nightmares Archives | Kelly Bulkeley https://bulkeley.org/tag/nightmares/ Dream Research & Education Mon, 05 May 2025 21:53:38 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.8.1 https://bulkeley.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/kb-100x100.png nightmares Archives | Kelly Bulkeley https://bulkeley.org/tag/nightmares/ 32 32 Reflections on Among All These Dreamers (1996) https://bulkeley.org/reflections-on-among-all-these-dreamers/ https://bulkeley.org/reflections-on-among-all-these-dreamers/#respond Wed, 02 Apr 2025 22:38:26 +0000 https://bulkeley.org/?p=4641 The first time I attended an annual conference of the International Association for the Study of Dreams was in Santa Cruz in 1988. For the next several years (London in 1989, Chicago in 1990 (which I hosted), Charlottesville, Virginia in 1991) these conferences gave me an opportunity to learn more about the various ways in …

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]]> https://bulkeley.org/reflections-on-among-all-these-dreamers/feed/ 0 Reflections on Spiritual Dreaming (1995) https://bulkeley.org/reflections-on-spiritual-dreaming-1995/ https://bulkeley.org/reflections-on-spiritual-dreaming-1995/#respond Sat, 01 Mar 2025 00:43:59 +0000 https://bulkeley.org/?p=4624 An academic dissertation is written in compliance with a host of official requirements designed to focus the project and give it the best chance of successful completion. Those requirements definitely influenced how my dissertation and first book, The Wilderness of Dreams (1994), came to be what it is. As I sat down to write my …

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]]> https://bulkeley.org/reflections-on-spiritual-dreaming-1995/feed/ 0 Bizarreness, Nightmares, and Play https://bulkeley.org/bizarreness-nightmares-and-play/ https://bulkeley.org/bizarreness-nightmares-and-play/#respond Sun, 18 Aug 2024 20:15:38 +0000 https://bulkeley.org/?p=4593 The bizarre contents of dreaming can easily seem like the products of mental deficiency. “Children of an idle brain” is what Mercutio calls them in Romeo & Juliet (I.iv.102). Many scientists today essentially agree with Mercutio that the weird absurdities of dreams are evidence of diminished cognitive functioning during sleep. But what if the “bizarreness” …

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]]> https://bulkeley.org/bizarreness-nightmares-and-play/feed/ 0 New Dream Posts from Psychology Today https://bulkeley.org/new-dream-posts-from-psychology-today/ https://bulkeley.org/new-dream-posts-from-psychology-today/#respond Sun, 21 Jan 2024 23:08:29 +0000 https://bulkeley.org/?p=4538 Here are the recent posts I have written for Psychology Today, going back to the middle of last summer. Although each one is written as a stand-alone discussion of a special topic in dreaming, I now realize they also form a series of interrelated texts, like the chapters of a book I didn’t consciously know …

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]]> https://bulkeley.org/new-dream-posts-from-psychology-today/feed/ 0 Threat Simulations in War Dreams https://bulkeley.org/threat-simulations-in-war-dreams/ https://bulkeley.org/threat-simulations-in-war-dreams/#respond Mon, 25 Apr 2022 13:49:17 +0000 https://bulkeley.org/?p=4445 An outbreak of war and violent conflict is very likely to prompt a wave of nightmares of traumatic experiences, mournful losses, and threat simulations. This seems to be part of our internal crisis-response system when the external world descends into chaos and bloodshed, and our minds struggle to make sense of what is happening and …

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]]> https://bulkeley.org/threat-simulations-in-war-dreams/feed/ 0 The Nightmares of Halloween https://bulkeley.org/the-nightmares-of-halloween/ https://bulkeley.org/the-nightmares-of-halloween/#respond Tue, 26 Oct 2021 23:52:58 +0000 https://bulkeley.org/?p=4379 It’s more than a metaphor to say that Halloween is a time when our nightmares go on parade. The scary images, decorations, and costumes that take over the month of October have a direct psychological connection to the actual themes and patterns of people’s nightmares. If we look at current research on nightmares—who has them, …

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]]> https://bulkeley.org/the-nightmares-of-halloween/feed/ 0 The Inevitable Spirituality of Dreaming https://bulkeley.org/the-inevitable-spirituality-of-dreaming/ https://bulkeley.org/the-inevitable-spirituality-of-dreaming/#respond Sun, 03 Oct 2021 23:08:43 +0000 https://bulkeley.org/?p=4354 People make many strange and unexpected discoveries when they begin exploring their dreams. Of these discoveries, perhaps the most surprising is an uncanny encounter with images, themes, and energies that can best be described as spiritual or religious. It’s one thing to realize you have selfish desires or aggressive instincts; it’s another thing entirely to …

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]]> https://bulkeley.org/the-inevitable-spirituality-of-dreaming/feed/ 0 Christmas Dreaming https://bulkeley.org/christmas-dreaming/ https://bulkeley.org/christmas-dreaming/#respond Tue, 22 Dec 2020 00:27:47 +0000 https://bulkeley.org/?p=4238 Dreams during the holidays bring happy memories, and recurrent anxieties. The holiday season brings many anticipated pleasures, and many reasons for worry. Our dreams about Christmas express both happiness and anxiety, eagerly looking forward to the holiday but also expressing recurrent worries about every possible thing that could go wrong. The Sleep and Dream Database …

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]]> https://bulkeley.org/christmas-dreaming/feed/ 0 Dreams of Wildfire https://bulkeley.org/dreams-of-wildfire/ https://bulkeley.org/dreams-of-wildfire/#respond Mon, 14 Sep 2020 20:52:36 +0000 https://bulkeley.org/?p=4190 The West Coast has a long history of wildfires, and dreaming about wildfires. A study from the 1991 Oakland Hills Firestorm has important lessons for those of us currently being threatened and harmed by the blazes in California, Oregon, Washington, and elsewhere. On October 20, 1991, almost exactly two years after the Loma Prieta earthquake …

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]]> https://bulkeley.org/dreams-of-wildfire/feed/ 0 Not All Pandemic Dreams Are Nightmares https://bulkeley.org/not-all-pandemic-dreams-are-nightmares/ https://bulkeley.org/not-all-pandemic-dreams-are-nightmares/#respond Wed, 22 Apr 2020 23:53:42 +0000 http://bulkeley.org/?p=3964 People who are familiar with the deep patterns of their dreams seem to be having fewer nightmares compared to the general population. This observation is based on a series of interviews I recently conducted with the participants in two dream research projects, one that began in early 2017 and one that began in December of 2019. It’s …

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