can you go back to sleep after waking up from a bad dream?

If the bad dream seemed so real I wouldnt want to go back to sleep. in my case my old nightmares chase me, that means they repeat themselves for three days on a row. If I go to sleep soon after that I would just have the bad dream again and again. But I have learned how to fight in my dreams being lucid as it were :) it helps if you are aware that its just a nightmare then you can fight back

what you are going through is normal for most of us. in fact, it will always be a wise move to let some time pass first before we get back to sleep after having been awakened from a bad dream. there is a possibility that the dream shall continue to haunt the person if he/she gets back to sleep immediatelly after having taken a glass of water. this has happened to me many times before and i have come across people who shared this same experience with me. the best approach will be as you are doing it now, be up for a little while and do some things which shall cut the flow of that bad dream.

It really depends. If I don't see anyone, and the dream really has me frazzled, I find it really difficult to get comfortable enough to fall asleep. However, If I'm rather tired, I'd probably fall back to sleep regardless of how bad the dream was. If I can't go to sleep, I'll get up and move around, watch tv, that sort of thing to try and get my mind off of it. Then if I'm still tired I'll try and go back to sleep for a little longer.

I sometimes can't. But usually I can and it's sometimes not hard for me to fall asleep. In the morning I have no clue what the dream was about but I knew I cried because of it.

no, i find it very difficult to fall asleep after having a bad dream. i usually try and snuggle with my hubby...this is comforting to me and helps me know that everything is ok.

It's really difficult for me to have a nightmare. But when I have them, I'm usually too sleepy to actually care about them. Hehehe! Seriously, I just change my positions and come back to sleep. Of course when I was a child I used to be really scared by them, and would run to my parent's bed. But now, I give a sh*t.

No, I can't go back to sleep after a nightmare. Normally what I do is to find something to do like reading novels, listening to music or sometimes, I will wake up my husband and 'plead' him to talk to me about anything in the middle of the night (most of the time, unsuccessful!) Yes, I can remember most of my dreams but they're always unfinished. I can't remember the endings! If I had bad dreams, I don't tell others. Someone told me that, if you tell your bad dream to others, it will be a reality in your life. Amazingly, I do believe that so I keep it as a secret! Hehee....

I know this may seem really strange. I can control my dreams and what happens in them, especially nightmares. I have nightmares that last for over a week. In them i can control what happens to me in them. Some of you may say that its impossible and that no matter how controlling i may seem, that event is preprogrammed. However, i have had an ecg and they have detected unusual brain waves. They told me that my brain emits a powerful magnetic field like no other. I can chose what to do in my nightmares. However, only being 21, i almost suffered a heart attack, because i chose the wrong path in the dream and ended up falling of a cliff. When i woke up i had actualy reddened skin in places when i was hit as i fell and hit the ground in the dream. Its kinda scary but oh well