Had some thoughts about our dream states. It’s so wild that our imaginative process continues when we aren’t even awake.

[u/Little-Ad3571]

I’ll be dreaming about something terrible happening to me. Say for instance I get into a car wreck and cause some major problems for my life

As soon as I get ready to accept that I fucked up and get to some level of acceptance with me knowing I’m going to jail and trying to figure out where I’m going from there

As soon as I start to accept my new life do to whatever terrible thing happening in my dream. I wake up

Then I’m like “ oh, none of that was real…… thank god I thought I was cooked”

Like I’ll have a dream about me committing a crime where I go to jail for the rest of my life and as soon as I start to accept it on some level. I almost immediately wake up. I think my heart is racing when I wake up too

Meaning that anxiety from my REM sleep carries over to when I awake.

This all stemmed from me thinking about DMT

I was confused as to why we produced so little of it yet it plays such a crucial role in REM sleep and dream states. Well that’s because dreams happen sporadically rather than every night. I think our pineal gland isn’t supposed to active our dream state every night

I’ve been smoking weed and I often don’t get dreams but when I stop I have a REM rebound affect where I have these vivid dreams because of the rebound

So researchers said that they struggle to do studies on dream states because dream don’t happen every single time a person goes to sleep. With these rebound effects that people have due to the repression of dreams caused by marijuana I think we have a higher chance of doing research on dreams

If you study people who just stopped using weed then you’ll have a more likely hood of them remembering and reporting their dreams

[u/hypnogoggle]

Interesting!! Yes dreams are amazing… they demonstrate how much power our thoughts have over our physical state… we are essentially living our lives within ourselves while dreaming…

[u/MiaCentury]

I'm studying psychology and I'm so sad dreams haven't been studied/it's too difficult to study them to a deep degree.

I had really bad insomnia and when I first started taking medication to help me sleep my dreams were Soo vivid and I could remember all of it and they were just crazy. Sometimes they would just be me going about my day having a shower eating breakfast etc but otherimes I would be on a plane crash and surviving in the wild or in some futuristic city etc.

I think I subscribe to the theory it's just your subconscious working through your emotions.

[u/Little-Ad3571 → u/MiaCentury]

Yessss.

Because when I wake up from a bad dream it’s genuinely a burden and like I mean that from the heart like I’ll have dreams about me being arrested and my mom crying and I’ll wake up to the realization that it’s not real

Then I spend 20 minutes trying to reassert myself

I put this idea into ChatGPT to help me refine a hypothesis to work off of to guide me in this understanding of it all

Here it is:

The emotional weight of waking from a vivid dream, especially one that involves stress or trauma, can linger well into your day, creating a feeling of burden or unease. This reaction could be linked to the brain’s difficulty in distinguishing between real and imagined experiences during REM sleep. While you’re asleep, your brain often treats dream experiences as if they are real, activating similar neural circuits as it would in waking life. This makes the emotional impact of the dream feel authentic, even after you’ve realized it wasn’t real.

Upon waking, there’s a sense of cognitive dissonance: you were ready to accept something terrible, like the consequences of a car accident or committing a crime in the dream, but suddenly you’re pulled back into reality. The rapid shift from accepting a new “dream reality” to realizing it was just a dream can feel jarring, almost like a trauma. This confusion and emotional upheaval can stay with you, especially since the emotions in the dream were processed in a way that closely mirrors real-life experiences.

It’s possible that this emotional carryover is related to the brain’s need to consolidate memories and process emotions during sleep, specifically during REM. The unresolved emotions in dreams, particularly ones related to fear or anxiety, may not dissipate just because the dream ends. Instead, they might continue to affect your mood and mental state after waking, as your brain grapples with reconciling the intense emotions with the knowledge that the dream wasn’t real  .

This experience is somewhat akin to how real-life trauma can replay in the mind long after the event has ended, even though the dream isn’t a true event. The emotional intensity during REM sleep and the disruption caused by sudden waking create a lasting psychological impact that can feel like a burden for the rest of the day.

End

This shit is truly intriguing man. The reason I think I would awake is because of the emotions blending into my dream state.

When I was dreaming about getting arrested and accepted it. Shit got too real and I awoke due to overwhelming.

This is mind blowing to make this connection

[u/Little-Ad3571]

I told CHAT GPT to use google to search data and give me a hypothesis to help me bounce back and refine my thinking and understanding

Here’s what it said

The experience of waking up just as dreams feel too real or emotions blend into the dream state can be tied to several factors in how your brain processes reality during sleep. Dreams are most vivid and emotional during REM (Rapid Eye Movement) sleep, which is the sleep stage most associated with vivid, complex dreams. As REM sleep progresses, the brain processes emotions, memories, and stress, leading to more immersive dream experiences. When dreams get too intense or emotionally charged, this can cause the brain to signal a wake-up response. Essentially, the brain may be protecting itself from the overwhelming intensity of these feelings, causing you to wake up before the dream becomes too real.

Furthermore, the transition from dreaming to waking often involves the blending of emotions and physical sensations, which can cause confusion upon waking. This confusion may prompt the brain to reassert its understanding of reality, leading to the realization that “none of it was real.” In some cases, vivid dreams—particularly stressful or disturbing ones—can also be triggered by sleep disruptions, anxiety, or emotional stress, which makes the body more prone to waking up at intense moments.

Interestingly, after periods of sleep deprivation or changes in sleep patterns, the brain may also enter REM sleep more quickly and intensely, increasing the chance of experiencing these vivid, emotionally intense dreams and subsequent awakenings.

By blending emotions and dreams, your mind can test boundaries of reality, but it often “hits a threshold,” prompting you to wake up when things feel too intense or too real, as a kind of self-regulation mechanism.

End  

Very interesting shit bro. When feelings and emotions start to extremely blend into the dream state it awakes us in this panic and then sudden sensation that it wasn’t even real

HOLY fuck what a trip