part of health that is not settling on its own.
It is also worth saying that nightmares are not a punishment, and they are not a sign that you have done something wrong. A person who has a nightmare has not failed at sleep, and a child who has a nightmare is not being difficult. The brain is doing its nightly work, and sometimes that work feels frightening. Understanding that takes away much of the shame and fear that can surround bad dreams. A nightmare is a dream with a frightening feeling inside it, and feelings pass. The morning comes, the room is still there, and the day can begin again. That simple truth, repeated night after night, is often the best comfort of all.
There is a final point that matters, and it is about language. It is easy to call a nightmare a bad thing, and to wish dreams away altogether. But dreams, even frightening ones, are part of a healthy mind. They show that the brain is active, that it is sorting memories, and that it is working through feelings. A life without dreams would not be a calmer life. It would be a life without one of the ways the mind heals itself. A nightmare is unpleasant, and no one would choose to have one. But it is also a sign that the mind is doing its work, in its own way, in the dark, while the body rests. When it is over, the best thing to do is to let it go, to look at the real room, and to start the day. The dream was real in feeling, and it was only a dream in fact. Both can be true, and knowing both is enough.
My Take:
If you ask me what a nightmare is, I would say it in the simplest way I know: it is a dream that frightens you enough to wake you up, and the fear stays for a little while after the dream has ended. That staying fear is the part people remember most. The picture fades, but the fast heartbeat and the tight feeling in the chest stay for a few minutes, and those few minutes are when a nightmare feels most real. I think it helps to understand that the body is not being foolish in those minutes. It is responding honestly to a strong feeling, and it needs time to catch up with the mind, which already knows that the danger was not real. The body and the mind wake up at different speeds, and that gap is where a nightmare lives.
I have come to think of nightmares as the brain doing a difficult job in a rough way. During the day, we meet small threats and big worries, and we do not always have time to deal with them fully. At night, the brain takes those feelings and gives them a scene. The scene may be strange, but the feeling underneath it is familiar. A dream about being chased may carry the feeling of being late, or unprepared, or afraid of disappointing someone. A dream about being lost may carry the feeling of a day that felt out of control. I do not think the brain is trying to frighten us on purpose. I think it is trying to sort what is difficult, and sorting difficult things can feel frightening, especially when the careful, checking part of the brain is resting and cannot say, this is only a feeling.
What strikes me most about nightmares is how personal they feel, even when the pictures are impossible. A person wakes from a nightmare and feels as if the dream were about them in a deep way, and in a sense it was. The dream used their memories, their worries, and their feelings. It did not use someone else’s. That is why two people can have nightmares on the same night and dream about completely different things. Each brain is sorting its own day, its own worries, and its own memories. I find that idea comforting, because it means a nightmare is not a random attack. It is a sign that the mind is working, even if the work feels rough. It also means that when life calms down, the nightmares usually calm down too, because the brain has less difficult material to sort.
I think the most important thing to say about nightmares is that they are not predictions. A nightmare about losing someone does not mean you will lose them. A nightmare about failing does not mean you will fail. I have heard people worry for days about a nightmare, changing their plans because of it, and I think that worry is misplaced. The brain is not seeing the future in sleep. It is sorting the past. The fear in the dream makes everything feel urgent, and urgency feels like truth, but urgency in a dream is not the same as truth in waking life. My view is simple: take a nightmare as a sign of how you felt, not as a sign of what will happen. If a nightmare leaves you feeling worried, ask what in the day made you worried. That question is useful, and it often has a clear answer.
When I think about what helps after a nightmare, I keep coming back to simple, human things. Turn on a soft light. Look at the real room. Drink some water. Sit up and breathe slowly. These are not clever tricks. They are ways of telling the body that the danger has passed and the real world is still there, steady and unchanged. I think we often look for a complicated answer when a simple one would do. The body needs a few minutes to slow down after an alarm, and the mind needs a few minutes to let go of a frightening picture. Giving those minutes, instead of trying to force sleep to return at once, is often the kindest thing you can do for yourself. For a child, the same kindness is even more important. A child does not need an explanation at three in the morning. A child needs a calm voice, a familiar person, and a familiar room.
I also think a steady routine matters more than any single night. Going to bed at a similar time, keeping the bedroom dark and cool, putting screens away before bed, and leaving the worries of the day for the daytime: these small things do not guarantee a nightmare-free night, but over weeks they make sleep steadier and dreams calmer. I prefer this gentle, patient approach to any quick fix, because it respects the way the body actually works. The body learns from what repeats, and a steady routine is a repeated message that the night is for rest. When the days become steadier, the nights usually follow, though not at once, and not perfectly. Patience is part of the help, and it is a part that is easy to forget when you are tired and frightened in the middle of the night.
There is something I want to say about children and nightmares, because I think it is often misunderstood. A child who wakes from a nightmare is not being silly, and a child who has nightmares often is not being difficult. For a child, the dream was real while it lasted, because the child’s mind is still learning to tell real from imagined, and the child’s feelings are strong. The best response is not to prove the dream was false, but to help the child feel safe again. A soft light, a calm voice, and a few minutes of quiet company do more than a long explanation. In the morning, the child can talk about the dream if they want to, and it can be left alone if they do not. The point is not to solve the dream. The point is to help the child learn, night by night, that a frightening dream ends, the room is still there, and the morning comes again.
For adults, I think the same gentleness applies, even if we are better at hiding our fear. An adult who wakes from a nightmare may laugh it off in the morning, but the feeling can stay for hours, colouring the day. I think it helps to give that feeling a little space instead of pushing it away. If a nightmare keeps coming back, or if it comes after a difficult event and does not settle, I think it is sensible to talk to a health professional, not because something is seriously wrong, but because help exists and asking for it is a normal, sensible step. There is no shame in a nightmare, and there is no shame in asking for help with sleep. The mind is doing its work, and sometimes it needs a little support to do that work more gently.
My final view is that a nightmare is unpleasant, and no one would choose to have one, but it is also a normal part of a healthy mind. It shows that the brain is active, that it is sorting memories, and that it is working through feelings, even when that work feels frightening. A life without dreams would not be a calmer life. It would be a life without one of the ways the mind heals itself. I do not think we should fear nightmares, and I do not think we should try to stop dreaming altogether. We should let the dream end, look at the real room, and start the day. The fear will pass, as feelings do, and the morning will bring its own steady reality. That, in the end, is what I would tell a friend: a nightmare is a frightening dream, not a frightening future, and it ends when you wake up, even if the feeling takes a few minutes longer to leave.
I would also tell that friend not to be alone with a frightening dream if they do not want to be. Talking about a nightmare in the morning, to a family member or a friend, can take away much of its power. A dream that is spoken about in daylight often feels smaller than it did in the dark. The fear was real at night, but in the morning, with other people around and the day beginning, the dream becomes a story, and a story can be held lightly. I think that is one of the kindest things we can do for each other: listen to a bad dream without making it bigger than it is, and without dismissing it either. The dream mattered to the person who had it, and listening is enough. The night will come again, and sleep will come again, and most nights will be quieter than the one that frightened us.
One more thought stays with me: a nightmare does not make a person weak, and it does not make a night a failure. Sleep is not perfect every night, and it does not need to be. A single frightening dream, even a very frightening one, is still only one night among many quieter ones. What matters is the pattern over time, and how the days feel after those nights.
I also think it helps to notice the pattern over weeks, not just the single bad night. One nightmare after a difficult day is ordinary. Nightmares that come almost every night for weeks, and that make you afraid to go to sleep, are a different matter, and they deserve attention. Keeping a simple note can help here: not a detailed diary, just a line or two about how the day went and how the night went. Over a few weeks, a pattern may appear, such as nightmares after late nights, after heated evenings, or during a stressful time at work. Seeing that pattern can be calming in itself, because it turns a frightening mystery into an understandable link between day and night. And if you do decide to talk to a health professional, that simple note will help them understand the whole picture much more quickly.
There is another point I want to make, about the way we talk about nightmares with each other. A person who has had a frightening dream often feels a little embarrassed telling someone about it, as if a dream were too small a thing to mention. I think that embarrassment is misplaced. A nightmare can leave a person tired, shaken, and afraid of the next night, and those feelings are real, even if the dream was not. Listening to someone describe a bad dream, without laughing at it and without making it bigger than it is, is a small kindness that costs nothing. In the morning, with daylight and other people around, a nightmare often feels smaller than it did in the dark. That shrinking is not a trick. It is the real world doing its work, gently replacing the dream with the day.
In the end, my view is that we should treat nightmares the way we treat any other difficult feeling: with patience, with kindness, and without panic. A nightmare is a dream with fear inside it, and fear passes, as feelings do. The body needs a few minutes to slow down after waking. The mind needs a few minutes to let go of the frightening picture. The day needs to begin, with light, with movement, and with ordinary things. Over time, a steadier routine, calmer evenings, and a little attention to the days that lead into the nights will usually make the dreams calmer too. And when a nightmare does come, as it will from time to time, the best response is the simplest one: turn on a soft light, look at the real room, breathe slowly, and remind yourself that the dream has ended and the morning has begun.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does “what is a nightmare and why do we have them” change with age or daily routine?
Yes, it can change with age and routine, since children, teenagers, adults, and older people keep different hours and live different days, and a change in routine, season, or daily habits can shift the pattern in small but noticeable ways.
When is “what is a nightmare and why do we have them” most noticeable?
It often feels stronger when the day before has been irregular, busy, or full of late light and noise, and it often feels weaker on calm and regular days, which is why the days around it matter as much as the moment itself.
What do people notice first when they ask “what is a nightmare and why do we have them”?
People often notice the timing first, then the feeling that goes with it, and then how the next morning feels, and putting those three observations together usually makes the pattern much easier to see and to describe.
How is “what is a nightmare and why do we have them” different from one day to the next?
It can differ from one day to the next because no two days are exactly alike, and differences in sleep, meals, movement, weather, and mood all leave small marks on how the body feels, so a little variation is normal.
Can “what is a nightmare and why do we have them” feel different for children and adults?
Yes, it can feel different for children and adults, because their bodies, schedules, and daily demands are different, and what is ordinary for a child may look quite different in an adult, which is why age is always part of the picture.
What makes “what is a nightmare and why do we have them” easier to understand in plain words?
It becomes easier to understand when it is described with real examples from daily life, such as a house full of guests and noise late at night, because a real day gives the idea a shape, and a shape is easier to remember than a bare definition.
Sources
- NHS — general health information: https://www.nhs.uk/
- World Health Organization — health topics: https://www.who.int/
- Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — health information: https://www.cdc.gov/
- Mayo Clinic — general health information: https://www.mayoclinic.org/
- Healthline — general health information: https://www.healthline.com/
