Nightmares Linked to Faster Ageing and Premature Mortality | Hacker News Reader

Nightmares Linked to Faster Ageing and Premature Mortality

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25 pointsgnabgib16 comments

Before I had children, I regularly had nightmares in which I felt an incredible, consuming guilt. Usually the dream started quite normal, and suddenly I "remembered" in the dream that I had killed many, many people in the past and that I had just suppressed this memory for years. The rest of the dream was then usually spent in agony because of the guilt, or in disbelief that the police still hadn't found me. Sometimes some investigator suspected me, and I had to flee from the police or invent alibis.

The dreams stopped right around when my first child was born. Never had them since.

Did your family or other community ever make you feel guilty for not having kids?

That would also be my first interpretation, but no. Never. There was also no pressure from our side, we kind of decided that a kid would be nice now a few weeks before our marriage. She was born to the day 9 months after our wedding day.

But I suspect that deep down I kind of felt guilty in my late 20s for not having any offspring.

Sounds like the kind of thing that, if the people with nightmares know this, it could give them more nightmares.

For the last maybe 20 years, I rarely even dream, or rarely remember my dreams. But I'm also fairly accepting of, and reactive to, the reality with which I'm presented, no matter how dark the timeline seems to be. I don't know if these things are correlated though.

I think I would separate nightmares (horror/death/being chased/night terrors) from bad dreams (embarrassed/uncomfortable/worry/fret/didn't enjoy).

We sometimes use the term _nightmares_ to describe both, but only the former causes a cortisol reaction (in the article).. the latter, which would include worrying about bad sleep or bad dreams doesn't cause the same response.

How do you know it caused a cortisol reaction? - Your heart is pounding, you're probably awake and probably have a hard time getting back to sleep. Your sleep tracker will show it too (if you have a ring or watch, your heart rate will visibly jump into your exercise range).

Worrying about sleep/lack thereof/bad dreams sucks, but it's not the same as nightmares.

Worth also mentioning - not everyone experiences/remembers dreams (which sounds amazing)

Do you have references for this aspect of cortisol? As far as I am aware our responses to social situations reuse fight or flight stress.

In most of my dreams, I die. So probably the dreams are telling my future

A close relative once told me that as a child from maybe age 6 to 10, each dream every night was about him dying. It was so "normal" for him that he remembered the first dream he had again at age 10 in which he didn't die. He enthusiastically told his parents in the morning: "Mom, dad, this night I didn't die in my dreams!".

I wonder how normal this is.

I don't usually remember dreaming, haven't for years, but if I do, something horrific was happening to me. I've been eaten, set on fire, covered in acid, impaled, fallen off of things, more.

Interesting how I was reading an article yesterday talking about how cheese/dairy might give people nightmares, linked to GI distress and lactose intolerance.

It could be a factor that GI distress and food intolerances contribute to nightmares due to additional stress and inflammation within the body, causing premature mortality over the course of someone's life.

https://erowid.org/experiences/subs/exp_Cheese_Blue.shtml

Interesting. I've had nonstop nightmares, or nightly entertainment as I view it most nights, for 45 years.

I don't think I've aged faster than expected that cannot be explained by a lack of serious exercise.

A lot of people have reported that taking Elysium Health's Basis, an NAD+ supplement, made their dreams more boring. Perhaps Basis/NAD+ has some potential for reducing nightmares? Anecdata: it happened to me, took years after I stopped for my dreams to start getting interesting again.

Something interesting I noticed is that when I cut all caffeine from my diet, I started to remember my dreams again (and sleep much better).

This happens to me, but only while brain adapts to the new chemical balance. After that it's back to no remembering dreams.

What makes you think that remembering dreams is a sign of better sleep? I think that is generally not believed to be true.

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