I recently had the observation that when I was going through really tough times with my mental health, I barely dreamt, or at least didn’t remember my dreams. That was disappointing; I’ve always thoroughly enjoyed sleeping, and my often vivid dreams gave me insight to what I was subconsciously feeling at the time. What a beautiful thing, to escape the ordinary physical bounds of the universe, and be able to create a world of your own mind. Lucid dreaming, the awareness of dreaming, is also only achieved when you’re able to grasp what is going on in your dream and take reigns. If I’m sleeping a third of my life, why wouldn’t I want to control the bizarre ideas floating in my head and make them something cool? While the purpose of dreaming is still debatable in psychology, I did also notice that my memory of my dreams returned whilst going through more positive stages in my life. Okay, this means research time. Turns out, my brain is doing it wrong. People actually dream more when going through depression. Basically, your brain works really hard during REM sleep (the period where dreams happen), and your brain continues to try to fight through these anxiety themed dreams, instead of sinking into slow-wave deep sleep (which is what restores your brain) (Agargun & Cartwright, 2003). This is why you may wake up feeling unrested and unmotivated.
The unfortunate moral of the story that I just outlined is that there’s a vicious cycle. You are going through a rough time, get no rest, wake up feeling worse, and repeat. Not fun, not cool. What can we do? Here are some neat-o things that I like:
- Meditating. Another blogger a few posts down talked about her experience, and to reiterate, it’s worth it! Let your mind breathe during its waking hours to promote a more relaxed sleeping state.
- Lucid dreaming. It’s really cool. You basically get to take control of your dream and change the mood however you like. You can even confront the things in your nightmares and change them from “a source of fear [to an] opportunity to grow” (Turner, 2015).
- Write your dreams down. Not only does this help with lucid dreaming, but it can help you notice themes and patterns, which can help you understand and confront possible underlying issues. Have a happy sleep, my friends.
Written by Taryn Nowak-Stoppel
References:
Agargun, M., & Cartwright, R. (2003). REM Sleep, Dream Variables, and Suicidality in Depressed Patients. Psychiatry Research, 119(1-2), 33-39. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0165-1781(03)00111-2
Turner, Rebecca. (2014). Escape from Nightmares with Lucid Dreaming. http://www.world-of-lucid-dreaming.com/escaping-from-nightmares.html