DREAMING WHILE YOU SLEEP
Among the most common disturbances of sleep are dreams. This subconscious state is typical of the lighter stages of sleep, and in the vast majority of instances occurs just before waking and after sleep is complete or practically so. Because of this, the disturbance is not serious and generally plays only a small role in the cause of insomnia.
Though dreams may not disturb sleep, their effect upon the sleeper, particularly if you remember the dream can have serious consequences.
Dreams that shock or scare and which return with persistence may give rise to tenacious obsession and so disquiet the mind during the wakeful period as to act as a barrier to sleep.
Most dreamers, have however forgotten their dream immediately upon waking and go through the everyday routine none the worse for having had them. The relationship between dreams and sound sleep is a very close one.
According to Freud, a dream consists merely of the dreamer's disturbed waking experiences, whether these be suppressed painful memories of the waking life or whether they be experiences of which the individual is not aware because he has not made conscious note of it.
Dreams are often thought of as the key to the door which has guarded the secrets of existence of many states of ill health variously called hysteria, obsession and chronic ill-health.
If we are asked to believe that we may dream and not be conscious of it, it becomes very difficult for anyone to state that there is no sleep without dreaming.
Dreams and Sleeplessness:- The psychological question of whether or not the mind continues to be working during sleep is what really concerns Doctors and scientists. Do dreams disturb sleep? The answer is, that it depends upon both the dreamer and the dream. If the dream picture some horror or distress, either physical or mental, it is obvious that the dreamer will be anything but soothed. But there are just as many dreams that comfort, soothe and restore the body.
Those who are distressed by having their sleep visited night after night by fantastic visions and nerve-shattering dreams should bend all their efforts to the converting of their light and shallow slumber into sound and heavy sleep. The sounder the sleep, the less the opportunity for dreams.
By purging our thoughts as much as we can of memories of a violent character, and closing our mind to all constructive or speculative thought we may be able to shut out a nightmare. Let the dreamer take comfort, however, in the thought that even though his dreams persist they occupy but a few minutes of the hours spent in sleep and that his period of unrest is comparatively minor and altogether insufficient to rob the period of rest of its invigorating value.
