The common trait of every person in the world is the ability to dream at night. Every night, whether we remember it or not, we have a dream. Our dreams are a mysterious world, and the dream is a kind of sleeping life.
We’ve all experienced a strange array of dream types. It’s pleasant, weird, confusing, stressful, nightmarish, and just plain weird. So, does dreaming affect quality of sleep?
The Impact Of Dreams On Sleep and Daily Life
Did you wonder do dreams affect sleep quality? Here you can see the impacts of dreams on our sleep and waking life.
On Sleep
Dreaming is a normal part of healthy sleep. Dreams and sleep quality are connected. Furthermore, studies have linked dreams to effective thinking, memory, and emotional processing, and good sleep has been linked to greater cognitive performance and emotional wellness. Many experts believe that dreaming is either a reflection of or a contributor to good sleep in this way.
Dream protects sleep. Freud calls dreams the guardian of mental health.(1) The dreamer sleeps well. Quality sleep means quality mental health.
While dreams usually do not have a bad effect on sleep, the same cannot be said for nightmares that make the transition between sleep cycles difficult. While dreaming is common, some strange dreams can disrupt sleep or affect one’s mental health. Dreams don’t usually negatively affect sleep, but nightmares can happen. The way it affects sleep is that it can make it difficult to fall asleep and cause difficulty moving between sleep cycles.
People with mental health disorders, such as anxiety or post-traumatic stress disorder, may experience worse symptoms as a result of recurring nightmares.
On Daily Life
Good and bad dreams can affect daily life. Frequent nightmares can interfere with a person’s ability to fall asleep and cause sleepiness later in the day. Dreaming can also help a person develop empathy, resulting in a higher level of social competence.
Good dreams may indicate that you are getting enough sleep and waking up feeling refreshed and ready for the day. You are less likely to experience sleep disturbances and less likely to feel drowsy during the day. There’s also a link between daytime thinking and nighttime dreams. You are more likely to have happy dreams when sleeping if you think favorably during the day and at night.
Healthy dreaming could be a sign of good sleep, which promotes clearer thinking, a better mood, and general wellness. People who have negative dreams also seem to have higher rates of daytime stress and are more likely to have sleep disturbances. Those who experience happy dreams are also less prone to suffer from sleep difficulties.
On the other hand, not dreaming can mean that you are not reaching REM sleep and therefore can lead to higher rates of sleepiness, depression, and health problems.
Dreams can help us manage our emotions and process unpleasant ones, and because depressed people typically suffer from both, dreaming more frequently could be a strategy to cope with these negative emotions. The dream diary is a good way to observe these effects. Using the dreambook app, you can classify your dreams according to their themes. Thanks to the app, you can read again later and you can manage with your negative emotions.
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We dream every night even though we don't remember it, and I have noticed that the nights I have good dreams, I sleep better and wake up happy in the morning, while bad or recurring dreams negatively affect my sleep.