The Connection Between Dreaming and Wellness
Dreaming is a truly elusive phenomenon. The reason why humans dream, how dreaming occurs, how humans can control dreams, and dreams’ connection to health are all being currently researched because the answers to these questions are unclear. Two articles, “People with migraines get less REM sleep, study finds” and “Antidepressant side effects: can antidepressants cause vivid, unusual dreams?” discuss the connections of REM sleep and the physical and mental sides of one’s wellness. These reviews are comparable to the research done by Kokony et. al, which discusses the beginnings of communication in dreams through the research paper “Real-time dialogue between experimenters and dreamers during REM sleep.”
Rogers’ article, “People with migraines get less REM sleep, study finds,” discusses a metaanalysis by Emily Charlotte Stanyer. The paper, “Subjective Sleep Quality and Sleep Architecture in Patients With Migraine,” studies sleep and migraines, and the article provides insight to the research’s takeaways and meaning for people who suffer from migraines. The study found that migraine sufferers have lower quality of sleep according to the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index, and polysomnography found that they had a higher amount of waking time during the night as well as less REM sleep per night. Children who had migraines had the unique trait that they fell asleep faster than average children, however, it is speculated that they are falling asleep faster due to chronic sleep deprivation. The most profound connections of migraines and REM sleep are that less REM sleep predicts a rise in migraines and migraine symptoms the following day. The causal relationship is not known, meaning that research is unclear if the lack of REM contributes to migraines or if the opposite is true, but this is still a meaningful connection for further treatment and exploration.
The other aspect of wellness, mental health, can also be tied to REM sleep. In Geall’s article, “Antidepressant side effects: can antidepressants cause vivid, unusual dreams?” she discusses a seemingly neglected side effect of antidepressants: vivid dreams. The article focuses mainly on women’s experiences with this side effect and the effect it can have on one’s emotional health. The vivid dreams can range from enjoyable, to confusing, to anxiety-inducing, or to terrifying. A theory for these dreams is the combination of the effects of mental illness combined with the drugs’ effect on the REM cycle. Mental illnesses have symptoms of disrupted sleep and heightened nightmares, while antidepressants decrease the time spent in REM and increase neurotransmitters, potentially creating less dreaming time for a more active brain. Overall, these realistic dreams can confuse individuals, make them feel out of touch with reality, and heighten day-to-day anxiety in the mentally ill patients taking these medications, potentially worsening their mental state.
Both of these articles lend to the fact that sleep, and dreaming sleep in particular, relate to one’s overall wellness. Lack of REM sleep can contribute to one’s migraines, whereas those on antidepressants have more vivid dreams during a shortened REM period. Both of these illnesses can be tied to REM, being the period that most dreaming happens in, in rather similar ways, as abnormal and shortened REM sleep can worsen the quality of one's life. Perhaps a solution to these illnesses is using a person’s lucid dreams. The article “Real-time dialogue between experimenters and dreamers during REM sleep,” written by Konkoly, Chabani, Dresler, Appel, Oudiette, and Paller, discusses a breakthrough in sleep-research where there was two-way communication between sleeping participants and researchers. The experimenters asked the lucid dreaming participants simple questions by saying them out loud, flashing green lights in morse code, or finger tapping, and tracked the participants via polysomnographic methods. All methods of asking questions produced examples of positive results since the participants were able to answer correctly a high percentage of time through either coordinated eye movements or facial twitching.
One of the many implications of this research is that communication during dreaming could produce “novel approaches to promote health and well-being could be explored… perhaps opening up new ways to address fundamental questions about consciousness” (Konkoly). If the practice develops past asking yes or no and numerical questions towards complex conversations, the possibilities for treatments of migraines and depression could expand tenfold. The patients would have to be naturally inclined to lucid dreaming and/or trained to do so, but therapy sessions and interviews on pain level and dream content could provide vital information to both ailments. Therapy sessions during REM sleep could teach patients with mental illnesses coping mechanisms to use during nightmares and confusing dreams rather than after. Interviews can be used for migraine patients in order to assess pain levels during sleep, the content, and perceived duration of dreams. This data is currently difficult or even impossible to access, so the idea of in-dream communication is extremely meaningful.
Bibliography
Geall, Lauren. “What's with All the Wild Dreams on Antidepressants?” Stylist, The Stylist Group, 3 May 2021, https://www.stylist.co.uk/health/mental-health/antidepressants-side-effects-dreams/514151.
Konkoly, Karen R., et al. “Real-Time Dialogue between Experimenters and Dreamers during Rem Sleep.” Current Biology, vol. 31, no. 7, 2021, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2021.01.026.
Rogers, Kristen. “People with Migraines Get Less REM Sleep, Study Finds.” CNN, Cable News Network, 23 Sept. 2021, https://www.cnn.com/2021/09/22/health/migraine-headache-effects-sleep-study-wellness/index.html.
Stanyer, Emily Charlotte, et al. “Subjective Sleep Quality and Sleep Architecture in Patients with Migraine: A Meta-Analysis.” Neurology, 2021, https://doi.org/10.1212/wnl.0000000000012701.
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