Dreams & Stress

[Eazy]

Alright I had a really wacky dream that seemed to drain alot of my energy today.. It's weird because I had a good 10 hours of sleep but anyways...

The dream was pretty messed up, I remember running through the desert, and then at one point I was with some friends and we were running in the snowstorm and I remember falling in the snow and the snow was swallowing me to the bottom. I was then helped by a friend to get up .

but then the most crazy part came in, I was then in the ocean swimming in the waves (I love doing this when I go to the beach once every few years)
while swimming I realised the waves were coming in bigger and bigger, I was then thrown underwater by a powerful wave and soon I was overwhelmed by the incoming waves.

I kind of figured this was a stress dream. Because lately things have been rough for me (taking a semester off college, working only a few days a week, not seeing my girlfriend much, withdrawal from heavy use of alcohol and weed since I cut down on both..)

Do you guys believe in your dreams correlating with your daytime self reflections?

 

[CoffeeDrinker]

I had a really weird dream a few weeks back where I was shot in the stomach from the very start of it and I just bled out, trying to hold on as long as possible before slipping into nothingness. It coincided with withdrawals, so my head was in a weird space. Idk but it was startling.

 

[malakaix]

Do you guys believe in your dreams correlating with your daytime self reflections?

Absolutely.

I've noticed my dreams usually manifest my obsessions; whatever im primarily concerned with before going to sleep will manifest itself within the dream. This is a handy trick to know if you ever want to attempt lucid dreaming.. but that's another topic. The dream i has last night was essentially a direct reflection of what i was doing the hours before going to sleep which was playing Magic the Gathering through Steam, i went to sleep and continued to 'play' it in my dream because my entire attention was focused on game-play strategies and possible combinations before i went to sleep.

If im not concerned or stressed about anything, i usually wont even remember my dreams.. Your dream in-particular seems to suggest feeling overwhelmed by life itself, that you have no control which is likely represented by the natural forces in the dream. If your good at understanding metaphors, you can usually do well to understand the relationship between the dreams images and your emotions and thoughts in real life.

 

[PriestTheyCalledHim]

If you're having stress, anxiety or anything like that in your life then your dreams can reflect this.

I remember when I had a lot of anxiety in my life I had some very fucked up nightmares and dreams where violence happened.

 

[Eazy]

Yeah I've realised the ocean was a metaphor for my life situation right now, because im in a non stable position right now and I constantly put myself in trouble.
So i guess thats where the ocean comes in play, I keep "almost drowning" because I cant find stability , and the shit keeps piling up .

I have alot of dreams where I fall asleep swimin through some type of void... I like those they feel good. When I've been drinking and smoking weed I often fall asleep with the same "mental picture" theres a type of arc of colorful energy that moves like a clock's hands ,, only when I drink do i see this .. its fucked

 

[twentysix]

I believe so...

I've been dealing with a lot of stress lately, too.. legal issues involving a five year suspension hanging over my head, which just got fixed more or less (I have my license), a lack of a job, dealing with recognizing that I have a great difficulty with dealing with the modern world, in the form of chemical sensitivities. To what extent I want to diagnose myself, is another story... I hate the diagnosis "multiple chemical sensitivities" because for me it's mainly involving fragrances, it seems. It seems. They give me headaches, many of them. Headaches, they aggravate an old condition at times, which I've kept under control, that at least resembles "trigeminal neuralgia" and at one time was definitely full on that... but now is not usually as bad.

My fragrance sensitivities have been making me feel more or less disabled. I've been researching for hours on end safehouse options, with little to no luck, especially considering I am not at all rich or with training that can allow me to survive... trying to find a job where I'm not going to run into "idiots" (my response) that wear cologne and whatnot. I frequently consider suicide. One recent fragrance that I ran into causes such a strong reaction that I immediately taste it on my tongue. It can be 10 feet away and I can hours even days later still smell it as if it's on me. My skin will burn in response to it... it's just really fucked up. Psychological effects also happen. Another thing that happens with this is really strange dreams (although interesting/entertaining). I have recently been detailing some of my dreams, though not in complete detail even though the journals are long (I keep wanting to add detail), at http://www.acausal.net, if you are interested. A lot of it is painful for me to go back and read, sometimes, but it's an outlet of mine. I'd like others to read it, but I understand it it's hard to, as a lot of it is stream of thought. Not to advertise myself here, but dreaming is something I try to keep accounts of on there.

The amygdala is something I've been doing some reading on lately, and it's intimate connection with stress-responses, fight or flight modulating in that regard, and other emotions, it's connection with the hippocampus and temporal lobe (and .. everything)... the amygdala "goes ballistic" when dreaming. Being that it's a stress center- one that determines threats, etc... this definitely correlates with life stressors. In my case, I have perhaps a damaged area somewhere in there, or at least lets say it's been heavily altered due to years of abuse. I have my own theories about this, which I briefly tried to detail in my blog there that I linked to... but I am not a professional, no way. I'm just guessing.

But yes, your life stress, however your brain is interpreting things, will come through in dreams, as your brain uses this time to reorganize itself, and learn/problem solve. I have noticed, for instance, in regard to dreaming... I don't get that good at a new game with new ways of play immediately when I first play it- often, even if I played the prequel. It takes a night or two of dreaming. I'm wondering if there's an actual set way, if we knew everything about our base state, to force sleep/learn after controlled exposures to material to learn.

malakaix said something about not remembering dreams if not stressed, and this intrigues me... as lately I've been remembering my dreams in great detail. This too could connect with the amygdala naturally going crazy during dreaming, being a stress center of the brain. Dreaming at a level where we remember it could be a result of the brain trying to fix problems, or even provide an outlet of sorts for the individual, in the form of entertainment (in itself valuable).

Anyways, time for me to stop rambling.