Is confronting fear a good thing? Rarely do you get a better chance at
that than in a bad dream. Cause in a dream the stage is set, your
emotional state is defined a certain way, all is clear for you to
live the feelings that you're so afraid of. And it feels like you
have a choice, doesn't it? I always choose to go all out, somehow it
feels exciting enough to quench my fear. So then it comes, you find
yourself in that situation you fear so much, this is your moment. And
then you react more truthfully, more honestly than you would in real
life. In a dream there is nothing holding you back, the feeling of
shame towards the people that are there isn't there. Whatever other
factors exist that would hold you back from expressing exactly how
you feel, in a dream they don't seem to matter. I think it's fair to
say that a bad dream is like a trial run of a situation you fear, in
the specific setting you act out that scene as you would in real
life, only more candidly.

But is it a good thing? Now you know what it would be like, you know how
you would feel every step of the way, you would know everything. But
is that helpful? That you already go through this once (or so it
feels), you feel all the pain you expected and you wake up crying,
does that enable you to handle it better when it actually happens? I
suppose there's something to doing things that scare you over and
over, because with each iteration you get a little more used to it.
But is it helpful?