Bad Dreams, Oh! Bad Dreams! (哦！噩梦！)

Everyone must have experienced bad dreams one time or another. People would suddenly awaken in the middle of the night and even long after that the fright remains deep inside the heart. Oddly speaking, when such scary bad dreams are being flashed back during daytime, people would then laugh at him/herself on being afraid of those absurd dreams. In old time, premonitions of dreams were of much importance but today, dreams are just dreams. Having said so, if a person is having bad dreams constantly, then his/her sleeping quality and mental wellbeing will definitely be affected. It is particular bad if children experience bad dreams on regular basis as their mental and physical developments would certainly be affected.

There are many methods to prevent bad dreams amongst others, true to my own experiences:

1.       Prior to sleeping: the pillow should be raised a little higher, and the person should sleep on either left or right sides. It is forbidden to sleep while lying flat face down or face up like a corpse.

2.       One should not sleep more than 8 hours a day.

3.       One should not talk once he has laid down.

4.       It is best to wear light clothing while sleeping and avoid sleeping naked. Even in tropical areas, temperature differences can be pretty high especially after a midnight rain.

5.       One should not laugh loudly before sleep or his unsettled emotion may bring forth bad dreams at night.

6.       One should not go straight to bed after a heavy meal, or after he/she has consumed something hot.

7.       One should wait until his/body is dried after bathing at night before sleeping.

8.       Postures such as putting one’s hand on his/her chest or sleep with crossed leg should be avoided altogether.

9.       Avoid sleeping in cold, especially right under a window or near a door.

Of course, all those precautions may still bring forth bad dreams. There are some small tricks to calm our mind if we find difficult to continue to sleep:

1.       One may chant the Sanskrit mantra of the watcher of the night: Vasanta Vayanti repeatedly until we fall asleep again; or any simple holy names repeatedly.

2.       A person can also use his/her left hand to pinch the area between his/her nose and upper lip 14 times and then biting his/her teeth 14 times then all his/her unreasonable fear shall be gone.

Generally speaking, when a person is too free and having nothing to do; it is very likely that he/she will get many odd dreams at night. So, instead of staying in the house and grumbling on badluck as scapegoat; maybe involving some charity works would make the person sleep better at night. Also, it is certainly true that doing charity work can boost one’s luck too! The idea is just to make the body tired so that we can rest-in-peace at night really.