Dreams can be exciting, fascinating, insightful but oneirophobics find the prospect of dreaming terrifying. Dreams are down to our subconscious to play out, we dont have control over them whilst we sleep, and this can be scary for people. Especially for people who have experienced nightmares and other unpleasant dreams, or for people whose life events trigger unhappy dreams. Oneirophobics tend to avoid falling asleep, so as not to dream and experience their phobia. A tiresome fear and another spiral, making the phobic person increasingly tired and wishing to sleep, but being to afraid to do so. Like the fear of dreaming and with a similar result, some people are also afraid of falling asleep, known as hypnophobia. This can be related to a fear of having bad dreams, or can be a fear of the physical feeling of falling asleep, or even the loss of control.
