Do you feel irritable? Trouble concentrating? Feel stuck? Can’t remember your dreams? If so, you may not be getting enough sleep.
Every night we go through five different sleep phases. A five-stage cycle typically lasts 90 minutes, but each stage of sleep can vary in time, depending on the individual. We dream during the fifth stage, called rapid eye movement (REM).
This dream of stealing, or being chased, or realizing you forgot your locker combination, or wearing pants may be your brain’s way of discharging unprocessed feelings related to recent events in your life.
New neurological studies suggest that dreaming during REM sleep may be necessary for mood regulation and memory recall, which means that over time, a lack of dreaming could affect your overall performance.
Interestingly, drugs used to treat Alzheimer’s disease are said to produce more REM sleep, suggesting a link between dreaming and memory function.
People who do not dream at all or not enough may be irritable and have difficulty concentrating, getting work done, and relationships.
Another study found that people with depression and anxiety tend to have more REM sleep than average and not enough deep sleep, which may explain why they wake up exhausted every morning.
While deep sleep helps boost the immune system and restore energy levels, REM sleep can help us have better focus and a more balanced temperament.
Thus, getting the right amount of all stages of sleep appears to be necessary for maintaining physical and mental health.
Not surprisingly, modern life disrupts both the quality of sleep and the amount of sleep we get.
Alcohol, stimulants, cannabis, stress, tranquilizers, sleeping pills, computer screens, certain types of antidepressants, and poor sleep habits all help inhibit REM sleep and dreaming.
Many people report a spike in full-blown dreams or nightmares when they stop using drugs, sleeping pills, medications, or alcohol, as the brain readjusts to normal sleep cycles.
Hypnotherapy is a method of intentionally inducing the REM sleep cycle in a controlled manner and in a setting, such as in a lucid dream, allowing you to process and release underlying feelings that may be sabotaging you.
A good hypnotherapist only acts as a guide. Sometimes guided and interactive imagery is even based on characters from your dreams.
However, unlike dreams or drugs, in hypnotherapy you can stop the process at any time.
Have you ever had one of those nightmares in which you try to wake up, move or call, and you can’t? Since you are usually self-aware during a hypnotherapy session, you always possess the ability to open your eyes at all times.
So if you’re having trouble concentrating, feeling stuck, or feeling like something’s bothering you but you can’t put your finger on it, maybe learning what you can do to have more dreams during REM sleep might be the solution.
