Recurring Dreams Meaning: Why Adults Who Frequently Experience This Have Worse Psychological Health?
Dreaming about the same thing several times could be jarring. Some don't believe that recurrent dreams have meaning, but they could be related to your mental health.
Recurring Dreams Meaning
A common element of Freudian dream theory was that dreams had hidden meanings. However, the notion that dreams with the same themes or content have universal significance is not well supported by data. However, examining the significance of your dreams for you individually can still be worthwhile, especially in a therapeutic setting.
Regardless of the subject matter of the dreams, having recurrent dreams may indicate deeper problems. Many experts speculate that adults who have recurrent dreams on a regular basis may be processing trauma or unfulfilled needs. Additionally, their dreams could be tied to frustrations and past issues that haven't been addressed. Adults who reportedly experience recurrent dreams frequently have worse psychological health.
Another hypothesis is that frequent dreams may have allowed our ancestors to practice identifying and avoiding calamities or danger.
Individuals who experience higher levels of psychological stress are more likely to have more unfavorable recurrent nightmares; however, happy recurring dreams are not correlated with lower levels of stress.
Recurring dreams are common, but they can also be signs of generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). These illnesses also cause other notable symptoms in their sufferers.
In addition, reoccurring nightmares are often different in PTSD patients than in non-pts. One of their most frequent dreams is going back to the original incident that gave rise to their PTSD.
The most frequent cause of adult epilepsy that is challenging to treat is temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE). A typical symptom of TLE is recurring nightmares, which can be brought on by nocturnal seizures or the impact of REM sleep on the temporal lobe. Individuals who suffer from TLE frequently experience vivid, disturbing dreams that might evoke powerful emotions or sensations of dread. These dreams are less prevalent in patients receiving effective medication, and they often start shortly after a person has their first seizure.
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Recurrent Dreams Are Part of You
Recurrent dreams are not nightmares; some instances just lean negative. For instance, common recurrent dreams are cracking and falling teeth, flying away, driving a car, or running late for school, work, or flight.
According to dream researcher Deirdre Barrett, a lecturer of psychology in the Department of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, recurring dreams are more about one's "very profound life experiences or just very character logic issues that are kind of guaranteed to recur in waking life because they're part of you rather than a one-time event."
According to Barrett, all it takes for a dream to be deemed recurring is to occur twice or more, as most dreams do not repeat themselves. They are more prevalent in childhood but can persist throughout age. Furthermore, recurrent dreams don't always occur in close succession; they can occur several times a month or years apart.
Recurring dreams could be the same every time or repeat the same situations or anxieties.
As most people do not experience repeated dreams frequently, it is challenging to determine the prevalence of this condition, according to clinical psychologist Dr. Nirit Soffer-Dudek, senior lecturer in the psychology department at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Israel.
In addition, people's answers to questions concerning past dreams may be impacted by misremembered events, a lack of interest in dreams, or other variables.
Regardless, Silicon Psych founder and sleep medicine expert Dr. Alex Dimitriu recommends that anything that comes up repeatedly is worth investigating.
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