Have you ever had one of those nights when you wake up in a　cold sweat, shaking in terror at being chased down an endless dark　tunnel? Or perhaps you were falling from the roof of a tall building or drowning in stormy seas. Whatever the landscape of your latest nightmare, was it your initial reaction to sweep the whole experience under the proverbial rug?   Dream annalists say that most of us try to “switch off” the memory of our nightmares as soon as we wake up. Indeed, it is ingrained in us since childhood to suppress our bad dreams. But perhaps we shouldn’t, says Australian expert Carolyn Groth. In a paper titled “The Healing Nightmare,” Groth claims that nightmares are a subconscious way of helping us work through personal dilemmas and, as such, are important for personal growth. In fact, she encourages us to look at our night mares as veiled life advisers. In doing so, however, Groth recommends that we also focus on the circumstances, in our waking lives when reviewing dream content.   This approach to dream interpretation stems from the Freudian school of thought. Sigmund Freud, the father of modern psychoanalysis, believed that dream-themes are so emotionally charged and flattering to the ego that the individual is unable to deal with them directly in waking life. He concluded that all dreams-not only nightmares-are tools for uncovering the roots of our anxieties, fears, and desires.   Dr. Robert Stickhold of Harvard Medical School is not so convinced. Dreams, he says, have little to do with deep-seated emotional disturbance. Rather, they are “just the body's way of clearing out the mental in-box.” Nightmares occur when the brain is unable to find any cross reference for a dream; thus unable to fit, the dream takes on bizarre qualities. Stickhold's analysis counters the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle, who believed that dreams were physical rather than emotional in origin, occurring “when there was a malfunctioning of the senses.”