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Disruptions in Sleep and Dream Recall© Lauri Jean Crowe
There are many things which can interfere with your ability to recall your dreams. Often these same things interfere with your activities of daily living, and even the content and quality of your dreams should you recall them. Some things which interfere with dreams are:
This can be things like too much light because you left on a reading lamp. Or, it may be that your bedroom is too hot or too cold. Keeping a consistent temperature in the bedroom, as well as consistent lighting conditions for sleep can help to create a good environment for dream recall. This includes keeping your sheets, blankets and other bedding comfy. If you have the sheet all bunched up under you, you'll have restless sleep which is likely to lead to not reaching the proper states for dreams, much less recall. For me, it's having to wake up at odd hours to give my son medications for his kidneys, or awakening to the sound of his own medication induced night terrors. These environmental factors disturb my normal pattern of sleep and dream. Somatic Causes - These are physical conditions. They can be related to environmental causes such as above, or can relate to internal functioning of a persons indivividual biology. For example, if you have certain mental disorders you will reach dream states much differently than someone who doesn't. If you have long term illness or chronic disease of some sort your medications, or your condition alone may interfere with adequate sleeping conditions for dream. However, somatic causes are also not always long term. You can spike a fever, or get a cold and this can alter the sleep process. Additionally, if your body is working hard on digestion because you ate a huge meal before bed, then you will have less physical resources to reach the dream state as your body will be busy elsewhere. In my case, this relates to my fibromyalgia, lupus, and thyroid conditions as well as restless limb syndrome associated with mild sleep apnea. According to the sleep lab, I jerk myself into alertness and wakefulness about 57 times in every hour. That only leaves 3 minutes of restful sleep in every 60. Quite a disruption of the sleep process to be sure. However, they also think this may be why when I recall my dreams they are so vivid. Psychological and Emotional Causes - These two types overlap so much that I have placed them in one category. Often we are worriers, or just can't get that business brief that's due tomorrow morning out of our heads. Perhaps we are dealing with caring for an ill spouse, parent or child. There are finances, health concerns, what to make for dinner all running around in our heads clogging up the psychological processes and making our emotions run rampant. Sometimes these regular daily concerns aren't a problem for some of us, but for others it's the unexpected like your boyfriend dumping you, finding out you have breast cancer, or that you are being phased out of your job. An even mental and emotional outlook is integral to good dream study, but often these incidences also cause dreams which if you recall them can be a large breakthrough. In my case, I worry a lot about my three year old son. He's non-responsive to treatment for his kidney disease so there have been a lot of tough decisions over the past few months. When you add to that factors like extra funds for travel time to the hospital, or medical supplies with limited work hours it can be daunting to mental and physical states. Sometimes if you recall your dreams you wish you hadn't, but other times they lend a sense of acceptance to tough situations. Go To Page: 1 2
The copyright of the article Disruptions in Sleep and Dream Recall in Dream Interpretation is owned by Lauri Jean Crowe. Permission to republish Disruptions in Sleep and Dream Recall in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.
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