How often do you have bad dreams?

how do you define bad dream? Some of mine are so mundane but I wake up ANGRY in giant red letters.
Other dreams are filled with monsters and scary stuff to the point they make me giggly.

Last night I had a dream about a guy speed surfing on the sidewalks of a beach town. Nothing really "bad" but I woke up madder than a half plucked rooster.

Rarely. My stress and anxiety is more likely to cause insomnia.

Weird that you would mention that ... I rarely have bad dreams, no monsters, bad guys. Sometimes I can't find my daughter... But just last night I had one where I acted in a cowardly manner and failed to protect a child. I was soooo sad when I woke up. I hope in real life I would act differently.

Do you all sometimes have lucid dreams where you realize you are dreaming? I always go hunting for donuts. But I don't have enough control over the dream to really find them!

I tend to get bad dreams in batches; several per night or a couple of nights running, after something stressful has happened at work, or I've watched something on TV before bed. Then I might go for weeks without any.

I went through a stage of trying to interpret my dreams, and bought some books. I dream a lot about big waves (emotions) and stairs (going up is positive and down is negative) and rooms (the "mansion of the soul", in other words, one's own psyche). But I also love watching late night TV shows about extreme weather, and home DIY makeovers, so make of that what you will!

And 3 times now, I've dreamed I was on a train with someone but there were nothing alarming involved, and very soon afterwards discovered that that person had died. Now THAT spooked me.

Nearly every night, and it's awful.

Mine are because of my antidepressant, I'm 99% sure. I want to come off it but would have to find a different med to use for transition as the lowest dose is too high to cold turkey off of.

I wish I'd never started taking it. I hate going to sleep. I wish I didn't dream. And I dream excessively too, just to make it worse.

At least once a week. DH and I have this thing where we tell each other what we dreamt about the night before and he’s always dreaming about aliens or fighting zombies while I’m having a crisis in my dreamland. 

Very rarely. I don't think I am stressed or have anxiety a vast majority of the time. I also don't fill my mind with visuals on tv that are stressful. I can watch a scary movie trailer and have a bad dream from that. My husband watches crap on tv and has lots of bad dreams with bad guys, guns, etc.

Me, too. If I do have bad dreams, they're usually some sort of stressful situation - not necessarily one I'm actually dealing with, just stressful as opposed to scary or fearful. I'd say less than 1x per month in general. I actually had one the other night that "they" came and told me DS hadn't been adopted correctly and we were in this huge legal fight and losing him - bear in mind he's almost 11 and was adopted shortly after his birth, so it's not like this is a fear anywhere on my radar. 

I dream a lot and can remember my dreams when I wake up. I can recall 4 or so dreams I've had that night. I have bad dreams about once every 3-6 months-if that. Sometimes I go longer than that before I get one. 

I'm a happy go lucky sort of person. I don't have anxiety and because stress is a trigger for my migraines I try to avoid it at all costs. 

Reading this reminded me that I do have more frequent bad dreams when I have taken Malarone as a prophylactic for malaria on trips to African countries. It makes me have very bizarre dreams which I would occasionally classify as nightmares.

I dream a lot but rarely have bad dreams. Oddly, I dreamt a few nights ago that I was shot in the head and killed. When I woke up, I wasn’t frightened. I just recall that being shot wasn’t painful and that I wasn’t scared. I’ve had several dreams where I’ve been killed. No clue as to why. I don’t have a violent or traumatic history. I’m hoping they aren’t predictive!!!! I generally have people in my dreams that are strangers. I also dream a lot about work, generally when I’m highly stressed.

Same. If I'm worried about something I either can't fall asleep or wake in the middle of the night. I had a bad dream last week because I drank a few glasses of wine which is out of the norm for me.