On Sunday morning I woke up in a strange mood. I don’t know how to explain it, other than strange. It wasn’t necessarily a bad mood, and it wasn’t a good mood, either. The mood wasn’t a result of what had happened before I fell asleep, nor what happened in the moments after waking up, but rather the time between.
I’m pretty sure everyone experiences this from time to time, but it still amazes me how much of an effect dreams can have on my mood after I wake up. Even after I’m fully awake and come to grips with the fact whatever I had dreamt was not real, the resulting mood can stick with me for as long as a day sometimes. But, why does this happen?
Through my research of Oneirology, the study of dreams, I learned that dreams spur negative emotions more commonly than positive ones, with anxiety topping the list. That was definitely the overriding emotion I felt Sunday morning, so I was on the right track. I already knew that dreams were associated with Rapid Eye Movement (REM), and that sleep-deprived individuals often fall into REM very quickly and have very lucid dreams. I learned the average human spends six years dream, and that was pretty interesting, but still didn’t answer my question of why I couldn’t shake the emotions after I was conscious.
I also learned quite a bit about all the different kind of dreaming, such as reoccurring dreams, which I’m sure everyone experiences, dreams where we seem to have control and can change the outcome, dreams where we think we are awake, dreams that wake us up at a critical point, dreams that incorporate noises we are actually hearing, etc… The overriding lesson I took away from my research, however, is that nobody really knows that much about dreams. Some believe them to be spiritual or prophetic – I hope not since I’ve dreamt my own death, – others feel they are a subconscious manifestation of our true desires and fears. There are a lot of theories on how we dream, why we dream, what shapes content, why they can be so weird, and how to interpret them, but no one answer has be collectively agreed upon.
There is, almost literally, endless information about dreams on the web, including everything from people asking or tell about their dreams, to “experts” stating their theories. I didn’t find an answer to my question, but at least I can rest assured – no pun intended – that I won’t ever find myself in a situation like the episode of “The Simpsons” where Groundskeeper Willie is killing students during their dreams, resulting in their real-life death…right?
