What is the best thing to do when you wake up from a nightmare in the middle of the night?

I usually get up for a cup of herbal tea then sit at my computer for awhile and watch funny videos, etc.

then I slowly return to bed and force myself to dream of something I want to dream of. It usually works.

I have always had very lucid dreams and nightmares. Even when I wake up I am not sure if it is real life or a nightmare. If I am really scared I will make sure I do not go back to sleep anytime soon because there would be almost 100% chance I would go back to the same nightmare right where it left off. When I was a child I would try to think of something pleasant like bunnies. Now that I am older I prefer to do something else like watch tv, or read a book, or go online, anything to stay awake and get rid of the dream in my head.

Sometimes I will stay up for the rest of the night and pretend like I am an early riser.

I have a recurring nightmare where I leave whatever setting my dream takes me to and I can't find my car. This is a nightmare I've had more or less occasionally for years now and I believe it stems from an incident in my long ago past where I was leaving my girlfriends house and discovered my car wasn't where I parked it. It turned out that the police had impounded it because of a bunch of parking tickets I'd accrued and not paid. And yes, it was parked illegally when they impounded it. I didn't learn they had it until 3 days later.

Liz,

I don't even remember the last time I had one.

I would suggest that you would read or watch a video, something uplifting.

BQ: I don't have as many as I used to, and then hardly any at all.

I find it rarely happens now, but a visit to the bathroom and then I sit on the bed, most often with a cigarette and try to reason it out.

That is better I feel than returning to lying down to think of it over and over

I have found the best way to get to sleep is to imagine cooking a meal. If I get past the stage of thinking through all of the ingredients, I revisit it from the start and thing about it step by step

Chetak

I keep my mare in the barn at night .

That way, she doesn't wake me up .

I used to have some terrible nightmares years ago. Since I live alone, I give my dog a big hug and let him up on the bed to comfort me.

Put the light on and maybe read , call a friend ( if it is not too late ) Watch a little television.

Had bad dreams as a child. Now every so often.

I realize that I'm going to sound like a heavy drinker, but occasionally I do wake up after a nightmare; and I go into my kitchen and I pour myself about an inch of bailey's irish cream, rest for a few minutes and then go back to bed. So far it has already done the trick.

Incidentally, I've just finished a bottle of Bailey after one year!

Usually when I have a nightmare I start calling for help out loud. My spouse wakes me up and holds me a bit until I can go back to sleep. Don't think I've ever gone back to sleep had still had a bad dream.