Write Down Your Nightmares, Demons Are Your Friends
Better sleep, better writing
When I was in highschool my nightmares started getting worse. I’d been having them for a while, but it got to the point that I feared falling asleep like I was living in a low-budget version of A Nightmare on Elm Street. My stress got worse, I was tired all the time, and I would spend the rest of the day genuinelly disturbed by the things I dreamt. You’ve probably have had those dreams too, the ones that make you jolt awake crying. In my case, the nightmares would repeat themselves not only within the week, but the dream would play out in the same night several times, and there was nothing I could do to change the course of it.
The school counselor suggested I may be experiencing a nightmare disorder, caused by severe stress among other issues. She suggested trying out meditation (which did help, but wasn’t enough), but then my one of my creative writing teachers gave me the most clichéd answer: write about it. I listened to her, and started a “nightmare journal” (the one from the cover). Not only did it actually help me work on my nightmares, but you wouldn’t believe how much it changed my writing game!
