What should I do if I’m bothered by my dreams, and they aren’t really nightmares?
Many people contact the Dream & Nightmare Laboratoryfor advice about dreams that are disturbing because they are vivid, strange, bizarre, too frequentor odd in some other way. They are not really nightmares, which we define as dreams in which you typically feel threatened, afraid or terrified.There are now available a variety of treatments for nightmares that are drug-based (usually for PTSD nightmares)or non-drug-based (usually for nontraumatic nightmares). If your disturbing dreams are primarily nightmaresand, especially, if you have experienced some kind of trauma, one of these types of treatments may be helpful (see links).
Rather, the dreams in question disturb people because they are invasive in ways that nightmares may not be. We have identified several kinds—and there are likely many more. If you would like to report one of these types of dreams to us, please follow this link to the dream-reporting page.
My dreams are vividly real.
The dreams may be so vivid and real that the dreamer feelstrapped inside of some type of alternate reality. Visual, auditory or even tactual details may be extremely vivid and maylead to difficulties in knowing whether or not you are awake. Sometimes a person may become lucid at this time, i.e., be aware that a dream is occurring, yet still be unable to wake up.
My dreams are grisly or macabre in some way.
Some individuals describe dreams whose contents are very bizarre or macabre but, again, are not necessarily like typical nightmares. For example, dreamers may find themselves in strange environments made of strange materials or interacting with strangers who appear unusual, even alien, to them in some way. Or they might find themselves performing some behaviors that are very much out of character for them, like brutalizing animals or smoking cigarettes. Macabre dreams have been studied in the context of individuals with psychosomatic problems, for example, patients with arthritis, and may reflect the conflicting emotional responses such individuals commonly have. The content of macabre dreams, like that of many other vivid dream types, may be usefully explored in psychotherapy to gain insight into the origins of the most disturbing images.
My dreams are bizarre in some other way.
Some dreams may be disturbing because they depict characters, situations or events that are bizarre. The term bizarre is difficult to define consistently for everyone; people tend to report dream bizarre dream content that is quite unique to their particular life circumstances. Regardless of the specifics of the dreams, however, what is most important is the emotion resulting from the dream that is disturbing. We think that there is a close relationship between the specific nature of an emotional issue and the bizarreness of specific dream contents. Paying attention to what makes the dream bizarre for you may help reveal some of the dimensions of the feelings behind the dream.
I am intensely sad in my dreams.
Sadness may develop in dreams, sometime to the point where you dream you are weeping and, in fact, your sleeping body shows all the signs of it (tears, sobbing, facial expressions). In a given year, such dreams are reported by over 50% of college students, so are likely a fairly normal event. If sadness dreams occur very often then they may signify an emotional issue that needs attention. Sadness in dreams likely does not signify the same kind of problem as dreamed fear. Sadness is often associated with the loss of someone or something very close to you. Researchers have named dreams with intense sadness ‘existential dreams’ and these are often reported by individuals who are actively grieving the death of a loved one. Sadness dreams may provide you with insights into your feelings of loss if you take the time to reflect on them in a sensitive fashion during the daytime. A therapist could also be very helpful in gaining insight from such dreams, especially if they are a response to a prior, unresolved loss.
My dreams are too long.
The content of some dreams may be disturbing simply because they seem to go on forever. Some dreamers describe these as very long, boring dreams in which the same uninteresting actions are repeated over and over endlessly, night after night. Common themes are walking long distances, cleaning house for hours on end or repeating some thankless chore. Many individuals state that they awaken from these kinds of dreams feeling tired, as if they had spent the whole night exerting themselves in dream activity rather than in resting peacefully. They may even avoid sleeping so as to minimize the amount of dreaming they do. The condition of long tiring dreams like these has been labeled ‘epic dreaming’ by sleep clinicians.Some people with epic dreaming also have nightmares or have had nightmares in the past but no longer do. Epic dreaming hasbeen studied very little; there is only a single multiple case-study paper and a one-case laboratory report in the literature(links; Mahowald & Schenk; Nielsen & Zadra).
My dreams are too frequent.
Some people report remembering dreams very frequently, sometimes up to 5 separate dreams per night.It is likely that such people are remembering their dreams from every REM sleep period of the night because REM sleep periods (when the most intense dreams take place) are timed at intervals of 90 minutes; you may therefore have 5 or more REM period dreams in a single 8-hour stretch of sleep. This can be a problem if you tend to wake up after each of these dreams. Some avid dreamers, over a period of several months or years, have trained themselves to wake up, remember and record their dreams. They might find themselves in this kind of situation of having too much recall. If the recall of dreaming becomes distressing or interferes with the refreshing function of sleep, an intentional forgetting of dreams may be advisable. This may require a kind of reverse training of dream remembering, during which you purposely take no interest in dreams, try not to remember them, write them down or tell them to other people. While this could progressively diminish the problem, it is not a technique that has been clinically tested.
My dreams have repetitive content.
Repetitive or recurrent dreams are well-known to clinicians and scientists. The same themes tend to recur in different dreams on different nights. Sometimes there may be replication of specific events that have happened in the past. Exact replications of past events may be rare, but replications with some variations may occur more frequently. Recurrence of dream content is not, in itself, a problem, but if the themes or details of the dreams are linked with negative emotions, then they might well cause some amount of distress. Replicative dreams are often the consequent of experiencing a traumatic or other highly charged emotional event, and these may be quite disturbing and require treatment by a specialist in trauma or PTSD. Dreams with disturbing recurrent themes may also be associated with diminished well-being that could benefit from counseling or therapy.
My dreams have disappeared or become diminished in some way.
Some people might be disturbed by the fact that they recall no dreams, very few dreams or dreams with very sparse content. This may be especially troubling for those who have in the past had quite high dream recall. Low dream recall may be associated with a number of different conditions but at present it is unknown whether there are any serious consequences to not remembering much dream content. (see PPSM5)