Q:

I have been having extremely vivid dreams and nightmares every single night lately. Normally, I'll remember a dream or two every week or so, but lately I can remember every detail and they seem to stress me out, the nightmares especially. Most of my nightmares have to do with guns and mass amounts of people getting killed, or having something to do with cheating on my boyfriend or vise versa. They are all so realistic and vivid that it's like I just lived them.

I don't know what's causing these, other than stress probably, but I feel like these are stressing me out just as much as every day life has been... How do I make them stop, and even if it is just stress inducing them, would you be able to answer why they are Soooo vivid and easy to remember?

Also, I don't believe in fortune telling or whatnot, but here's another question: Occasionally I'll have dreams of old friends who I haven't seen in a long time, and then seemingly at the most random time, I end up seeing them in person the next day after I just had a dream about them.......... What the heck is going on there? Is it completely coincidence? Because I've had dreams of one friend in particular who I don't see often anymore, but the only times I have dreams of him is the night before the day that I see him...... And it's really weird. Again, I don't believe in seeing the future or those kinds of things, but is there something in your brain that can trigger or sense that? I don't know... I guess it's a pretty far out there question.

Thanks though!! You guys are awesome. I love this site :)

 

A:

You have two different questions here, one having to do with the content of your recent dreams being more disturbing, and therefore more memorable and the other being a question having to do with the intuitive nature of the dreams.

Certainly this deserves more analysis than we can provide in an online Q&A, but dreams are a reflection of subconscious worries and concerns, or a "working out" of stressors you are feeling. Some people with recent trauma will have particularly disturbing dreams. There is good research to suggest that there are ways to decrease this kind of dreaming through talk therapy--confronting the stressors head on while you are awake and work on problem solving--as well as some pre-sleep suggestions for how to "reshape" your dreams. This is something that is best dealt with through the Counseling Center for some basic suggestions and, if necessary, referral to an off campus therapist for ongoing work. There are also now some medications approved for use at bedtime to help decrease traumatic dreaming, but counseling is always the first step.

Your second question is more difficult to assess. Most likely, you have dreams about old friends more often than you remember, but they come back to mind when you actually run into your friends in person. It doesn't mean you are developing the power to see in the future, but more likely, the trigger for your dream memory is actually seeing the object of your dream. That's the best I can do with that one!

~The Doc