Although we started 2021 with high hopes, this year has become one of the most challenging. Anxiety has begun to rise along with the death toll from COVID-19, an issue that has remained pressing for many over the past few months. Whether you realize it or not, but all this affects the quality of your sleep, including your dreams.
In fact, if you've noticed that you've been having particularly strange dreams since the start of the pandemic, you're not alone. But why does this happen and what can we do about it?
We spoke to several experts to find out what you need to know to get a better night's sleep .
Suppressed desires
Our unconscious is a huge library of images, colors, smells, noises, sensations, emotions. Freud explained dreams as “repressed desires,” Jung spoke of “hereditary memories, archetypes going back to the dawn of time.”
All these "wishes" and "hereditary memories" can come from the depths, like bubbles that rise to the surface to happen in the strangest scenarios.
Strange dreams do not mean that there is something wrong with your mind. Rest assured, in this irrational and subjective world of dreams, even the stupidest stories are normal.
Why do we dream?
Before we get into our weird stress-related dreams , let's talk about why we dream at night in the first place.
To put it briefly and honestly, we don't know why. People have been trying to understand dreams for centuries. Freud said that dreams represent “the remains of the day.” That is, we usually see things in our dreams that are at least partially related to something that happened in the last 24-48 hours, or something that we are expecting.
We know that most dreaming occurs during rapid eye movement (REM) sleep, and that the brain is very active during REM because that's when it processes stress and painful emotions. It's like digesting something toxic. With current levels of stress, isolation and distress, the emotions that fill the subconscious during REM sleep are high and intense.
Dreams are a way to better understand our unconscious - even the strangest ones. But instead of viewing strange dreams as a negative symptom, try to immerse yourself in them and learn something from them.
Think about the dream and any associations it evokes. We don't need to be afraid of the unconscious mind or our dreams because they give us insight into what's on our mind.
Expression of the unconscious
Our subconscious can take over our consciousness at different times. A moment when we are particularly sensitive, “on the edge” - which can also provoke death dreams - a moment of stress, a moment of strong emotional tension, for example associated with shock, can transport us into this phantasmagoric world of dreams, escaping from a reality that is too complex or oppressed.
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We find refuge there and give free rein to our vivid and whimsical imagination. Sometimes we mistakenly consider these stories to be completely crazy.
There is no general interpretation of dreams, since a dream is something personal, it is an expression of our unconscious.
Does everything depend on time?
Dreams have been and continue to be explored. Other experiments have recently been carried out. Their goal was to find out whether events that occur during sleep depend on how much we sleep.
For the experiment, 16 people were selected and observed for 2 nights. Scientists woke up subjects at different times of the night and recorded their stories. The next morning they did the same.
As a result, it was discovered that the more time passed after a person fell asleep, the more incredible the night passed.
Immediately after we close our eyes, consciousness reproduces pictures associated with reality. But after a few hours, the connection with reality is lost, and we observe increasingly paradoxical visions. That is, the more you sleep, the more incredible your dreams.
.
Life circumstances
Strange dreams are windows into our inner world. They are closed until an event breaks this calm, the window opens and releases several disparate images that come together in a strange scenario.
These are the circumstances of our daily life that resonate in our unconscious. An event, words, conscious images, an obsession, a situation - our unconscious perceives and prints everything, even if we do not see or hear anything consciously.
Although our sleep spans several cycles, sleep is a world in which everything is possible, there is no limit, even in time.
Why are our dreams especially strange now?
While most people generally know that others don't want to hear about their dreams, it has become a popular topic of conversation since the start of the global pandemic - likely because it's something that so many people are dealing with.
Now everything in our lives is different from what it was a year ago. Before the pandemic, we typically had a sense of routine in our lives, much of which took place outside the home and away from our thoughts and feelings. But, due to the pandemic and other stressors, many people are constantly in a state of emotional arousal . We're also consuming more media, which means our brains are processing content on an almost minute-by-minute basis but lacking the ability to truly be present to what we're experiencing.
We must also remember that dreams are often a reflection of our subconscious. With many unprecedented events happening over the past few months, it's no surprise that many people are having strange dreams. Most people have little control over the spread of the pandemic and its impact on their lives.
And while cognitively we understand and accept recommendations from health organizations, such as wearing a mask and practicing social distancing, and what we can do to protect ourselves from the virus, our minds don't like to deal with things it can't. control or predict.
Another part of it has to do with anxiety. Even if we don't think about it consciously, many people are worried about yet another strange crisis that is beyond their control. Perhaps our minds are now creating possible absurd scenarios that could play out, perhaps to prepare us in case we face another crisis. Plus, with so many people out of work, or working from home, and not traveling or socializing as often as before, we have fewer distractions to keep us occupied and more time to think about our lives and about what is happening in the world. These musings may also cause strange thoughts and dreams.
The hidden meaning of strange dreams
Any element, such as an accident, causes an echo in our unconscious and releases images with no apparent meaning. But it is their strangeness that makes them so rich.
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Sometimes we would like to be able to decipher a dream so that we know how it affects our real life. In fact, it is really up to us to decipher the meaning of our dreams through the appearance of these strange images.
We describe them as strange when they frighten or surprise us. However, this is something completely normal, since situations arise that we suppress and the subconscious mind refuses to consider in a normal state of awareness.
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Strange things in dreams
Sometimes a person, not feeling the line between sleep and reality, behaves inappropriately - talks or walks while asleep. Then we turn into some kind of zombie and scare those around us. This phenomenon is called sleepwalking
.
Below we describe the most extraordinary actions ever performed by “sleepwalkers”:
- Lee Hadwin
is an Englishman who has been drawing since he was 4 years old. As a child, these were simple paintings, but as a teenager he began to create real works of art. Lee says he doesn't remember anything and never had any interest in painting. Music interests him much more. But the fact remains; - 23-year-old Canadian resident Michael Thomson
killed his relatives. At night, he broke into their house, strangled his father-in-law and hacked to death his mother-in-law with an ax, and then turned himself in to the police. The doctors who arrived on call performed an encephalogram on him. Her results turned out to be atypical even for a “sleepwalker.” The court acquitted the man, declaring him insane at the time of the crime; - 1.5% of the population suffers from sexsomnia
. They have sex with their partner in their sleep, not understanding what is happening. Men are more susceptible to this. Their sexual fantasies break out during this period, which leads to particularly sophisticated acts. Sometimes divorces occur because of this, because the wife thinks that the husband imagines someone else.
And these are not all the most amazing cases. People who are “sleepwalkers” send letters, drive cars, jump out of windows. They are completely unpredictable.
How to remember dreams?
Some people claim that they don't have dreams, when in fact they simply don't remember them.
. Sometimes you dream of something very interesting that you would like to remember and tell to your loved ones, but very quickly after waking up the dream disappears.
To remember your dreams, psychologists advise immediately after waking up, try not to open your eyes and not move for some time.
, mentally replaying in your head what you dreamed about during the night. You need to train every day.
To see vivid and positive dreams, it is also advised to establish a correct daily routine for yourself.
, get a good night's sleep, do not remember all the problems of the day before going to bed, but leave their solution to the morning.
You can change your dreams with the help of smells
It is well known that external stimuli, such as lights, smells or the sound of an alarm clock, can interfere with sleep, but several factors affect the quality of sleep in general
, turning a pleasant dream into a nightmare and vice versa. Smells, for example, can have a strong influence on what exactly your dream is about.
What are lucid dreams?
Lucid dreaming
– the ability to realize that you are in a dream.
As soon as you manage to realize that this is a dream, you begin to control what happens around you and do whatever you want
. It is not surprising that each of us wants this when going to sleep, but we are not always able to get into lucid dreams.
Thousands of books have been written that teach how to induce lucid dreams if desired. However, as it turns out, the easiest way to learn to have such dreams is to periodically play computer games.
.
Jayne Gackenbach
from
Grant McEwan University
believes that the ability to control actions when playing in virtual reality coincides with the ability to control what happens in a dream.
This makes it easier for gamers to learn to lucid dream
.
Jane also discovered that gamers are much less likely to have nightmares
, because when they feel a threat in a dream, they immediately take action to turn it away from themselves, as in games, rather than trying to escape.
Animals see dreams and even remember them
The long-standing question of why we dream seems to have already been answered... thanks to rats
.
Researcher Matthew Wilson
from
the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
found that when rats were taught to run in a circular path, their brain activity began to show special patterns. This was recorded using a scanner.
Wilson later scanned the brains of rats while they slept and found that nearly half the animals showed the same pattern of brain activity.
, when they were in a stage of REM sleep that coincided with the model while moving in the wheel. This means that the rats continued to run in their sleep.
