Nightmares

[metalfan1]

hi everyone, I've had anxiety for less than a year now, but it's only been like 3 months that I see a connection between me having nightmares and me having anxiety in the morning. Each time I have a bad nightmare I always wake up feeling anxious. They are not life like dreams, in fact they are the oppisite, they are very fictional. They're full of things that could never happen in real life but they freak me out so much that I wake shaking and sometimes wanting to cry.
So what I want to ask a few things, does anyone on here have the same thing as me? Do you have nightmares that make you wake up anxious? And for those of you that don't have this going on, do you think it's the nightmares that create the anxiety or the anxiety that makes the nightmares?

[metalfan1]

Well I always thought that the nightmares created my anxiety because at times I would go to sleep fine and then I would have a nightmare and i would wake up anxious but now that you put it that way I can see how it's the anxiety creating the nightmares. I've been told that anxiety is like a monster or a parasite that lives inside of people and sometimes it's dorment but none the less it's still there. And I guess when I'm asleep it can awaken and attack through a dream.

[metalfan1]

It does help, I do tell myself when I wake up that it's just a dream but when the anxiety doesn't go away right away i give up easily and I just let it consume me. but I will try harder now

[mammo]

Nightmares can appear to be very real and leave us feeling anxious, scared or sad when we awaken.  I think this is true for people who don't suffer from anxiety as well. Personally I feel the more we worry the more nightmares we can have.  Sleep is our mind's way of cleaning house and in the process of purging bad thoughts they all come together in one big dream that can make no sense at all.....be scary, or sad.  I've never had a dream that bothered me for more than a few minutes after awakening and realizing that it was all a dream.  To answer your question I would say anxiety creates bad dreams, and it's how we handle the dream once we awaken that is important. Hope this helps!