Are vivid dreams a sign of mental illness

Why They Happen and How to Stop Them

What are vivid dreams?

While we think of sleep as a time for recharging the body, the brain is actually quite active during sleep — dreaming. Our dreams can be soothing or scary, mysterious or helpful, and realistic or fantastical.

Sometimes we wake up and have no idea that we’ve dreamed, while other times, we can closely recall our dreams because they were so intense. These are known as vivid dreams.

Brain scientists aren’t sure why humans dream in the first place, but they think it has something to do with memory.

Dreaming might help the brain eliminate any unnecessary information or memories while processing and storing what’s important. Some people feel more refreshed after having had slept and dreamed, even if they do not remember dreaming.

People are most likely to remember the last dream they’ve had in their sleep cycle. But it’s possible to remember a vivid dream long after it’s occurred if it seemed very intense.

Vivid dreams can be positive or negative, realistic or fantasy. Scientists know that most heavy dreaming occurs during rapid eye movement (REM) sleep. REM sleep normally cycles every 90 minutes during a night of sleep and may last 20 to 25 minutes.

About 25 percent of an adult’s night of sleep is spent in REM cycles. The average adult should get between seven and nine hours of sleep per night for optimal health. That’s a lot of time for dreaming!

So, what causes vivid dreams? Scientists aren’t completely sure. But they think the following factors may play a part.

Stress or anxiety

Difficulties real and imagined can cause a person to experience stress and anxiety in their daily life. Problems with friends, family, school, or work can trigger intense dreams as can big events like getting married or buying a house.

Stressed caused by traumatic events, such as a death of a loved one, sexual abuse, or a car accident can also cause vivid dreams. Anxiety, in particular, is associated with an increased risk of disturbing and intense nightmares.

Sleep disorders

Sleeping issues that cause a lack of sleep, such as insomnia and narcolepsy, can increase one’s risk of experiencing vivid dreams.

Changes to your sleep schedule, such as flying overseas (and going to sleep at a different time) or getting less sleep than usual, can also increase this risk.

Medications

There are some medications that have been reported to contribute to vivid dreams. These medications include many antidepressants, beta blockers, blood pressure medications, Parkinson’s disease drugs, and drugs to stop smoking.

Substance abuse

Using alcohol in excess, using recreational drugs, or experiencing a withdrawal from drugs can trigger vivid dreams, often nightmares.

Other health disorders

In addition to stress and anxiety, other mental health conditions, such as depression and schizophrenia, are associated with vivid dreams. Physical illnesses, like heart disease and cancer, have also been associated with vivid dreams.

Early pregnancy

Pregnancy can trigger changes in the body’s hormone levels, sleep patterns, and emotions. Many pregnant women say they experience vivid dreams, especially during the early days of their pregnancy.

Normally, vivid dreams are nothing to worry about. Sometimes they may only affect you during a certain part of your life.

But negative vivid dreams, especially if they last for weeks or months, can be emotionally disturbing and disruptive to your sleep. And that can cause health problems.

Some common side effects of vivid dreams include:

Daytime sleepiness. This can cause concentration and memory problems that can affect your productivity at school or work. It can even affect your ability to carry out everyday tasks, such as driving or taking a shower. Even the smallest tasks can become dangerous if you get distracted.
Mood problems. Vivid dreams can be emotionally draining, causing depression or anxiety symptoms. This can be an especially concerning problem if your vivid dreams persist over time.
Resisting sleep. You may find that you consciously or subconsciously avoid going to bed or falling asleep because you fear you’ll have another bad dream.
Suicidal attempts or thinking. Some people have reported suicidal thoughts (ideation) secondary to troubling dreams. This is extremely serious. If you have attempted or are considering suicide, get help from a crisis or suicide prevention hotline. Try the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 800-273-8255. It’s important to get help right away.

It isn’t always possible to pinpoint an exact cause of vivid dreams. In many cases, these dreams will go away over time.

But if your vivid dreams are causing you emotional distress or physical problems, you might benefit from medical treatment or lifestyle modifications.

Schedule an appointment with your doctor or a sleep specialist to try to determine what treatments or lifestyle modifications are right for you.

Here are some of the common treatments for vivid dreams.

Medical intervention

If your vivid dreams are caused by an underlying mental or physical health condition, you can reduce your risk of vivid dreams by treating that condition.

Staying healthy

Eating well, maintaining a healthy weight, getting enough sleep, maintaining a regular sleep schedule, drinking enough water, and looking after your mental health can help prevent vivid dreams.

Coping with stress and anxiety

Everyone experiences stress and anxiety, but some people are better at coping with it than others. If you feel that your stress and anxiety levels are out of control, you might want to consider:

meditation
deep breathing
relaxation techniques
art therapy
exercise
other activities that can ease your stress

Another major thing you can do is to make sure you always reserve some time for relaxation during the day so you don’t feel overwhelmed. A racing mind can result in vivid dreams and sometimes nightmares.

Imagery rehearsal therapy

This treatment is often used for people experiencing vivid dreams, especially nightmares, as a result of trauma. This therapy, done with a mental healthcare professional, involves changing the ending to a nightmare you remember when you’re awake until it no longer becomes threatening.

Your mental healthcare provider will ask you to continue playing over the new, nonthreatening ending to the dream in your mind. This therapy is designed to reduce a person’s frequency of vivid dreams — especially nightmares.

Medication

Most doctors don’t recommend use of medication to treat vivid dreams. However, in the case of nightmares induced by trauma, such as post-traumatic stress disorder, a doctor may consider prescribing sleeping medication or anti-anxiety medication to help induce sleep.

Depression and Dreams: How Mental Health Affects Your Dreams

From the outlandish claims of Sigmund Freud to modern-day dream interpretation, dreams have long been a mystery to many.

Some people tend to have scarier dreams. Others have dreams that simply don’t make sense. Still, other people have lucid dreams that they can control. Everybody is unique, but is there a connection between your dreams and your mental health?

The Relationship Between Dreams and Mental Health

As a Boca mental illness treatment center, we know that the brain is a fascinating and complex structure that may never be fully understood. When we fall asleep at night, our brains remain active and we dream.

Some people believe that dreams are our subconscious trying to tell us something; other scientists believe that dreams are a compilation of random signals from the brain that are often tied to our experiences from earlier in the day. Not only are people with mental health disorders often preoccupied with their disorders during the day, but these disorders may sometimes lead to changes in the brain itself. Both may affect the way we dream in various ways. While research on dreams and mental illness is scary, the relationship does appear to be complicated and it changes based on the specific mental health disorder.

Depression & Dreams

Depression isn’t just troubling emotions of sadness or loneliness; often, depression is accompanied by changes in brain structure and chemistry as well. Because there are some important differences between depressed brains and normal brains, these changes may explain why someone with depression will have a different experience with dreams than someone without.

Do Depressed People Dream More?

Yes, depressed people tend to dream more. In fact, one study found that people who are depressed can dream up to three times more than people who are not depressed.¹ Why is this? Dreams can help us regulate our emotions and process negative ones, and because depressed people often struggle with both, dreaming more frequently may be a way to deal with these negative emotions.

Depression, Poor Sleep, & Fatigue

Although dreaming more sounds pleasant enough, depression dreams don’t actually help depressed people feel restored. Although depressed people are dreaming more frequently, they are often left feeling more tired as well. People who are depressed may have a harder time falling asleep, but they enter REM sleep, the stage of sleep when dreaming occurs, earlier and stay in this stage longer. REM sleep sees brain waves that are almost as active as when someone is awake and also includes an increased heart rate and more heavy breathing. Because depressed people dream more frequently, it is no wonder that a common symptom of depression is fatigue.

Dream Recall & Depression

Just because you dream doesn’t mean you will be able to recall it. If you are struggling with depression and dreams are something you never remember, you are also not alone. Depressed people may dream more than the average person, but they are also less likely to remember those dreams.² Antidepressants can be the source of this problem, but for people who have yet to get treatment for depression, this can still occur.

Depression & Nightmares

Along with changing sleep patterns, depression and dreams are also connected by the unique context of the dream. Depression causes bad dreams for many people.³ One study found that 28.4% of participants with severe depression reported frequent nightmares and that depression was one of the strongest indicators of frequent nightmares.⁴These depression nightmares can range from just plain scary to downright weird.

Anxiety & Dreams

Dreams and mental illness are connected in different ways. Just like depression and dreams have a unique relationship, so do anxiety and dreams. Anxiety in America is common and many people struggle with anxiety disorders. Just as anxiety can severely impact a person’s waking life, anxiety can impact dreams and sleep as well.

Anxiety & Insomnia

Many people with different types of anxiety disorders complain of insomnia. People with panic disorders generally take longer to fall asleep and spend more time awake. Those with generalized anxiety disorders also suffer from disrupted sleep and struggle to fall asleep in the first place.⁵

Because the research is so unclear, the relationship between anxiety and sleep may be more complicated than we currently realize.

Anxiety & Bad Dreams

Just like people with depression tend to have nightmares, people with anxiety disorders also often suffer from bad dreams. Studies have shown that symptoms of anxiety are related to negative dream affect compared to people with peace of mind who experience positive dream affect. ⁶ In some cases, frequent nightmares can be a warning of an anxiety disorder like PTSD or generalized anxiety disorder. Interestingly, cognitive behavioral therapy has been shown to drastically decrease the number of bad dreams from anxiety.⁷

Although there are some important connections between anxiety and dreams, the relationship is complicated, and more research needs to be done to get a clearer picture on the subject.

Drugs, Dreams & Mental Illness

How these mental health disorders impact sleep may also be affected by other factors. Anxiety, depression, and dreams all have to do with the brain, and substance abuse can also lead to changes in how the brain works and its structure. For these reasons, alcohol use and drug abuse may also be contributing factors to these sleep disturbances.

Because many people who are depressed or struggling with anxiety will turn to drugs or alcohol to cope with these negative emotions, they may actually be making their sleep problems worse and impacting their dreams in strange ways. It is important that these people receive dual diagnosis treatment to work on fixing both problems.

Your dreams may be trying to tell you something. If you suspect that you or a loved one is struggling with depression, anxiety, or another mental illness, there is hope. At Banyan Mental Health, we want to help.

Call us today at 888-280-4763 so that you can finally wake up from this nightmare and move forward.

Sources:

Clinical-Depression.co.uk - Depression and dreaming
Healthline - How Much Deep, Light, and REM Sleep Do You Need?
Netflix - The Mind Explained
American Academy of Sleep Medicine - Depression and insomnia are strongest risk factors for frequent nightmares
NIH- Sleep disturbance in anxiety disorders
NCBI- Peace of mind and anxiety in the waking state are related to the affective content of dreams
NCBI- Bad Dream Frequency in Older Adults with Generalized Anxiety Disorder: Prevalence, Correlates, and Effect of Cognitive Behavioral Treatment for Anxiety

Colored dreams are a sign of schizophrenia: myths and scientific evidence

There are many signs of schizophrenia. It would take more than one monograph to list them all. This is due to the polymorphism of the disease, which causes the unpredictability of its course. Even hallucinations, which are usually attributed to schizophrenics, are not always observed in schizophrenia spectrum disorders. In the article we will consider the phenomenon of colored dreams, which are often considered a sign of schizophrenia.

General information about schizophrenia

Schizophrenia is an endogenous disease of the psyche, accompanied by the breakdown of emotional reactions and thinking. Many believe that behind this diagnosis lies a “split personality”. However, this is too superficial a look at such a complex psychopathology. In fact, it is not always accompanied by a splitting of consciousness into two different persons. Although it is worth recognizing that the person with this disease suffers in all cases. There is a risk of its complete loss.

The mechanism and causes of the development of schizophrenia are unknown. At the disposal of scientists and physicians there are only factors that are hypothetically capable of provoking this disease. The main one is genetic. Injuries, alcoholism, improper upbringing, etc. can also become an impetus for the manifestation of schizophrenic disorder.

Schizophrenia can develop at any age, but more often its debut occurs at the age of 25-28 years.

One of the main features of schizophrenia is its polymorphism. This means that it can occur in different forms - paranoid, latent, fur-like, hebephrenic, etc. There are several dozen types and subtypes of schizophrenia, from which approximately 1% of the world's population suffers to one degree or another.

There are many symptoms of schizophrenia spectrum disorders. But they are all divided into two types:

Positive (productive): delusions, hallucinations and catatonic disorders. The presence of these signs indicates the activity of the psyche, which is in a state of attack or exacerbation.
Negative: passivity, apathy, lack of will, isolation, emotional coldness, resentment, etc. In this case, the mental apparatus is practically inactive, and the person is more immersed in his own world.

This is the basic information about schizophrenia. Now let's move on to dreams. First, let's briefly describe the phenomenon of dreams and find out why people dream about them.

General information about sleep and dreams

The science of dreams is called somnology, and the science of dreams itself is called oneirology. The latter, by the way, are defined as the subjective perception of images that arise in the mind of a sleeping person. This happens in the short phase of sleep, that is, every 1.5-2 hours.

Some people claim they don't dream. Most likely, this is a delusion, since everyone has this ability. Few people just remember their dreams. As for the colorfulness of the images that appear to people in dreams, this is an individual question. Some really see only images of objects in black and white. But children and people with a developed imagination often have colorful dreams. Moreover, this pattern is often associated with mental disorders and schizophrenia.

In 70 years a person sleeps for about 23 years, 8 years of which are spent in dreams.

If little is known about the causes of schizophrenia, then science knows even less about dreams. Psychoanalysts suggest that in a dream a person sees what he would like to realize in reality. While he sleeps, his consciousness becomes open to those desires that he suppresses during wakefulness. The interpretation of dreams in psychoanalysis is based precisely on this message, and is associated primarily with the sexual theme.

Esoteric teachings associate dreams with travel to the past or even to other worlds, in which we meet the souls of the dead and other beings. Most people adhere to the same point of view, and therefore look for the meaning of dreams in astrological dream books. Whether they are true or not, it is rather difficult or even impossible to find out, since this phenomenon does not lend itself well to scientific analysis.

Basically, scientists agree that unfinished situations are played out in dreams. We see what happened in life, but in a greatly altered form. There is also a version that during sleep, the distribution of memories occurs when they move from short-term memory to the archive. In a sense, we observe this process during sleep.

Also, science still does not know why a person dreams. While we are dreaming, our brain is working in an enhanced mode, experiencing real stress, as evidenced by the activity of its various departments, studied using MRI. Why the brain needs such a load several times a night is not clear. Perhaps in the future, scientists will be able to find answers to this and many other questions related to dreams.

Association of colored dreams with schizophrenia

Schizophrenia is studied from different angles, which is associated with the diversity of its symptoms. There are so many types of hallucinations that dozens of monographs have been written on them. The dreams of schizophrenics have also been studied. One of the studies was carried out in the USA by Professor Bravin Sten. It involved three groups of people aged 25-47 years:

patients diagnosed with schizophrenia;
people with a genetic predisposition to schizophrenia;
mentally healthy.

The study was lengthy - about a year studied the activity of the brain during dreams, as well as the nature and content of the dreams of the subjects. In particular, such moments as brightness, plot and other parameters of the images that were seen by the sleepers were taken into account.

The results of the study showed that vivid, colorful and bizarre dreams are 20 times more likely to be seen by people with schizophrenic disorder. Healthy people, including those who were at risk, talked about such dreams less often. Scientists have also noticed that schizophrenics often have nightmares.

Can we conclude from this that colored dreams are a sign of schizophrenia? The researchers suggest not to rush and not to deduce such patterns. Perhaps there is another connection here. The fact is that vivid dreams are more often seen by people with a rich inner world. As a rule, in life they are more closed and vulnerable. It is in such individuals that schizophrenia usually develops. But this is only one of the factors, therefore, it is wrong to say that a person who has vivid dreams is a schizophrenic.

At the same time, almost all experts agree that sleep disturbances, including insomnia, are a characteristic feature of schizophrenia. But it is not among the specific symptoms of mental disorders.

Sources:

medikforum.ru
minutkoclinic.com
mag.103.by
science-prosto.ru
arbat25.ru

ALUMNI-MGIMO / PUBLIC BLOG / Do you dream in color?

Once my friend asked me a question, what kind of dreams do I have? Colored or not? I tensed up, began to remember some kind of dream. It's not that easy, well, for most people. It seems like you wake up - you remember the dream, an hour or two will pass - you already remember everything very vaguely. Damn!

So, I began to remember what kind of dreams I see. And then I caught myself thinking that even if I see black and white dreams, now my imagination can finish painting and I will be sure that I see color. To unequivocally answer this question, you must either immediately wake up to think about it or clearly remember this problem in a dream and look at something carefully and realize if there are colors there!

For the purity of the experiment, first give an answer in the survey, and then read about colored dreams under the cut.

View Poll: #2071742

Scientists say that most of us see black and white dreams, but they have many different versions about color dreams that literally refute each other ... Why do we see color dreams?

The ongoing research in the field of sleep gives a clear explanation, yes, patients with schizophrenia often see color dreams and more often remember them precisely because of their brightness, but there is no unambiguous answer to whether colored sons are exclusively inherent in schizophrenics (present and future). However, scientists immediately say that frequent and memorable color dreams are a sign of a special brain activity typical for various borderline disorders, because most people see black and white dreams and many do not remember them

Many scientists around the world are conducting research in this area, and most of them are inclined to believe that consciousness subjected to some kind of change (stress, grief, overstrain) most often gives out color dreams. True, many people enthusiastically talk about their color visions, considering them pleasant.

A study conducted with the help of tomography showed that people with schizophrenia, in addition to color dreams, most often have nightmares, but this does not happen with people who have a healthy psyche. Scientists strongly recommend that those who see colorful, vivid dreams, interspersed with nightmares, pay special attention to their health, because. they are sure that such people are potential patients in psychiatric hospitals.

Researchers at the University of San Antonio in Texas believe that frequent dreams accompanied by vivid images are common in psychiatric patients or men and women with borderline disorders.

Chapter of the work Bravin Stent is sure that both the predisposition to schizophrenia and the presence of this disease change the achromatic balance, which can serve as an indicator of the diagnosis of mental disorders.
Usually people see black and white images, but in some cases, for example, under the influence of nervous stress or traumatic brain disorders, they can experience colorful dreams during a night's rest. In fact, dreams are a reflection of our reality, however, a homogeneous and strong stimulus leads to the appearance of constant color dreams. The study involved three equal groups of volunteers aged 25 to 47 years.

The first category included patients with schizophrenia, the second - representatives of the stronger and weaker sex with hereditary signs of this pathology, and the third were mentally healthy individuals. During the year, they were observed by American specialists who, during the sleep of the participants, recorded electrical activity on a CT scanner, indicating vivid dreams.

It turned out that schizophrenics are 20 times more likely to see color nightmares than everyone else.

Of course, there is absolutely no need to panic, many people, including perfectly healthy ones, have colorful dreams.

But if suddenly your dreams, which were previously black and white, not memorable and not vivid, have acquired a particularly bright color and this frightens you, then for your own peace of mind you can undergo an examination.

It is, of course, impossible to diagnose schizophrenia solely on the basis of dreams.

Diagnosis requires at least a few symptoms. For example, they pay attention to nervous symptoms, which are manifested by a decrease in the emotional background, and, over time, become more and more noticeable, in the predominance of associative manifestations. There is also isolation, a lack of positive emotions. At the same time, the patient ceases to be interested in professional activities, does not meet the standards of behavior in social terms.

Often the onset of the disease is manifested by aggression, avoidance of social contacts. A person becomes emotionally unrestrained, unfriendly to others.

At the same time, the initial signs of schizophrenia often exist in isolation, for quite a long time (sometimes decades), and productive symptoms are often absent. When manifestations of psychosis join these manifestations, we can already talk about the presence of a clinical detailed picture of the disease. Often delusions and hallucinations are added here, as well as acute forgetfulness (when a person cannot remember what he did just a few minutes ago). All this can result in psychosis and go into the terminal stage of "voices" in the head.

There are several other hypotheses about why we dream in color

Hypothesis 1: in most cases positive) - and plays with these "colors" in a dream. But overwork and fatigue are just reflected in black and white dreams that we do not remember.

Hypothesis 2 : Talented people see colorful dreams

It has been proven that creative people - poets, artists, musicians, etc. see color dreams much more often than ordinary people. Even if you are not fond of anything like that, there may be a certain talent in you that you have not yet revealed. True, here scientists again return to the issue of schizophrenia, bearing in mind that all creative people, in a sense, are schizophrenics, present and future. Moreover, in this case, schizophrenia is explained by the fact that creative people go beyond the stereotypes imposed by society and this leads to psychosis, and then to schizophrenia. So, in essence, schizophrenia is a disease of a person who has abandoned himself. And by and large, we are all predisposed to this disease.

Hypothesis 3: Only highly intelligent people see color dreams

Today, this hypothesis, which was firmly established earlier, has been refuted. As a result of research, scientists have found that brightly colored dreams can be seen by impressionable and emotional people of any social stratum. And the degree of intelligence can only affect the intricacy of the dream plot, the more highly educated a person is, the more twisted the scenario is and there are more events in it.

Hypothesis 4: Colored dreams - a consequence of the emergence of color cinema

The hypothesis was put forward and tested by American scientists. It turned out that young people (under 25) see color dreams more often than adults (after 55).

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