Change Your Life by Understanding Your Nightmares.

A chainsaw-wielding vampire (who looks suspiciously like your new, aggressive boss) has you cornered and is about to cut you up and feast on your blood. You're terrified, and you wake up feeling anxious and upset.
You've just had a nightmare, of course—a dream so disturbing and frightening that it jars you out of sleep. But don't worry. Dream experts say that there's an alternative to being concerned about bad dreams, and also an easy way to stop them. The first step is understanding that they're often a good tiling.

"Nightmares can be compared to a vaccine' says Alan R. Siege!/ Ph.D., a psychotherapist in Berkeley and San Francisco. "You take a vaccine to build up antibodies so that you can fight off an infection. In the same way, a nightmare stimulates your psychological defenses, preparing you to cope with problems. It delivers an important, healthy message, telling you that you need to rebalance certain aspects of your life.Nightmares are most common during major transitions or turning points, such as a new job, moving, the death of someone close to you, or a new relationship. "You'll deal with that transition more effectively if you remember and work with the nightmare than if you blot it out," Dr. Siegel says. Here is his step-by-step plan for doing just that.

SELF-AFFIRMATION:
First, says Dr. Siegel, you need to break the spell of the nightmare. (After all, it was scary.) You are not a uniquely horrible person with uniquely horrible dreams. Tell yourself that upsetting dreams are normal. There is nothing wrong with you.
In fact, you are about to take your nightmare and make it into something healing by letting it show you exactly what is out of balance in your life that needs to be addressed.

VISUALIZATION: Write Your Own Ending
Now that you are reassured about your dream, Dr. Siegel says to visualize it, to see it again in your mind's eye. Perhaps it was a dream of being chased—a very common plot for a nightmare.

In your imagination, re script the dream with a different plot or outcome. Turn and confront the person (or monster) who is chasing you and tell the aggressor to go away. Or conjure magical tools, such as a wand to make the aggressor disappear or a net to capture the threatening character. Or fly away. Or say a magic spell that turns the aggressor into something harmless, like a rabbit. Or imagine bringing in reinforcements, such as police to jail the aggressor.

"This is assertiveness training of the imagination—a way to conquer nightmares," Dr. Siegel says. And you don't have to limit yourself to visualization when you re script the dream.
"Use whatever form of expressive art you like," he says. Write a dialogue in a journal between you and the threatening character, writing assertive speech that subdues the aggressor. Or talk to a friend about the dream, describing different outcomes. Or create a dance in which you are powerful and victorious over your enemy.

Most nightmares will be resolved with this technique, Dr. Siegel says. In fact, doing this exercise will often stop recurring nightmares. His one caution is not to use violence to subdue the aggressor, which he says can create more internal conflicts and may not resolve the nightmare.

REHEARSAL: Do Your Visualization More Than Once
Just as you need to practice assertiveness in real life to change your behavior, you need to rescript your nightmare more than once for it to be effective, says Dr. Siegel. As you practice, you may find yourself developing new and better ways to rescript your dream. And you may want to try a variety of rescripting approaches.
"You might try visualization the first time, writing in a journal the second time, and drawing a picture of a new ending the third time," says Dr. Siegel. "There are numerous ways to make assertiveness stick."

RESOLUTION: Connect the Dream to Your Life
The final step is making a connection between the images in your nightmare and the changes in your life that are causing it, says Dr. Siegel. Ask yourself what is new in your life that is bothering you.

For instance, maybe you've figured out that your new boss, who has a habit of criticizing you in harsh tones, is the vampire in your dreams. Perhaps the nightmare is letting you know that you need to be more assertive, and you decide that rather than being quiet and submissive when the boss criticizes you, at least once a day, you will say more about what you feel to someone who will listen.

"The nightmare presents an opportunity to change the way you're dealing with an important aspect of your life," says Dr. Siegel. In fact, all dreams, not just scary ones that wake you up, convey clarifying, healing messages about your inner and outer lives. Keep a dream journal or talk to your family and friends about your dreams, urges Dr. Siegel.
"Dream images accurately reveal the essence of our fears, triumphs, and everyday concerns," he says. "If you remember and playfully explore your dreams, you will access heightened forms of creativity, intuition, insight, and emotional intelligence."