Top 6 Signs

You Should Be Careful With Your Dreams

SOMETIMES EACH OF US WANTS TO RELAX AND DREAM, for example, about the upcoming vacation or meeting with friends. Fantasies are a great way to relax, explore your feelings and desires, escape from everyday life and routine. Dreams can also become a defense mechanism during a traumatic situation: fictional images help brighten up a depressing reality. But sometimes dreams can be harmful if they become excessive, distracting from more important things. There is even the concept of "maladaptive daydreaming" - when dreams take so long that it begins to interfere with the person himself. We do not urge you to engage in self-diagnosis or give up the habit of dreaming, but it is still worth taking a closer look at yourself and your own comfort. With the help of consultant psychologist Ekaterina Lebedeva we tell you how to understand that it's time to pay special attention to your daydreaming.

Your dreams are like a movie

You no longer need to subscribe to Netflix, because your own fantasies are more exciting for you than the series. For some people, dreams can really resemble a movie: the action can unfold in a special world, they think over in detail the cues between people, their actions, and even their appearance (while clearly drawing the line between fantasy and reality) - in general, dreams are distinguished by a special plot detail ... Some people with maladaptive daydreaming say that their fantasies consist of "series" and even "seasons", last for years, and the heroes of your dreams can grow up and change with them. In general, there is nothing wrong with thinking through interesting plots in your head, if it does not bother you personally - you should pay attention to this if you feel that you can be in the clouds for several hours in a row, forgetting about everyday activities, and spend a lot more energy on it than you would like.

You are completely immersed in dreams

For a few seconds or even minutes to be distracted from a monotonous task or boring conversation, then again to return them all their attention, a story familiar to many. It's another matter when dreams require more and more effort, and sometimes complete immersion.

Some situations seem to be pushing you to dream: for example, on a bike ride, it is easy to imagine that you are wading through the impenetrable jungle towards treasures or winning the race. According to a professor at the University of Haifa, Eli Somer, the author of the concept of maladaptive daydreaming, music and cystic movements can play a special role for her, helping her to stay in her fantasies or immerse herself in them even deeper. So if you are used to fantasizing about not lying on a cozy couch and relaxing, but wandering, playing with a ball, or dancing to concentrate on your fantasy, and such a deep immersion is troublesome, it may be worth paying special attention to the habit.

The habit of daydreaming gets in the way.

According to Ekaterina Lebedeva, often in dreams we try to imagine our future and visualize it. When we get acquainted with this picture in more detail, it becomes clear to us what steps should be taken to make it a reality, in this case, dreams motivate us to achieve the goal. But sometimes fantasies, on the contrary, can be disorganized - for example, if you are constantly distracted by them and they take up a lot of time that you would like to devote to other things, or you are unable to complete what you started.

Research suggests that the habit of daydreaming in the middle of an important task or, for example, a meeting, on the contrary, can be a sign of high ability and creativity. So it's likely that your brain just wants more activity - especially if you can "drop" out of the conversation for a while and then return to it as if nothing had happened. It's another matter if you feel that the urge to dream is interfering with your daily life, or if you start to worry or get annoyed about it. It may be worthwhile, as with any procrastination situation, to consider why you are dreaming instead of doing what you planned. Maybe you're just bored or don't like the task itself?

Reality seems boring

“My fictional family was very different from my real one,” says one of the participants in the Eli Somer study, who believes that he may have maladaptive daydreaming. - I imagined that I have a family - or imagined the kind of family I would like, thinking this ideal world in my head. I imagined that I was married, I have eleven children, twelve grandchildren, we are very comfortable together, we always celebrate family holidays and everything is fine. "

Of course, rarely does anyone's dreams and fantasies turn out to be so detailed - but often we fantasize about something better and more enjoyable than what we usually encounter. It is not surprising that sometimes the "imperfect" reality can excite and interest much less the fictional world. There is even research suggesting that, for all its harmlessness, daydreaming can bring negative emotions - for example, when dreams are associated with people with whom we are not particularly familiar and close, they can lead to the fact that we feel more alone.

It happens that we use dreams to cope with a traumatic situation. “For example, a small child surviving the disappearance of a beloved pet imagines how he is creating a magical search engine for animals. This helps him to cope with the loss and brighten up the reality a little, ”says Ekaterina Lebedeva. If you feel that the desire to dream may hide dissatisfaction with the real world with its affairs and concerns, you should pay attention to this and, perhaps, try to change something.

You sacrifice sleep

If not being able to dream during the working day, you postpone your favorite activity for the evening, and then often find that it is time to sleep for a long time, it may be worth considering: chronic lack of sleep can have a great effect on your health and mood. If you begin to notice that the habit of daydreaming takes up time to sleep, and there are no objective reasons to worry and spend hours thinking about plans in bed, it may make sense to discuss this with a specialist.

You can't get yourself together

Research shows that people can spend up to half of their awake time thinking about something other than what they are doing right now. This, of course, is not only about dreams (who among us have not thought about plans for the weekend during working hours, especially when the weather is nice outside the window), but about them too. People who spend more time on dreams than they would like to often complain about inattention and inability to concentrate - after all, how can you get yourself together if subconsciously you are constantly thinking about a kind of "scenario" of your own fantasies?

Instead, you can try to use your dreams to your advantage. There is, for example, the technique of “ positive, constructive daydreaming, ” where you allow your mind to wander freely from thought to thought while doing a monotonous task like knitting, cooking, or tending plants — and so come up with new ideas.