What cognitive response involves disturbing dreams related to stress?

The correct answer, nightmares, refers to a type of cognitive response that can manifest as disturbing dreams directly related to stress and anxiety. Nightmares often occur when individuals are processing traumatic experiences or high levels of tension in their waking lives. During these dreams, the brain may revisit and attempt to make sense of distressing situations, leading to vivid, often unsettling scenarios that reflect the individual's emotional state. This phenomenon can serve as a coping mechanism, albeit a troubling one, indicating the mind’s effort to deal with overwhelming feelings.

The other options represent different psychological or physiological responses to stress but do not specifically involve the cognitive realm of dreaming. Freezing is a response to fear or danger, intense anger may be an emotional response to stress, and loss of appetite reflects a physiological reaction to anxiety but does not pertain to dreams. Thus, none of these alternatives capture the specific nature of nightmares as a cognitive response to stress.