Everyone dreams. But most people forget their dreams shortly after waking up, leaving only some feeling at best. Those who still clearly remember the content of their dreams after waking up can only have poor sleep quality or excessive dreams.
Why do insomniacs always say they have a lot of dreams?
I often hear people say: "I didn't have a good rest last night and had a night of dreams", "I have a lot of dreams at night, it's so bad" Didn’t fall asleep”. Therefore, I seemed to feel a little lack of energy and lack of energy when studying and working on this day, as if dreaming really delayed my rest. According to traditional concepts, some doctors also admit that dreaminess is a sign that the brain has not rested or has not rested well. In fact, this old concept is wrong. Having a dream and being able to recall the dream is not an indicator of a lack of deep sleep, nor can it be said that having a dream means that you have not slept well. As mentioned before, dreams are a common physiological phenomenon. Regardless of whether you have the memory of dreams or the feeling of dreams, you must have 4 to 5 dreams every night. It is an exaggeration to say that I dreamed all night, and it is unrealistic to say that I did not dream, let alone dreaming more and less. People at home and abroad have conducted physiological tests on chronic insomnia patients who mainly complain of insomnia, dreaming all night or having too many dreams. They have used a variety of physiological instruments to conduct brain wave tracings and research. Objective records have proved that these people who mainly complain of "too many dreams" and "too many dreams" The sleep cycle of patients with "dreaming all night" is no different from that of normal people. The proportion and actual time of their fast-wave sleep periods accompanied by dreams are not significantly shortened or prolonged. "Dreaming all night" and "dreaming too much" "There is no correlation between the experience and various sleep parameters. Others conduct psychological tests on such patients and believe that such experiences are related to personality. Regardless of the general laws of human sleep or the results of experimental research, there is not necessarily a connection between dreaming and insomnia. The presence or absence of dream feeling and the degree of dream feeling cannot be used as objective indicators of insomnia or the degree of insomnia.
In this case, why do people always associate dreaming with insomnia? As we have mentioned many times before, dreaming is an inevitable physiological phenomenon that occurs during the fast-wave sleep period. An active physiological process, its manifestations include representational elements, perceptual memory activities and extraordinary associations. The sense of dream refers to the recollection of certain plots in the dream after waking up, or only the impression of having had a dream. Even the content of the dream is difficult to explain clearly. The dreams mentioned by people who complain of insomnia with many dreams or insomnia without dreams should refer to the dream feeling, and the dream feeling is related to emotional factors and personality characteristics. For example, introverted people tend to focus more on their own internal feelings. They sleep more superficially and are prone to awakening or awakening, and can often recall vivid dreams. People with depressed and anxious moods are prone to awakening from dreams, so they feel that they are dreaming. Too much and too much sleep. Researchers also found that more dreams are closely related to the degree of awakening during sleep. People who report having many dreams are more likely to be awakened during sleep. In sleep experiments, a volume of only 20 decibels was enough to wake them up, and their dream recall was also high. Clinically, it is often seen that people who suddenly have many dreams are often related to being hurt by seven emotions, feeling unhappy, and having restless sleep. Therefore, insomniacs are often accompanied by many dreams.
Clinical observations and experimental results have proven that complaints of insomnia, especially long-term insomnia, are unreliable. Many scholars have studied patients who complained of insomnia and found that insomnia is related to psychological disorders. They tend to overestimate sleep latency and underestimate actual sleep time. During experimental tests, insomnia patients' descriptions of sleep parameters were inconsistent with objective records, and were either exaggerated or reduced. Most experts believe that the experience of insomnia is related to mood and personality.
Why do many insomnia patients complain that they “dream all night or have too many dreams”? Through investigation and analysis, some people believe that it is related to the following factors:
(1) Sleep knowledge and sleep and sleep Little is known about the relationship between dreams and senses: many people do not understand the cycle changes of sleep, the role of dreams in sleep, their physiological role, and the difference between dreams and dream senses. They do not know that there is nothing about dreams or dream senses. side effect. The unscientific interpretation of dreams by old traditional concepts and feudal superstitions makes people fear dreams. They spread rumors and make many people blindly fall into the fear of dreams.
(2) It is related to people’s emotional state: many people lack understanding of emotional disorders and do not know that emotional disorders are a disease. They often ignore the emotional disorders themselves and pay too much attention to the insomnia associated with emotional disorders. , dreams, pain and other symptoms. Not knowing how to regulate and improve one's emotions leads to exaggerating less objective experiences.
(3) Being overly concerned about one’s own health and the sense of dreaming leads to an enhanced sense of dreaming; the result of the enhanced sense of dreaming, in turn, aggravates worries about health and fear of insomnia, and even causes malignant cycle.
(4) Some people wake up during the fast wave sleep period or wake up immediately after the fast wave sleep period, resulting in increased recall of dreams.
(5) Differences in individual functional status: Different individuals have different perceptions of dreams. Even if the same individual has different functional status at different times, the degree of dream perception is also different. Therefore, some people have a strong sense of dreaming (more dreams) at one time, and a weak sense of dreaming (fewer dreams) at another time.
As a phenomenon, insomnia exists objectively, and dreams, as a common physiological phenomenon, are by no means redundant. We admit the existence of insomnia, but we cannot think that there is an inevitable connection between insomnia and dreaming.
How does Chinese medicine understand the relationship between dreaminess and insomnia?
Traditional Chinese medicine believes that the root cause of dreaminess is caused by internal changes in the body. "Suwen·Fang Shengwan Lun" says: "The reversal of less qi causes people to have delusional dreams, which is extremely confusing." The so-called less qi means insufficient qi. If qi is insufficient, the yang will not keep the yin, and the spirit will lose its control. , so there are many dreams. This is one of the reasons. If the emotions are damaged, it hurts the internal organs, consumes the essence, makes the soul uneasy, and causes excessive dreams; the deficiency of yin and blood cannot support the mind, submerges the liver and soul, and restricts the fire, causing the soul to float, causing excessive dreams; if Due to phlegm and heat internally disturbing the liver and gallbladder, the soul will be restless and have many dreams; excessive exertion, water and fire deficiency, and heart and kidney disharmony will lead to restlessness and many dreams; improper eating and drinking will cause the earth to be weak and the wood to be depressed, and the soul will be restless and have many dreams. Dream. The occurrence of many dreams leads to restless sleep and various dreams.
How does Chinese medicine treat excessive dreams?
Dreams refer to waking up from sleep and consciously having chaotic dreams, often accompanied by dizziness and fatigue. Traditional Chinese medicine often uses the following two methods to treat dream syndrome.
(1) Syndrome differentiation and treatment
①Insufficient Heart Qi
Symptoms: excessive dreams and easily frightened, insomnia, mental fatigue and drowsiness, shortness of breath, or prone to crying during joy and sadness, She is in a trance, has a pale tongue, thin and white coating, and a thin and weak pulse.
Treatment method: nourish blood and replenish qi, calm the mind and calm the mind.
Choice: Add or subtract Shenxiang Powder.
Drugs: 9g ginseng, 12g each of astragalus, poria, atractylodes and yam, 6g each of lotus flesh, amomum villosum, agarwood, sandalwood and licorice.
②Insufficient heart blood
Symptoms: palpitations, irritability and insomnia, excessive dreams and easily frightened, forgetfulness and dizziness, dull complexion, pale tongue, and thready pulse.
Treatment method: Nourishing blood and calming the nerves.
Selected recipe: Siwu Decoction plus Rong Sha Dan.
Drugs: 12g each of Rehmannia glutinosa, Angelicae Sinensis, White Peony Root, and Ligusticum Chuanxiong, 6g each of Deer Antler and Cinnabar, and 18g fried jujube kernels.
③Insufficient heart yin
Symptoms: palpitations, insomnia and dreaminess, five upset stomachs and fever, dry throat, red tongue with little fluid, and thready and rapid pulse.
Treatment method: nourish yin, nourish the heart and calm the mind.
Prescription: Modification of Yiqi Anshen Decoction.
Drugs: 12g each of Angelica sinensis, Poria, Ophiopogon japonicus and Radix Rehmanniae, 6g each of Coptis chinensis, Polygala root, bamboo leaves, ginseng, astragalus, gallbladder star and lotus seed heart, 18g Ziziphus jujuba kernel, 3g cinnabar.
④Heart and kidney disharmony
Symptoms: upset, insomnia, dreaminess, spermatorrhea, soreness of waist and legs, hot flashes and night sweats, red tongue without coating, thready and rapid pulse.
Treatment method: communicate with the heart and kidneys.
Choose a recipe: Add or subtract Coptidis Ejiao Decoction.
Drugs: 9g each of coptis, skullcap, white peony root and donkey-hide gelatin, 1 chicken roe yellow, 12g keel bone.
⑤Heart and Gallbladder Qi Deficiency
Symptoms: Restless palpitations, timidity and fear, sleepless nights with many dreams, chest tightness and shortness of breath, pale tongue, thin white coating, thready and weak pulse.
Treatment method: nourish the heart and replenish qi, strengthen courage and calm panic.
Choose a side: leveling up the mind-soothing elixir.
Drugs: 12g each of Ziziphus seed and Aralia japonica, 9g each of Plantago seed, Poria cocos, Ophiopogon japonicus, Poria god, Asparagus asparagus, Rehmannia glutinosa, Chinese yam, Schisandra chinensis, Polygala and ginseng 6g each, cinnamon, cinnabar, 3g each of licorice.
⑥ Deficiency of heart and spleen
Symptoms: palpitations and forgetfulness, less sleep and more dreams, shortness of breath and mental fatigue, sallow complexion, tiredness after eating less, abdominal distension and loose stools, pale tongue with loose coating White, thin and weak pulse.
Treatment method: Replenishing the heart and spleen.
Selected recipe: Guipi Decoction.
Drugs: 6g each of ginseng, polygala root, and costus root, 9g each of astragalus, atractylodes, angelica, poria, jujube kernel, and longan flesh, and 3g of roasted licorice.
⑦ Internal disturbance of phlegm-fire
Symptoms: disturbed dreams, dizziness and palpitations, irritability, excessive phlegm, chest tightness, red tongue, yellow and greasy coating, slippery and rapid pulse.
Treatment: Clear away heat and resolve phlegm.
Selected prescription: Coptidis chinensis to warm the bile and intestines.
Drugs: 6g of coptis, 9g each of pinellia, tangerine peel, poria, bamboo root, and citrus aurantium, 3g each of licorice and ginger, 5 jujubes, and 12g mother-of-pearl.
(2) Dream Interpretation and Psychotherapy: Please refer to the relevant provisions for its content.
Can emotional stimulation also cause excessive dreams? How to correct it?
We have already introduced in the relevant entries that dreaming is essential for every normal person, and it is also There are some benefits. So why do many people worry about dreaming? They think that dreaming affects the effect of sleep, resulting in many uncomfortable symptoms during the day. In fact, this is not the case. If you ask these people carefully, you will find that they have various troublesome psychological factors. It is these psychological factors that affect normal sleep at night and also cause other symptoms. They can also experience the pain caused by their worries through dreams. The content of some people's dreams is related to the reasons for their unhappiness. However, due to the effect of psychological factors, the increased sleep time is taken up by "dreamless sleep", while "dreamless sleep" does not increase, so the depth of sleep becomes shallower. This kind of sleep does not allow the brain to fully rest and recover, but it increases stimulation. Objectively speaking, the sleep is prolonged, but the effect is worse. After waking up, you will feel tired and unrelieved. Every time you wake up from a nightmare at night, you will subjectively think that you have been dreaming all night.
Those who "dream all night long" can take some sleeping pills to reduce the "dream-related sleep" and increase the depth of "dreamless sleep" in order to relieve symptoms and improve sleep effects. But this can only be used as a temporary symptomatic treatment, and treating the symptoms cannot cure the root cause. If medication is used for a long time to deprive "dreaming sleep", it will also produce "dreaming pressure". Once the medication is stopped, a "rebound phenomenon" will occur. As a result, the content and duration of dreams are significantly increased than before taking the medication, so that the patient does not dare to Stopping the medication, fearing that stopping the medication will cause more pain. If you do not stop taking the medicine, you will become dependent on the medicine if you take it for a long time. Therefore, taking sleeping pills can only be used as an auxiliary treatment.
The fundamental method of treatment is to remove the psychological factors that cause poor sleep. If the patient adopts correct methods and attitudes to face psychological difficulties through psychotherapy and specific guidance, and gradually solves the difficult and contradictory reality, the painful dreams will be reduced and sleep can return to normal. At the same time, Many other co-existing symptoms also disappeared. In short, when the psychological factor of trouble is gone, a series of reactions caused by it will also disappear.