An anxiety dream is an unpleasant dream that can be more or less disturbing than a nightmare. Anxiety dreams are characterized by feelings of unease, distress, or fear in the dreamer upon awakening. Dreams of anxiety occur in rapid eye movement sleep, and common themes involve incomplete tasks, shyness, falling, or chasing. Dream anxiety can be caused by childhood trauma, or adults dealing with conflict. Although they create anxiety in the dreamer, the anxiety dream also serves as a way for one's ego to be rearranged.
Video Anxiety dream
Classification and provenan
Although most individuals who are awakened by distracting dreams may call it a nightmare, the classification is not that simple. Anxiety dreams, dreams of punishment, nightmares, post-traumatic dreams, and night terrors are difficult to distinguish because they generally grow under the term, "nightmare". However, different types of dreams have different qualities. The stage in which dreams occur is the key. Anxiety dreams, dreams of punishment, nightmares, or post-traumatic dreams occur in the REM sleep stage, while night terrors will occur at the NREM stage.
Ernest Jones, author of On The Nightmare , states that the characteristics of nightmares are: "Intense or painful fear, a dangerous sense of oppression or heavy chest threatens the continuation of breathing, and the dreamer's belief of being helpless or paralyzed. "Published in 1911, this characteristic persisted for sixty years until American sleep researcher Charles Fisher and his colleagues acknowledged that they were too broad. Fisher concluded that a sad dream in REM sleep would contain a heavy feeling in the chest and a sense of helplessness, but intense or torturous fear is the NREM dream characteristic. These dreams are better known as night terrors.
The sharing of dreams is troublesome in a fine REM sleep. The difference between dreams of anxiety and nightmares comes at what, the contributing author of The Nightmare , Ruth Bers Shapiro calls the "very disturbing" content that distinguishes the nightmare of anxiety dreams.
Maps Anxiety dream
Common themes
Common themes in anxiety dreams involve incomplete tasks. This can include things like an unpacked suitcase or a test that has not been taken yet. Another common theme is the loss of family members. Freud explains that these dreams fall into two categories: "in which there is sadness inherent in death and those without sorrow." Other themes can involve shame, such as public nudity. Dreams falling or being chased are also prevalent in anxiety dreams. This usually occurs at the beginning of sleep during pictorial awareness and has little structure or plot.
Pre-Freudian Explanation
In the literature
Dream anxiety has a long tradition in literature (West), beginning with Homer, which describes in Book 12 of the Iliad how Achilles was unable to pursue Hector, "As in a dream a man can not follow someone who runs away from him, nor can he escape from the runner, or else chase after him, so he can not run at his speed, or else become clear. " This anxiety of not being able to escape (or pursue) was borrowed from Homer by Virgil in Book XII of Aeneid , where Turnus could not catch up with Aeneas; then the dream was found (always in simile, never reported directly) in Oppian's Halieutica , in Torquato Tasso Jerusalem Delivered and in Phineas Fletcher Locusts > and Purple Island , became "burlesqued" in Samuel Butler's Hudibras . The more direct related anxiety dream is Eve in Books 4 and 5 of John Milton Paradise Lost, who dreams of prophecy that he will eat the fruit of a forbidden tree, an event that will take place in Book 9 Another such anxiety dream found in the Anglo-Saxon elegy "The Wanderer" and in the Arthurian romance such as Wolfram von Eschenbach Parzival and Sir Gawain and Green Knight (1750-55).
Provided origin
In contrast to the supernatural and somatic origins for dreams posed in the classical dream theory, the dream of anxiety is considered a continuation of the mind when interrupted by sleep. Such references are found (cryptically) in Greek writers including pre-Socrates and Herodotus, and (more explicitly) in Ecclesiastes 5: 3 and Ecclesiastes 34: 1-7. Aristotle asserts in Problemata that the awakened mind is passed on to sleep, and even some prophetic dreams (which are usually divinely inspired) may result from continuing anxiety in dreams. This theory is confirmed by Cicero ( De diviniatione ), Lucretius, and Petronius (Fragment 31). The English translation of the medieval verse by the seventeenth-century poet Abraham Cowley: "What on that day he feared the future/Night in dreams, like the truth, will affect his mind."
Freudian Theory
Function
Freud's theory is described in his book Interpretation of Dreams . One aspect of Freud's work is his desire fulfillment theory; However, anxiety dreams are not always considered appropriate in this theory. Why would someone want anxiety? Freud expects others to show inconsistencies, and psychoanalyst Charles Brenner does just that. Freud replied to Brenner by explaining the various ways that the dreams of anxiety and the fulfillment of desire can be intertwined. Freud gives a specific example where a child dreams that his mother has disappeared and he has no one to comfort him. Freud explained, "the child dreams of exchanging affection with his mother and sleeping with her, but all the fun turns into anxiety, and all ideational content becomes the opposite." In this way the function of anxiety dreams is to disguise the fulfillment of bad desires with the feeling of punishment and anxiety that is generated.
Cause
Dream anxiety often comes from childhood trauma. One factor in this case is the developing child's ego. This is especially true for children about one year. At this age anxiety dreams occur because the child's ego can not integrate their daily experiences. Shapiro also explained that growing ego is easily influenced by the trauma and conflicts that children may experience. This is an important factor because the ego-defense mechanisms (such as repression and intellectualization) are key in overcoming anxiety and nightmare dreams.
Conflict in the child's life as well as approaching the stage of development can also cause anxiety dreams. For example, there may be conflict when a child starts toilet training. "Toilet training triggers a conflict between the desire to be grounded and the fear of losing the love of parents, if during this period the child experiences a disturbing experience that makes him feel helpless and unprotected, his anxiety over the disapproval of the parents is aggravated." This anxiety is most likely to cause anxiety dreams in a child.
Effects
Positive
Dream anxiety has an important function. When the ego has been overworked, it is often the only way that it can be reset is when one wakes up. Dream anxiety will build until the dreamer is forced to wake up and let the ego refocus. Shapiro also notes that anxiety dreams can function in "warning the dreamer to a psychologically dangerous situation".
Negative
General anxiety is the negative effect of dream anxiety. Individuals who face difficulties in their dreams have been found to have general anxiety more often than those who experience real life events that can be equally stressful.
Treatment
Barry KrakÃÆ'ów develops three steps to reduce anxiety or nightmares. These steps include:
- Learning imaging techniques
- Record dream
- Changed his dream
Once a person has been taught the first step he can continue to use the second and third steps to overcome any new anxiety dreams that may develop.
If more help is needed, one may consider workshops using psychodrama and psychotherapy techniques. As described by the doctor and Herma Reeskamp, ââthis workshop aims to "help patients change the theme of haunting nightmares and anxiety-filled dreams".
References
Source of the article : Wikipedia