There are dreams that prepare us to face our fears, this dreamlike universe to which the brain takes us every night sometimes fulfills a goal that we could call therapeutic, according to recent studies many of our anxieties and fears arise in this unconscious scenario to help regulate their impact in conscious life.
The data is impressive to say the least. To think that a bad dream or even a nightmare has a specific purpose for our balance, adaptation and well-being is something as interesting as it is surprising, especially since few things are as enigmatic in the dream world as this dimension that until recently was completely beyond our comprehension.
- Throughout the eighteenth century.
- Nightmares were considered diseases of the mind.
- Like those states in which human suffering manifested.
- An idea that has evolved over time.
- Today.
- Subject matter experts.
- Such as dr.
- Deirdre Barrett.
- Clinical psychologist at Cambridge Health Alliance.
- Defines them as emotional responses that are part of our evolution.
Children between the age of 3 and 6 are known to have more nightmares, the environment around them is full of things they don’t understand, dimensions they interpret as threatening and that end up appearing in their dreams in a terrifying way. and mature, these dying dream worlds disappear.
We’ll learn more about it below
Cognitive behavioral therapy uses a specific strategy to cause patients to reduce the intensity of their emotional response to certain fears, phobias or situations that cause them high stress, this approach is an exposure therapy, in which the person is directly exposed to this distress Of course, these are always very controlled situations.
Interestingly, we all leave the factory with a similar mechanism for the same purpose, a mechanism that helps us deal with our fears. Moreover, this unique resource of the human being is even more realistic. They are, of course, dreams. Some more, others less, but each had some experience in the sleep scenario where they find themselves facing their most everyday or unfavorable fears.
A job interview, an exam, getting on a plane, fear of being abandoned or betrayed by your partner, etc. , each of these situations is, for many, a source of distress, the brain knows it and often moves these hot places to dream fabric for an adaptive purpose.
It seeks to expose us to these fears to give visibility to our problem and force us to solve it, however, it often does so using complex symbology that is not always easy to unravel.
It may not be easy to believe. To think that our bad dreams would help us face our fears is difficult to accept for several reasons. The first, because unpleasant dreams cause discomfort, and it’s not easy to assume they can help us with something.
Second, many of us do not remember our dreams. So how do you explain this goal? Last year, the University of Geneva, the University Hospitals of Geneva (HUG) and the University of Wisconsin (USA)U. S. ) They published an interesting study.
What has been seen through a long search is that bad dreams intensely activate our brain amygdala, the structure responsible for generating the feeling of fear and alarm, in this study participants were trained to write down their dreams every night and try to understand them, to make sense of them.
Many of these bad dreams were related to real problems, stressful situations or anxiety; The mere fact of understanding the message of these dreams helped them reduce the emotional load, in addition, it has also helped to develop coping strategies.
However, the study notes that nightmares do not have the same goal, these, unlike nightmares, where fear is moderate, are defined by an excessive intensity of emotions, which have a very negative impact on us.
Dr. Lampros Perogamvros, one of the researchers in the study, notes that, based on their results, we can set the goal of getting dreams and understanding them to help us treat anxiety disorders, it would not be an exclusive form of therapy. but a tool to address the focus of problems, as well as a way to regulate emotional impact.
In a way, this idea corresponds to what Carl Jung once told us: the unconscious world and the fabric of dreams seek nothing more than to restore psychological balance, this is yet another channel to understand and use to our advantage. to record our bad dreams, understand them, accept them, and make changes in our conscious lives to face our fears.
A complicated but interesting task that is definitely worth getting involved in.