The last 16 months have impacted us in multiple ways. Stress may have crept in quietly and eroded away our resilience or crashed in at times unannounced and knocked us off-kilter. We all need a certain amount of stress in our daily lives to get us out of bed in the...
Types of dreams
How to survive the summer holidays
Are you dreading the summer holidays? Or excited for them to start? Or maybe you have mixed feelings about them. Here are some ideas to make the most of the break Don't over plan. Firstly, children need downtime as much as adults, especially at the beginning and...
Working with the Unconscious in Psychotherapy
The uniqueness of the psychoanalytic model of psychotherapy is that we work with the unconscious. But what does this mean? What exactly is the unconscious? What is the Unconscious? Practically speaking, in the field of psychotherapy, the unconscious is the part...
How To manage uncertainty
It’s been difficult for many of us over the last year. So many changes here in the UK. At times it felt like change was the new normal, in fact, change was the constant. As restrictions are lifted there are more shifting sands, because there’s yet more uncertainty...
Difficult Mother’s Day Ahead?
Mother's Day means different things for all of us. It can conjure up wonderful images and memories of young children making cute cards, or posies of garden flowers or precovid family lunches with 3 or 4 generations present. This year Mother’s Day will be like no...
Are You Ready To Date Again?
Fed up being single? Feeling lonely when you are single is common for many people. In fact, it’s normal at times. Do you find yourself alone and lacking compared to your doubled friends’ evenings together? Do you wish you also had someone to go running with, lie in...
How to Manage Anxiety – in the Coronavirus Pandemic
Anxiety has risen exponentially since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic and at times it can feel overwhelming. Everyone needs a certain amount of stress to get stuff done but when this anxiety becomes unmanageable, we need to act. If you are suffering from one...
Christmas in the Time of Covid
The festive season can be challenging for many people. However this year especially, it will be difficult for most of us one way or another. We will have to make do with phone and video calls to stay in touch with people who we would normally be with. We will be...
Being Made Redundant
Losing our job or business can be devastating. I am reminded of a poignant part of the film The Full Monty when we see the redundant manager of the steel works, Gerald, getting ready for work each morning. He was pretending to his wife that nothing has changed...
Loneliness
Time alone is necessary for our mental well being. When we spend time by ourselves we are able to rest from the stresses and strains of everyday life. We give ourselves the mental space to process our thoughts and then re engage with others in a more relaxed way...
Types of Dreams
Every dream is as unique as the dreamer, but there are specific types of dreams
that most commonly find their way into my consulting room. These are daydreams, vivid dreams, recurring dreams, lucid dreams, nightmares and night terrors. This month, I will focus on the first four types.
Daydreams
Daydreams are more common than we might think. I think there is a general misconception that children daydream the most. This is not true. Many adults also daydream whilst awake and conscious. It is a way of distracting us from what is going on in the moment, often to escape something we don’t want to think about, experience or remember.
To take us away from what’s going on in the here and now, we might, for example, wish we were still on holiday swinging in that hammock overlooking the lagoon in the south pacific. Or it can be consciously wishing things could be different from how they are currently, so we focus on the stranger we are attracted to, rather than our partner who is being particularly annoying and difficult.
Daydreams might also involve delving into a fantasy either involving the world we are in, or one we have entirely imagined and created ourselves. Whatever we daydream, the purpose is still to move our focus, consciously or unconsciously, from what’s currently going on to a more inward focus, so we can ignore and avoid what we don’t want to think about.
Once we become more aware of the content of our daydreams and the purpose they serve, perhaps through exploration in therapy, it’s interesting how they become less frequent and less useful to us. We can then engage more fully in our daily lives, rather than living in an alternate reality or fantasy for much of the time.
Vivid Dreams
Vivid dreams are the ones that we remember easily. They are very realistic and we may wake up feeling that we are still involved in the dream. Vivid dreams can occur when we are particularly tired or stressed. They are a gift to the therapist because they can be very easy for the dreamer to catch hold of, keep and remember. There is often a useful message or symbolism in the vivid dream which the dreamer can sometimes work out for themselves easily with little or no exploring with the therapist.
Recurring Dreams
Recurring dreams are more common than we might think. Some people can regularly dream the same dream from childhood for years. I find it fascinating how the same dream repeats itself again and again. It’s as if the unconscious is desperately trying to tell the dreamer something and won’t let it go until they get it! Another theory of the recurring dream is that it can be a way for the dreamer’s psyche to switch off from whatever is concerning the dreamer. I often find when a dreamer spends time in a therapy session giving the recurring dream time and attention, it becomes very clear what the dream means to them. Once figured out, the dream often fades.
Lucid Dreams
Lucid dreams especially fascinate me. They are the dreams in which the dreamer is awake or appears to be awake. The dreamer becomes aware of what they are dreaming and can even change or tweak their dreams to how they want them in real time.
Lucid dreams generally happen in the rapid eye movement (REM) phase of sleep when we are sleeping quite lightly, perhaps on the border between sleep and wakefulness ie when consciousness is poking through our unconscious.
It can feel unsettling and confusing to be aware of our dreams whilst we are having them, and even disturbing to feel we are in control and can change the plot and course of a dream. However, if we change the course of our dreams to what we wish to happen, then this is generally a powerful and fulfilling position to be in and usually the dreamer wakes feeling satisfied and content with how the dream ended.
Nightmares and night terrors are also a very common type of dream. I will be exploring these more fully in my next blog post…
Photo by Jaime Handley on Unsplash