General

Being Chased Or Losing Your Teeth? What Science Says About Recurring Dreams

Published

3 years ago

September 5, 2021

Just about everyone will have dreamt about being chased, being late for work or falling off a cliff edge.

Having the same dream again and again is a well-known phenomenon â€” nearly two-thirds of the population report having recurring dreams. Being chased, finding yourself naked in a public place or in the middle of a natural disaster, losing your teeth or forgetting to go to class for an entire semester are typical recurring scenarios in these dreams.

But where does the phenomenon come from? The science of dreams shows that recurring dreams may reflect unresolved conflicts in the dreamer’s life.

Recurring dreams often occur during times of stress, or over long periods of time, sometimes several years or even a lifetime. Not only do these dreams have the same themes, they can also repeat the same narrative night after night.

Although the exact content of recurring dreams is unique to every individual, there are common themes among individuals and even among cultures and in different periods. For example, being chased, falling, being unprepared for an exam, arriving late or trying to do something repeatedly are among the most prevalent scenarios.

The majority of recurring dreams have negative content involving emotions such as fear, sadness, anger and guilt. More than half of recurring dreams involve a situation where the dreamer is in danger. But some recurring themes can also be positive, even euphoric, such as dreams where we discover new rooms in our house, erotic dreams or where we fly.

In some cases, recurring dreams that begin in childhood can persist into adulthood. These dreams may disappear for a few years, reappear in the presence of a new source of stress and then disappear again when the situation is over.

Unresolved conflicts

Why does our brain play the same dreams over and over again? Studies suggest that dreams, in general, help us regulate our emotions and adapt to stressful events. Incorporating emotional material into dreams may allow the dreamer to process a painful or difficult event.

In the case of recurrent dreams, repetitive content could represent an unsuccessful attempt to integrate these difficult experiences. Many theories agree that recurring dreams are related to unresolved difficulties or conflicts in the dreamer’s life.

The presence of recurrent dreams has also been associated with lower levels of psychological well-being and the presence of symptoms of anxiety and depression. These dreams tend to recur during stressful situations and cease when the person has resolved their personal conflict, which indicates improved well-being.

Recurrent dreams often metaphorically reflect the emotional concerns of the dreamers. For example, dreaming about a tsunami is common following trauma or abuse. This is a typical example of a metaphor that can represent emotions of helplessness, panic or fear experienced in waking life.

Similarly, being inappropriately dressed in one’s dream, being naked or not being able to find a toilet can all represent scenarios of embarrassment or modesty.

These themes can be thought of as scripts or ready-to-dream scenarios that provide us with a space where we can digest our conflicting emotions. The same script can be reused in different situations where we experience similar emotions. This is why some people, when faced with a stressful situation or a new challenge, may dream they’re showing up unprepared for a math exam, even years after they have set foot in a school. Although the circumstances are different, a similar feeling of stress or desire to excel can trigger the same dream scenario again.

A continuum of repetition

William Domhoff, an American researcher and psychologist, proposes the concept of a continuum of repetition in dreams. At the extreme end, traumatic nightmares directly reproduce a lived trauma â€” one of the main symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder.

Then there are recurring dreams where the same dream content is replayed in part or in its entirety. Unlike traumatic dreams, recurring dreams rarely replay an event or conflict directly but reflect it metaphorically through a central emotion.

Further along the continuum are the recurring themes in dreams. These dreams tend to replay a similar situation, such as being late, being chased or being lost, but the exact content of the dream differs from one time to the next, such as being late for a train rather than for an exam.

Finally, at the other end of the continuum, we find certain dream elements recurring in the dreams of one individual, such as characters, actions or objects. All these dreams would reflect, at different levels, an attempt to resolve certain emotional concerns.

Moving from an intense level to a lower level on the continuum of repetition is often a sign that a person’s psychological state is improving. For example, in the content of traumatic nightmares progressive and positive changes are often observed in people who have experienced trauma as they gradually overcome their difficulties.

Physiological phenomena

Why do the themes tend to be the same from person to person? One possible explanation is that some of these scripts have been preserved in humans due to the evolutionary advantage they bring. By simulating a threatening situation, the dream of being chased, for example, provides a space for a person to practise perceiving and escaping predators in their sleep.

Some common themes may also be explained, in part, by physiological phenomena that take place during sleep. A 2018 study by a research team in Israel found that dreaming of losing one’s teeth was not particularly linked to symptoms of anxiety but rather associated to teeth clenching during sleep or dental discomfort upon waking.

When we sleep, our brain is not completely cut off from the outside world. It continues to perceive external stimuli, such as sounds or smells, or internal body sensations. That means that other themes, such as not being able to find a toilet or being naked in a public space, could actually be spurred by the need to urinate during the night or by wearing loose pyjamas in bed.

Some physical phenomena specific to REM sleep, the stage of sleep when we dream the most, could also be at play. In REM sleep, our muscles are paralyzed, which could provoke dreams of having heavy legs or being paralyzed in bed.

Similarly, some authors have proposed that dreams of falling or flying are caused by our vestibular system, which contributes to balance and can reactivate spontaneously during REM sleep. Of course, these sensations are not sufficient to explain the recurrence of these dreams in some people and their sudden occurrence in times of stress, but they probably play a significant role in the construction of our most typical dreams.

Breaking the cycle

People who experience a recurring nightmare have in some ways become stuck in a particular way of responding to the dream scenario and anticipating it. Therapies have been developed to try to resolve this recurrence and break the vicious cycle of nightmares.

One technique is to visualize the nightmare while awake and then rewrite it, that is, to modify the narrative by changing one aspect, for example, the end of the dream to something more positive. Lucid dreaming may also be a solution.

In lucid dreams we become aware that we are dreaming and can sometimes influence the content of the dream. Becoming lucid in a recurring dream might allow us to think or react differently to the dream and thereby alter the repetitive nature of it.

However, not all recurring dreams are bad in themselves. They can even be helpful insofar as they are informing us about our personal conflicts. Paying attention to the repetitive elements of dreams could be a way to better understand and resolve our greatest desires and torments.

Claudia Picard-Deland, Candidate au doctorat en neurosciences, Universite de Montreal and Tore Nielsen, Professor of Psychiatry, Universite de Montreal

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

General

Experts Declare Experimental Cancer Vaccine Based On mRNA Technology Is ‘Safe and Effective’

Published

1 month ago

March 24, 2024

A new cancer vaccine based on Covid mRNA vaccine technology
which has yet to be clinically tested has already been declared “safe
and effective” by the British government.

Known as ‘LungVax’,
the new vaccine is being developed by the University of Oxford, the
Francis Crick Institute and University College London, and is expected
to be the first of a huge range of new cancer vaccinations available in
the near future.

Research scientists developing the ‘groundbreaking’ lung cancer
vaccine claim it will be effective in preventing up to 90 per cent of
cases by training the immune system to locate and attack early signs of
disease.

Lung cancer cells look different from normal cells due to having ‘red
flag’ proteins called neoantigens. The LungVax vaccine will carry a strand of DNA which trains the immune system to recognize these neoantigens on abnormal lung cells.

It will then instruct the immune system to destroy these cells and stop lung cancer.

Professor Tim Elliot, lead researcher at the University of Oxford, said: ‘Cancer
is a disease of our own bodies and it’s hard for the immune system to
distinguish between what’s normal and what’s cancer.

‘Getting the immune system to recognize and attack cancer is one of the biggest challenges in cancer research today.”

Elliot admitted the new vaccine is based on technology used to create the Covid vaccine.

‘This research could deliver an off-the-shelf vaccine based on
Oxford’s vaccine technology, which proved itself in the Covid pandemic.

Remarkably, given the disastrous health consequences for those
vaccinated with the experimental Covid vaccines, Eilliot praised the
mRNA roll out as a success.

‘If we can replicate the kind of success seen in trials during
the pandemic, we could save the lives of tens of thousands of people
every year in the UK alone.’

Researchers have been granted up to £1.7 million from Cancer Research UK and the CRIS Cancer Foundation.

The team will receive funding for the study over the next 2 years to
support lab research and initial manufacturing of 3,000 doses of the
vaccine at the Oxford Clinical BioManufacturing Facility.

If successful, the vaccine will move straight into a clinical trials,
involving those at biggest risk of disease, such as current and former
smokers who currently qualify for targeted lung health checks in some
parts of the UK.

General

TV Host Demands Gov’t ‘Take Control’ of Elon Musk’s X To ‘Shut Down’ Conspiracy Theories

Published

1 month ago

March 24, 2024

Elon Musk’s X must be “shut down” by government because dangerous “conspiracy theories” are spreading on the social media platform, according to British TV host Jeremy Vine.

“If there any argument to say, and this will sound crazy, but
China does it, we’ve got to now take control of Twitter and shut it down
for the time being,” said Vine.

Vine made the comments earlier this week during a heated debate
regarding speculation surrounding the health and whereabouts of Kate
Middleton, the Princess of Wales.

‘We’ve now got to take control of Twitter’…..???????????? ⁦@elonmusk⁩ pic.twitter.com/GonHWCr90c

— Right Said Fred (@TheFreds) March 20, 2024

Boomers have become obsessed with speculating that Middleton has died or is severely unwell and that the Royal Family is hiding it because she hasn’t been seen in months after an operation.

The manipulation of a series of photo of Middleton and her children also only served to fuel the rumors, as some sources close to the princess claimed she had been murdered by the royal family.

However, instead of dismissing the whole issue for what it is, a pointless distraction that will disappear once Middleton makes a public appearance around Easter, Vine called for draconian measures.

Modernity report:

Ah yes, the Communist dictatorship of China, which shuts down the Internet to clamp down on dissent and enhance its repression of undesirables.

That’s definitely who we should be mimicking, Jeremy.

Throughout the COVID pandemic, Vine’s show was a platform for some of the most vulgar, authoritarian drivel imaginable.

One show asked if children who are unvaccinated should be banned from schools or made to wear special badges.

Another asked, “Is it time to ban the unvaccinated from traveling?”

Vine has made a name for himself as being a dutiful amplifier of regime messaging, while his annoying side hobby of biking around London looking to film confrontations with motorists has also angered many.