In the Dreamscape of Nightmares, Clues to Why We Dream at All

nightmares and dreadful dreams offer potentially telling clues into the larger mystery of why we dream in the first place, how our dreaming and waking lives may intersect and cross-infect each other, and, most baffling of all, how we manage to construct a virtual reality in our skull, a seemingly life-size, multidimensional, sensorily rich nocturnal roundhouse staffed with characters so persuasive you want to ... strangle them, before they can strangle you.

A big reason bad dreams offer insight into the architecture of dreams generally is that, as a host of studies have shown, most of our dreams are bad.

about three-quarters of the emotions described are negative.

When slipping into REM sleep

“The limbic system becomes incredibly active, much more so than when you’re awake, which is why you’re emotionally on edge in dreams.”

At the same time, the prefrontal cortex, seat of rational thought and critical reasoning, is on lunch break