How dreams may help us make sense of our emotional experiences
Hello, I'm Lee Allison, a Human Givens therapist based in Jersey, Channel Islands. Welcome this series where we're exploring the fascinating world of dreams and the relationship between dreaming, sleep and our emotional health.
Have you ever woken from a dream feeling anxious, unsettled or relieved, even though you couldn't quite explain why?
Dreams can be strange, vivid and sometimes completely disconnected from everyday life. Yet they often seem to carry strong emotions. While we still don't fully understand why we dream, research suggests that sleep plays an important role in how the brain processes memories and emotional experiences. Sleep helps us to consolidate information and may influence how strongly we react to emotional memories the following day.
The dreaming brain: processing our emotions
During sleep the brain remains active. Different stages of sleep, including rapid eye movement (REM) sleep, are associated with memory processing and emotional brain activity. Research suggests that sleep helps us integrate experiences and regulate emotional responses. We may remember what happened without necessarily experiencing the same level of distress when we think about that situation again.
Within the Human Givens approach, dreaming is recognised as one of our innate resources. The model suggests that dreaming helps process unresolved emotional arousal, including worries, concerns and experiences that have occupied our attention during the day. Dreams can bring together memories, feelings and fragments of experiences in unusual or metaphorical ways. This offers one way of understanding why a dream might appear unrelated to our waking lives, yet still leave us with a strong emotional response. The precise function of dreams is still debated, so this is best understood as a theoretical explanation.
Imagine having an argument with your boss during the day. Perhaps you felt angry, frustrated or intimidated, but for whatever reason you didn't feel able to express those emotions or respond in the way you would have liked. The emotional arousal associated with that experience may remain unresolved, like an open pattern waiting to be closed. Later that night you might dream that you're having an argument with another authoritative figure from your past, perhaps a parent, teacher or someone else who once held influence over you. The situation may be different, but the emotional theme is familiar.
From the Human Givens perspective, the dreaming brain may be drawing on memories and associations to recreate the emotional pattern in a kind of play or film, allowing the emotional experience to be processed. It's not necessarily replaying the original event, but using familiar imagery and experiences to represent the underlying emotion.
It's also worth remembering that dreams do not have universal meanings or provide a reliable diagnosis of what someone is thinking or feeling. A dream about falling, being chased or losing something does not automatically mean the same thing for everyone. Rather than looking for fixed interpretations, it can be more useful to consider the emotions involved and whether they connect with anything happening in our lives.
The balance between emotional processing and restoration
Think about how much information and emotional stimulation we experience every day. Our brains are constantly processing conversations, relationships, challenges, memories and the emotional reactions that accompany them. Sleep provides an essential opportunity for the brain to organise these experiences, consolidate memories and regulate emotional responses.
Interestingly, research suggests that prolonged stress and emotional distress can be associated with changes in inflammatory activity within the body, as well as disruption to our normal sleep patterns. Different stages of sleep serve different purposes. REM sleep is closely associated with dreaming and emotional memory processing, while slow wave sleep (SWS deep sleep) plays an important role in physical restoration including brain health.
This raises an interesting question…..
What happens when we experience prolonged emotional overwhelm and our sleep becomes disrupted? Could the balance between emotional processing and restorative sleep become compromised? Are we spending too much time in REM sleep processing emotional overwhelm over the expense of slow wave restorative sleep?
Although research has not established that emotional overload directly causes the brain to sacrifice deep sleep in favour of REM sleep, we do know that chronic stress, disturbed sleep and inflammation can all influence one another.
You can think of this as a potential loop:
The stress – sleep – inflammation cycle
Prolonged emotional stress
↓
Changes in stress and immune regulation, potentially increasing inflammatory activity
↓
Disrupted sleep and changes in normal sleep patterns
↓
Potential disruption to restorative processes, memory consolidation and emotional regulation
↓
Greater emotional vulnerability and difficulty managing everyday stress
↓
Further emotional distress
This is a simplified illustration of certain processes that can influence one another, rather than a proven sequence that happens to everyone. But it highlights just how interconnected our mental and physical health can be.
We need time not only to process the experiences we encounter, but also to restore and maintain the systems that help us function. When emotional needs are consistently unmet and stress becomes prolonged, this natural balance can become harder to maintain. Supporting our emotional wellbeing and protecting our sleep are therefore vital parts of looking after the mind and body.
Looking after our sleep and emotional wellbeing
A consistent sleep routine, time to unwind before bed and opportunities to address worries during the day can all help support better sleep. If recurring nightmares or disturbing dreams are affecting your rest or daily life, it may be helpful to speak with a suitably qualified professional.
The next time you wake from a particularly memorable dream, perhaps pause for a moment and consider how it made you feel. You don't need to decode every detail or search for a hidden meaning. Simply noticing the emotions it brings up may offer a useful opportunity for reflection.
If you would like to book a free 20min discussion to discuss your mental health then please feel free to contact me.
A question to reflect on
Have you ever noticed that a dream seemed connected to something you were experiencing emotionally, even if the events in the dream made very little sense?
References and further reading
Goldstein, A. N. & Walker, M. P. (2014). The Role of Sleep in Emotional Brain Function. Annual Review of Clinical Psychology, 10, 679–708.
Scarpelli, S. et al. (2019). The Functional Role of Dreaming in Emotional Processes. Frontiers in Psychology, 10, 459.
Slavich, G. M. & Irwin, M. R. (2014). From Stress to Inflammation and Major Depressive Disorder. Psychological Bulletin, 140(3), 774–815.
Irwin, M. R. (2015). Why Sleep Is Important for Health: A Psychoneuroimmunology Perspective. Annual Review of Psychology, 66, 143–172.
Xie, L. et al. (2013). Sleep Drives Metabolite Clearance from the Adult Brain. Science, 342(6156), 373–377.
The relationship between dreaming and emotional processing remains an active area of research. The Human Givens explanation of the dreaming brain is a therapeutic model, rather than a settled scientific conclusion.
