- Despite all having unique lives and brains, many people have similar nightmares.
- Some of the most common nightmares include being chased, death, and physical fights.
- Though it's not a perfect science, there are ways to interpret these common themes.
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You're running, but you're not going anywhere. You're falling, but you never hit the ground. You're watching your loved one waste away, but there's nothing you can do about it.
If you're like most people, then you might be covered in a cold sweat by now, recalling a nightmare.
Though our dreams are highly personal, and often based on what happened to us over our lifetime and during our day, there are some themes that unite us all.
"These dreams are related to issues that every person has in their waking lives," Michael Schredl, head of the sleep lab at the Central Institute of Mental Health, Mannheim, Germany, told Insider.
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It's tough to make generalizations about nightmares, since science hasn't agreed on why we even dream in the first place.
But there are basic patterns in nightmare themes that may help you translate what your brain is trying to express, Schredl said. Understanding these patterns could be a starting point to identify what emotions you're dealing with in your subconscious.
In a 2018 study, Schredl and his colleague analyzed over 1,200 nightmares, from asking participants to recall their most recent distressing dream. They then categorized them into common themes.
Here are the top 10 they found.
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