The week I've been having nightmares about the red death.  It's awful, I wake up scared each morning, and don't dare to wear my boxers.  I don't know why it's happening, I've never had nightmares about it before, I don't normally even have nightmares, is this some sort of pre-warning to it happening, or just because I think that they now happen towards the end/beginning of each month and I purposefully didn't know when they happened before.

I was almost in tears telling my girlfriend about the nightmares, admitted to her for the first time that I always end up sitting on the toilet and not know whether I'm about to cry or vomit whenever I have to go to the loo during it.  She already knows that I absolutely hate it, but never quite that much I don't think.  My only way of dealing with it was by not knowing when it happened, so not being able to worry about it, and now I possibly know when, and even worse, have these awful nightmares about it.

Has this ever happened to anyone else?
And can you either stop the nightmares, or throw your schedule out of whack enough to no longer have any idea when it might happen?

I don't recall having any nightmares about it, but I am guessing it's because you know roughly when you're going to be getting it. I have this little period tracker app on my phone, but I never look at it unless I think I am late (which is usual).

I'd try putting up a dreamcatcher, they're supposed to catch nightmares; we have a few in the house and I never have bad dreams. Or... if you're not into the Native thing, the nightmares might stop if you can try to calm yourself and face your fears before going to bed. Try to relax in whatever way works best for you, whether it's drinking some herbal tea or killing a punching bag, and just keep telling yourself that it's okay, the red death is going to come eventually but you'll survive because you're a tough man. From what I've heard, dreams are supposed to be your subconscious trying to tell you something, so if you face it during the day and try to sort it all out, it shouldn't have to come out in your dreams.

And there are ways to throw your schedule out of whack, like drastic changes in diet can do it for some people, lots of exercise, etc. It can be dangerous to try to mess it all up though, so just be safe.

I can't clearly remember if I have nightmares about it, but I do start to feel more sad knowing when it's going to come on and I would oftentimes hope it comes on during my sleep it will be less tramatizing. 

The best thing I can tell you to do is to relax because having that stress can potentially delay it.  There would be times where I'd stress over it and because of that, my monthly would be stalled by 4 or 5 days.

I'm not an expert, but I think if you are concerned with it coming on, then you are self-inducing your nightmares.  Again, relaxing would help and accepting that it's going to come on soon.  I usually map mine so I know when to at least be prepared.

I'm only aware that it's going to happen because of the nightmares, although I might have been worrying from some subconscious level I suppose.  Usually I forget that it ever happens until it actually does, and even then I have a pretty good go at forgetting all about it (that's actually one of the reasons I won't try tampons, I'm pretty sure I'd forget and end up giving myself toxic shock or something.)

I don't have many ways of calming down, it's all I can do to get to sleep.  I tried quitting smoking last week and I could deal with the cravings, but not the insomnia, no way.