Your Nightmares May Be Good for Your Mental Health

Did you wake up early this morning in a cold sweet, clinging to your bed, glad to be back in the real word? Well, that nightmare that ruined your slumber may have been a good thing.

In this video from New York Magazine called The Good Side of Bad Dreams, some researchers say that those nightmares may be part of a healthy mental state. The bad dreams may be a way for our minds to find emotional release and deal with stress and anxiety in our waking lives.

The idea is that our unconscious brain takes our fears and turns them into stories that the brain processes as memories. And memories are easier for the mind to deal with instead of vague fears and anxieties. So, bad dreams help us process the bad stuff in the world.

OK, great. But that still doesn't explain why I keep having that dream about Uncle Fester, from The Addams Family, on a raft in a swimming pool reading an old issue of Cosmo and yelling at me to choose which Sex in the City character I am. Figure that out science.

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