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They can also depict problems you have within yourself. They can depict both minor and major emotional struggles. These dreams can give us great insights into what we're dealing with in our lives at a particular moment in time. We can recreate the story line, which we can later write down and analyze. In still other instances dreams can reveal emotional struggles.Īlthough dreams can result from a variety of different factors, more often than not, the dreams we recall can be understood. Although these pictures mean nothing to us logically, there is likely some pattern there that is applicable to the body. In other instances the flu can cause dreams to become fragmented visions caused from a sick body trying to heal itself. For instance in some circumstances eating something difficult to digest before bed can cause dream's to be revealed as meaningless images.
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Dreams can result from a variety of factors. When analyzing dreams it is important to try and determine what has instigated the dream. The purpose of this site is to help you analyze your own dreams based on those common images. Our life experiences influence our interpertation of these symbols and as a result each person's dream is unique to them and can only be truly understood by them. By understanding these symbols, it is possible to analyze our dreams and to learn from them. This article was originally published with the title "More Than Just a Bad Dream-A Nightmare's Impact on the Waking Brain" in SA Mind 20, 7, 14 (January 2010)ĭoi:10.There are symbols found in the human unconscious that mean similar things to all of us.
#PSYCHOLOGY OF DREAMS AND NIGHTMARES PROFESSIONAL#
But if the dreams give rise to persistent anxiety and concern, something more serious could be going on-and it may be a good idea to talk to a mental health professional about it. Most researchers agree that having an occasional nightmare is normal and not problematic. What is not clear from these studies is whether nightmares play a causal role in anxiety or are merely an expression of an underlying problem. In other words, having nightmares did not make dreamers more resilient in waking life-just the opposite. The same was true for those who experienced fewer negative emotions in their dreams. When the subjects viewed the same pictures in the morning, those who had been deprived of dream-filled REM sleep were less emotionally affected than those deprived of other sleep phases. To tease out how REM sleep-during which most dreaming takes place-affects our emotions, the Canadian researchers showed disturbing images (such as gory scenes or a women being forced into a van at knifepoint) to a group of healthy volunteers just before they went to bed. It is possible, however, that some-thing is going wrong in the brains of individuals who experience a lot of anxiety, so that normal emotional processing during dreaming fails, says Tore Nielsen, director of the Dream and Nightmare Laboratory at Sacred Heart Hospital in Montreal.īut Nielsen’s most recent results, published in the Journal of Sleep Research last June, actually bolster the Australian findings. The study, published in the journal Dreaming, did not bear out that hypothesis: not only did nightmares not stave off anxiety, but people who reported being distressed about their dreams were even more likely to suffer from general anxiety than those who experienced an upsetting event such as the divorce of their parents. It is well known that stressful experiences cause nightmares, but if nightmares serve to diffuse that tension, troubled sleepers should have an easier time coping with emotional ordeals. In one study Australian researchers asked 624 high school students about their lives and nightmares during the past year and assessed their stress levels. Although some continue to believe nightmares reduce psychological tensions by letting the brain act out its fears, recent research suggests that nocturnal torments are more likely to increase anxiety in waking life. But are nightmares truly benign? Psychologists aren’t so sure. Relax, you think to yourself-it was just a bad dream. You awake with a pounding heart and clammy hands.