I have really bad dreams which affect my mood the following day; I can be depressed, angry, have existential dread.
It’s frustrating but I also think a lot of it centres around people i know and people i used to know - so my brain is creating situations with people i don’t want to & won’t interact with ever again, just to make me feel bad.
My favourite dreams have just been me roaming around and exploring places - sometimes travelling by car or boat. Usually by myself. If i went running in the woods more, could i leverage my brain to give me more pleasant dreams like that?
Anecdote here, this is not evidence-based medicine.
I have found that writing down as much as I remember from my dreams - good and bad - as soon as I wake up from them has drastically improved my dreaming experience. They’ve become more pleasant, the unpleasant parts impact me less, and they’re generally more elaborate in a fun way.
Non-consensual dreaming I call it. Some good advice in here. I dont have much to add, but suffer from this sometimes too.
I try and idk, find joy and peace during the days, and fall asleep while intently keeping my thoughts on a subject I know wont hurt me, like house flipper 2 where I build houses often, so I just think about my plans for that, and if my mind veers off somewhere else I redirect it back to my project, until I am asleep.
Doesnt always work.
I want a good canoe I can go fishing in. I used to want a Super Yacht that I could snort cocaine in. We all need to manage our expectations or pretty soon everyone will want the yacht.
I used to get better success when I would use certain activities to sublimate the emotions my weird or stupid dreams gave me. Going for drives, walks, or some other kind of solitary travel was my favorite method. It helps them move from being discordant or shitty thoughts that I don’t identify with into something I can look at, think about how it happened, then move on.
Obviously that’s not always an option for everyone though
Might you not be getting the causality reversed and it is actually your mood that is dictating the nature of your dreams. My guess would be you have some problems your subconscious is examining via dreams.
If i went running in the woods more, could i leverage my brain to give me more pleasant dreams like that?
Probably yes. Both running and being in nature are known to improve the overall state of mind, and having your thoughts in the right place makes it less likely to have bad dreams. But every person and situation is different. Just running in the woods will not make trauma go away even if it can lessen it in most people, for example.
