Trigger Warning: discussions of mental health, anxiety, and trauma-related dreams.
Sleep: It’s the one thing that every college student craves, yet never actually gets in a satisfying amount. There’s nothing worse than staying up until 3 a.m. working on a paper only to have a restless night of tossing and turning, or (even worse in my opinion), a sleep session full of nightmares.
When Zoom University started back up this spring, I found myself losing sleep due to a plague of weird, confusing, and scary dreams. The anxiety of being back in school, along with the stress of having to stare at a screen all day, pushed me into a state of anxious sleep. I found myself totally stress-free throughout the day, only to wake up in the middle of the night after having an anxiety attack in my dreams. There are few things more unpleasant than waking up shaking, covered in sweat, and with a rapid heartbeat. That’s why I started dream journaling!
Dream journaling is, in its simplest form, writing down your dreams. Taking note of a dream’s details upon waking up, when the mirage is still fresh in your mind, helps decrease anxiety during sleep. After I started writing down my dreams, I found myself able to remember them more easily, as well as able to figure out why I dreamt what I did.
For example, I had a dream last night that I found four kittens and had to take care of them until I found them a new home. In the dream, I was stressed out, because two of the kittens disappeared, one refused to come inside and was getting too cold, and the other one looked exactly like my childhood cat, and I had to give him away to someone else. After dream journaling, I found it much easier to connect each dream kitten to something in real life that was stressing me out:
My childhood dog passed away about a month ago, and while he was old and it was his time, I’ve been grieving him a lot lately – like the two kittens who disappeared in the dream, I’ve been missing an old furry friend lately.
I could connect the kitten who refused to come out of the cold to the stress I’ve been feeling about my family lately – they live in Texas, and they’ve been without power and water for a week. I was anxious about them all week, worrying that they would get too cold and not have enough food, just like the kitten stuck in the cold.
Lastly, the fourth kitten represents my dog who passed away again (clearly this has been on my mind a lot, and I have an article coming up soon on how to deal with grief) – I miss Cosmo so much, but I’m happy to know he’s playing with my childhood cat, Pumpkin, on the rainbow bridge right now.
While dream journaling can bring back the anxiety of the night before, it can also help you sort out your emotions and make that nightmare feel a lot less real. It’s not fun to recount the events of the night before, but it really does help decrease the number of nightmares one experiences, and it also makes lighthearted and confusing dreams more clear. Whether you’re wondering why you ate pineapples on pizza in your sleep, or you have something more heavy to unpack, dream journaling is a fantastic way to sort out what your brain is worried about, and how you can learn to handle that stress.
If you have recurring dreams regarding a traumatic event, dream journaling helps to set that event into perspective. It’s a horrible feeling to have to relive a traumatic event night after night, but journaling about it can help one express feeling without fear of judgment, as well as brainstorm ways of growing away from the past event. Trauma and PTSD are not something to be ashamed of, and if you are experiencing recurring dreams regarding a traumatic event, I highly suggest you try dream journaling; more importantly, please seek professional help if the event is affecting your sleep drastically. Everyone deserves a good night of rest and to feel safe in their own beds.
I don’t pretend to be a professional in mental health issues – I’m just a girl who has grown in her own mental health journey, sharing what’s worked for me! If you’re waking up scared, confused, or stressed, give dream journaling a try. If the problem persists, take a step in self-care and seek professional help or the support of a loved one. You aren’t alone, and you’ll soon be sleeping stress-free!
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