You could’ve graduated 20 years ago and still have nightmares about showing up for that final you forgot to study for. You’d think your brain would give it a rest.
Harvard dream researcher Deirdre Barrett has talked about how these dreams can continue for decades after you’ve left school. Our brains have a habit of hanging on to whatever we’ve been worrying about, even after we’ve gone to bed. “We’re thinking about the same things that we were most focused on by day,” she told the Harvard Gazette.
A new study suggests that people who worry a lot might also have a harder time escaping unpleasant thoughts while they sleep. Researchers led by Vittorio Lenzo at Italy’s University of Catania surveyed 389 adults about their dreams and how much worry they experience during the day, along with symptoms of anxiety and depression.
Your Brain Might Be Turning Everyday Worries Into Bad Dreams, Study Suggests
People who worried more reported having more unpleasant dreams, and those experiencing depressive symptoms said the same. Participants whose dreams affected their mood the following day also reported higher anxiety. Stress had the strongest connections to the other experiences researchers measured, according to PsyPost.
Psychologists call the connection between waking life and dreams the continuity hypothesis. If you’ve spent the day worrying about your job, for example, it wouldn’t be unusual for work to creep into your dreams that night. Researchers also suspect that unpleasant dreams could contribute to more anxiety the next day, creating a cycle that’s difficult to get out of. Barrett discussed similar experiences in an interview with Science Friday.
The strongest connection researchers found was between remembering dreams and talking about them. Some people can recall an insane amount of detail from their dreams, and they’re usually more than happy to tell you all about it.
There are limitations to consider. Most participants were young women recruited online, and researchers relied on their own accounts of their dreams. The survey also captured everyone’s experiences at one point in time, so there’s no way to know if worry causes unpleasant dreams or if having bad dreams contributes to anxiety.
If you’re tired of unpleasant dreams, Barrett suggests thinking about something you’d actually enjoy dreaming about before falling asleep. In earlier research, about half of college students who tried this successfully dreamed about their chosen topic.
And if it works, you might finally get a decent night’s sleep without your brain dragging you into another stressful situation.
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