Sometimes our dreams make perfect sense and other times they seem to be completely irrational. Sleep researchers insist that we all dream but some of us just don’t remember them when we wake up. Other folks have vivid dream episodes almost every night and are able to remember them with remarkable clarity when they awake. But whether we are able to remember our dreams or not, the act of dreaming may well play an important part of our mental and emotional wellbeing.
Some psychologists believe that dreams are one of the brain’s methods of coping with stress. Sleep researcher Rosalind Cartwright, PhD, professor emeritus of psychology at Rush University in Chicago says regarding dreams: “It’s almost like having an internal therapist, because you associate [through dreams] to previous similar feelings, and you work through the emotion related to it so that it is reduced by morning.” She and other researchers are investigating the idea that our dreams perform important tasks for both conflict resolution and consolidation of memories. Indeed, Cartwright believes she has found clear indications suggesting that dreams may help with mood regulation.
Other researchers are not so sure however. To them, dreams are a natural part of the sleep cycle and are not particularly significant as an indication of controlling stress or altering moods.
What is known is that dreams occur throughout the sleep cycle in both REM (rapid-eye-movement) and non-REM sleep and sleep research clearly shows increased brain activity while in REM sleep. When study participants are woken up while in the first period of non-REM sleep those who can remember a dream most frequently have been dreaming about some emotional situation that has not been satisfactorily resolved. Early indications are that the person may repeat the dream in different forms during subsequent REM cycles throughout the night.
Without question humans need sleep for many reasons besides repairing the body from the day’s activities. The National Sleep Foundation says that we dream for more than two hours every night and that the most vivid seem to happen during the REM sleep periods. In animal studies, rats who were kept from REM sleep for as little as 96 hours manufactured less nerve cells in the hippocampus.
This, and other, research suggests that the act of dreaming may help as a natural stress reliever. Researchers who studied women who were very recently divorced discovered that the participants who remembered their dreams and had also dreamed about their ex scored much better on tests designed to measure emotional mood the next morning. Further, these women recovered from depression much quicker than the women who either did not dream about their ex or couldn’t remember their dreams. “It really shows that there was an ongoing working through the night in the dream material, and eventually that the depression lifted in those people,” Dr. Cartwright says.
Incoming search terms for the article:
- stress dreams every night (34)
- stress dreams (15)
- how to reduce dreaming (12)
- vivid dreams every night (9)
- stressful dreams (9)
- how to reduce night dreams (7)
- dreams reduce stress (7)
- anxiety dreams every night (6)
- stressful dreams every night (6)
- dreams stress (4)
