A scientific explanation of nightmares?

Nightmares are nightmares. As far as the word "Yan" is concerned, Xu Shen said in Shuo Wen Jie Zi: "Yan is also a dream." The word garden is interpreted as "an ominous sign in sleep" and Guang Yun simply interpreted it as "a nightmare". I often scream and moan because I seem to see or encounter terrible things in my dreams. This kind of dream is very exciting for people, and the dreamer can clearly recall the content of the dream after waking up. These dreams make people feel very frightened, and make people in extreme anxiety, or play with monsters, playing in the palm of their hands; Or chased by vicious people and hungry animals; Or your relatives and friends are on the verge of some kind of disaster ... when you want to shout, your throat seems to be blocked by something and you can't shout it out; When I tried to escape, my legs seemed to be tied behind someone's hands. I couldn't escape, so I was helpless, breathless and almost suffocated. When I am about to wake up, I often feel that my body and limbs are hard to move, as if I were tied up by something. After many twists and turns, I finally woke up. By this time, I was already in a cold sweat, and my three souls had been scared away. Some dreamers think that this is caused by the oppression of the dreamer's soul.

Nightmares have both external physical stimulation and internal psychological trauma. External factors, nightmares are mostly covered with a quilt to sleep, or hand pressure on the chest. When people sleep, the activity ability of heart and lungs is relatively weakened, so when the mouth and nostrils are blocked by quilts or the chest is compressed, they will feel that their heart activity is blocked and they have difficulty breathing. This kind of stimulation from the outside quickly spread to the cerebral cortex, causing incorrect reactions, so nightmares were born. Some people see ghosts pouncing on themselves in their dreams, trying to eat themselves, so they want to struggle and shout, but the part of the brain that commands muscle movements and sounds of hands and feet is still in a state of inhibition, so they want to struggle in their dreams, but their hands and feet can't move; I want to shout, but I can't make a sound. In addition, some people suffer from some chronic diseases, such as chronic tonsillitis, chronic rhinitis and chronic bronchitis. These diseases often have the problem of poor breathing, so it is easy to have nightmares during sleep.

Judging from the internal causes of nightmares, the dreamer must have been mentally stimulated before having nightmares, leaving an incurable psychological trauma. When people are awake, they rely on reason to dominate their lives. Therefore, the psychological trauma left by them in their early years is suppressed by reason, and it is difficult to "talk" freely. When people fall asleep, reason loses its authoritative role and consciousness weakens. The subconscious appeared, and the psychological trauma left by the dreamer in his early years was "expressed" with the help of nightmares. Han Yu said in the poem "Youxi Temple": "Wandering in the waves has become a nightmare." It can be seen that nightmares are indeed associated with fear and vigilance.

Modern psychologists believe that the reason why people have nightmares is usually related to some things that dreamers are afraid of in childhood, which can be traced back to the childhood when people can't help themselves. Children aged three to six are most likely to have nightmares. Once an adult feels that his safety is not guaranteed, or remembers some frightening and disturbing things in the past, he may also have nightmares.