What Does It Mean to Have the Same Reoccurring Topics Come Up Again and Again Throughout the Day

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The Scientific discipline of Recurring Dreams Is More than Fascinating Than We Always Imagined

Having the same dream again and once again is a well-known miracle — nigh 2-thirds of the population study having recurring dreams. Being chased, finding yourself naked in a public place or in the middle of a natural disaster, losing your teeth or forgetting to go to class for an entire semester are typical recurring scenarios in these dreams.

But where does the miracle come from? The science of dreams shows that recurring dreams may reflect unresolved conflicts in the dreamer'southward life.

Recurring dreams often occur during times of stress, or over long periods of time, sometimes several years or fifty-fifty a lifetime. Not simply do these dreams have the same themes, they can also repeat the same narrative night afterward night.

Although the exact content of recurring dreams is unique to every private, there are common themes amongst individuals and even amid cultures and in different periods. For example, existence chased, falling, being unprepared for an exam, arriving late or trying to exercise something repeatedly are among the nigh prevalent scenarios.

The majority of recurring dreams have negative content involving emotions such as fear, sadness, anger and guilt. More than half of recurring dreams involve a situation where the dreamer is in danger. But some recurring themes tin also be positive, even euphoric, such as dreams where we find new rooms in our business firm, erotic dreams or where nosotros fly.

In some cases, recurring dreams that begin in babyhood can persist into adulthood. These dreams may disappear for a few years, reappear in the presence of a new source of stress and and so disappear over again when the state of affairs is over.

Unresolved conflicts

Why does our encephalon play the same dreams over and over over again? Studies suggest that dreams, in general, help us regulate our emotions and adjust to stressful events. Incorporating emotional material into dreams may let the dreamer to process a painful or difficult result.

In the case of recurrent dreams, repetitive content could correspond an unsuccessful effort to integrate these difficult experiences. Many theories agree that recurring dreams are related to unresolved difficulties or conflicts in the dreamer'due south life.

The presence of recurrent dreams has besides been associated with lower levels of psychological wellbeing and the presence of symptoms of anxiety and depression. These dreams tend to recur during stressful situations and cease when the person has resolved their personal conflict, which indicates improved wellbeing.

Recurrent dreams often metaphorically reverberate the emotional concerns of the dreamers. For example, dreaming about a tsunami is common post-obit trauma or abuse. This is a typical example of a metaphor that tin stand for emotions of helplessness, panic or fear experienced in waking life.

Similarly, beingness inappropriately dressed in ane's dream, being naked or non being able to find a toilet can all represent scenarios of embarrassment or modesty.

These themes can be idea of as scripts or ready-to-dream scenarios that provide us with a space where we can digest our conflicting emotions. The same script can be reused in different situations where we feel similar emotions.

This is why some people, when faced with a stressful state of affairs or a new challenge, may dream they're showing upwardly unprepared for a math exam, even years after they have ready foot in a school. Although the circumstances are dissimilar, a similar feeling of stress or desire to excel can trigger the aforementioned dream scenario again.

A continuum of repetition

William Domhoff, an American researcher and psychologist, proposes the concept of a continuum of repetition in dreams. At the extreme end, traumatic nightmares directly reproduce a lived trauma — 1 of the main symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder.

And so there are recurring dreams where the same dream content is replayed in role or in its entirety. Unlike traumatic dreams, recurring dreams rarely replay an event or conflict directly but reflect it metaphorically through a central emotion.

Further forth the continuum are the recurring themes in dreams. These dreams tend to replay a similar state of affairs, such as being tardily, being chased or existence lost, but the verbal content of the dream differs from in one case to the next, such as beingness tardily for a train rather than for an exam.

Finally, at the other end of the continuum, we notice certain dream elements recurring in the dreams of one private, such every bit characters, deportment or objects. All these dreams would reflect, at different levels, an attempt to resolve sure emotional concerns.

Moving from an intense level to a lower level on the continuum of repetition is often a sign that a person's psychological land is improving. For example, in the content of traumatic nightmares progressive and positive changes are often observed in people who have experienced trauma as they gradually overcome their difficulties.

Physiological phenomena

Why do the themes tend to exist the aforementioned from person to person? One possible caption is that some of these scripts have been preserved in humans due to the evolutionary advantage they bring. By simulating a threatening situation, the dream of being chased, for instance, provides a space for a person to practise perceiving and escaping predators in their slumber.

Some common themes may also be explained, in part, past physiological phenomena that take place during sleep. A 2018 written report by a inquiry team in Israel institute that dreaming of losing one's teeth was non particularly linked to symptoms of feet just rather associated to teeth clenching during slumber or dental discomfort upon waking.

When nosotros sleep, our brain is not completely cut off from the outside earth. Information technology continues to perceive external stimuli, such as sounds or smells, or internal body sensations. That means that other themes, such as not being able to notice a toilet or being naked in a public space, could actually exist spurred past the need to urinate during the dark or past wearing loose pyjamas in bed.

Some concrete phenomena specific to REM sleep, the stage of sleep when we dream the most, could as well be at play. In REM sleep, our muscles are paralyzed, which could provoke dreams of having heavy legs or existence paralyzed in bed.

Similarly, some authors take proposed that dreams of falling or flying are caused past our vestibular system, which contributes to balance and can reactivate spontaneously during REM slumber. Of class, these sensations are not sufficient to explain the recurrence of these dreams in some people and their sudden occurrence in times of stress, but they probably play a significant role in the construction of our most typical dreams.

Breaking the cycle

People who experience a recurring nightmare take in some ways become stuck in a particular way of responding to the dream scenario and anticipating information technology. Therapies have been adult to try to resolve this recurrence and intermission the vicious cycle of nightmares.

One technique is to visualize the nightmare while awake then rewrite it, that is, to modify the narrative past changing one aspect, for instance, the end of the dream to something more positive. Lucid dreaming may also be a solution.

In lucid dreams nosotros become aware that we are dreaming and tin can sometimes influence the content of the dream. Becoming lucid in a recurring dream might allow united states of america to recollect or react differently to the dream and thereby alter the repetitive nature of it.

However, non all recurring dreams are bad in themselves. They can fifty-fifty exist helpful insofar as they are informing us most our personal conflicts. Paying attention to the repetitive elements of dreams could be a way to better understand and resolve our greatest desires and torments.

Claudia Picard-Deland, Candidate au doctorat en neurosciences, Université de Montréal and Tore Nielsen, Professor of Psychiatry, Université de Montréal.

This article is republished from The Chat under a Creative Eatables license. Read the original commodity.

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Source: https://www.sciencealert.com/the-science-of-recurring-dreams-is-more-fascinating-than-we-ever-imagined