What if dreams are real

Where do dreams come from? It's an age-old question, something people have been wondering and theorising about for millennia. Whereas ancient civilisations may have interpreted dreams as having supernatural or spiritual origins, in modern society, we're more likely to analyse our dreams in terms of our waking life, looking for meaningful connections linking the content of dreams with lived experiences from our day-to-day existence.

Dreams can be ludicrous, but unless we are lucky enough to be lucid dreamers, we believe every part of them. Why are you drinking champagne on a private jet with Rihanna?

Why are the cybermen chasing you? These are all questions we do not have until we wake up, and only then if we actually remember our dreams in the first place. Dreams are our one true escape from the humdrum predictability of real life. They are better because they feel so real and are better because we do not question their logic. But why do they feel so real? Is it our subconscious telling us something? A message from God? This hypothesis is supported by the underlying assumption that there are groups of interrelated variables that are present in both DRC and BPD.

These variables, which we identified through an analysis of the scientific literature, can be divided into the following categories: i sleep disturbances; ii dissociative symptoms; iii negative dream content; iv cognitive disturbances; and v thin boundaries.

This division was made on the basis of theoretical considerations; no factor analyzes have been conducted yet. Each of these five variables is presented separately below. Sleep disturbances, for the purpose of this theoretical analysis, include a variety of problems with sleep that are discussed below. Such sleep problems are very common among individuals with BPD Hafizi, Though there is little epidemiological data on sleep disorders among persons diagnosed with BPD, cross-sectional studies show that sleep disorders are prevalent in 15— Compared to a non-clinical group, individuals with BPD take more time to fall asleep, sleep for shorter times, have lower sleep efficiency, and have frequent sleep disturbances Semiz et al.

Patients with BPD also have more night awakenings than persons from a non-clinical population Battaglia et al. Labile sleep—wake cycles are another example of sleep disturbances. Labile sleep—wake cycles may promote the intrusion of dreamlike experiences into waking consciousness that can lead to DRC and foster the feeling of depersonalization, which is a dissociative symptom.

They also have an adverse effect on memory, thus favoring the creation of false memories van der Kloet et al. Individuals who report sleep disturbances score high on dissociative scales, fantasy proneness a tendency for deep and long-standing involvement in fantasy and imagination; Lynn and Rhue, , p. Taken together, the above relationships appear to support our hypothesis that BPD patients are likely to experience DRC.

Persons diagnosed with BPD have a stronger tendency toward dissociative symptoms than non-clinical population and individuals who suffer from depression or schizophrenia Merckelbach et al.

The occurrence of dissociative symptoms during the course of BPD may be associated with childhood traumatic events. According to one of the theories of the etiology of BPD, this personality disorder develops in individuals who report that traumatic events were a characteristic of their early lives, mainly physical abuse and emotional neglect.

A study of patients with BPD found that those who had high scores on the Dissociative Experience Scale DES , which measures the frequency of dissociative symptoms, such as autobiographical amnesia, derealization, depersonalization, absorption, and identity alteration Bernstein and Putnam, , experienced significantly more severe emotional and physical neglect and emotional and physical abuse but not sexual abuse during childhood than those who had low scores on the DES Watson et al.

The results suggest that individuals exposed to severe traumatic events during childhood are more likely to develop dissociative symptoms. Traumatic experiences also often interfere with the integration of mental functions, thus, leading to their dysfunction Vermetten and Spiegel, Moreover, dissociative symptoms involve automatic avoidance strategies that defend consciousness from traumatic memories Briere, It is noteworthy that dissociative symptoms are one of the correlates of DRC Rassin et al.

Levitan , p. It seems that frequent experiences of dissociative symptoms or their intensification may produce frequent intrusions of dreams into experiences during the waking state. Dissociative symptoms and proneness to fantasy — characteristics linked to DRC — are correlated, and it appears this correlation can be mediated by experiences during sleep Giesbrecht and Merckelbach, High fantasy-prone students report more dissociative symptoms than their friends who score low or medium on fantasy-proneness Rauschenberger and Lynn, ; Waldo and Merritt, Furthermore, individuals who find it difficult to discriminate between dreams and reality score higher on scales that measure dissociative symptoms and fantasy proneness than individuals who do not confuse dream content with experiences during the waking state Rassin et al.

A study of 51 women from the general population found that fantasy proneness is linked to both dissociative symptoms and everyday cognitive failures Merckelbach et al. Moreover, dissociative symptoms, fantasy proneness, cognitive failures, and sleep disturbances are correlated van Heugten — van der Kloet et al.

Later in the current paper, we present data indicating that disturbances in cognitive functioning are among the variables that increase proneness to DRC. The relationship between dissociative symptoms and fantasy proneness also has been observed in clinical populations. Merckelbach et al. In addition, Steiger et al. To summarize, the above findings support our hypothesis that individuals with diagnosed BPD are more likely to experience DRC because of their tendency to experience dissociative symptoms and related phenomena, such as fantasy proneness, sleep disturbances, and cognitive problems.

Individuals suffering from BPD experience more negative life events than other individuals — even those with other personality disorder s Pagano et al.

The quantitative analysis of a group of 27 individuals diagnosed with BPD and a non-clinical group of 20 individuals showed that the BPD group had dreams with more negative affect than those in the non-clinical group.

Generally, individuals suffering from BPD experience negative dreams, including nightmares, more often than individuals who do not have any of the characteristic symptoms of this personality disorder Schredl et al. Nightmares are sleep disturbances that are related to sleep disorders. They are defined as vivid dreams, charged with negative emotions that awaken the dreamer from sleep DSM-V; American Psychiatric Association, The higher frequency of nightmares among BPD patients compared to the non-clinical population is related to greater emotional instability and heightened neuroticism in this clinical group Simor et al.

The intensity of BPD symptoms is positively correlated with the frequency of nightmares Semiz et al. To try to explain the prevalence of nightmares in persons with BPD, we present two theories: a nightmare model proposed by Levin and Nielsen , and the Emotional Cascade Model developed by Selby et al. Levin and Nielsen proposed a theory to explain the occurrence of dysphoric dreaming, which is based on two major assumptions: cross-state continuity and multilevel explanation.

The first, cross-state continuity , assumes that some structures and processes implicated in nightmare production are also engaged during the expression of pathological signs and symptoms such as dissociative symptoms during the waking state Levin and Nielsen, , p. The second, the multilevel explanation , refers to the idea that nightmare formation can be explained at two different levels: the cognitive—emotional level and the neuronal level.

At the cognitive—emotional level, there are imagery processes that represent emotional dream imagery, whereas the neuronal level contains a network of brain regions responsible for imagistic and emotional processes.

This model was created to explain the occurrence of nightmares in the course of posttraumatic stress disorder PTSD ; however, it may also be used in an attempt to describe experiences related both to nightmares and cross-state continuity in patients diagnosed with BPD. We will not discuss the concept of neuronal correlates of DRC and BPD, as this is beyond the scope of the present article. Instead, we will focus on the notion of cross-state continuity with reference to BPD.

Other factors include high degrees of physiological and psychological reactivity, maladaptive coping, fantasy proneness, imagery vividness, and thin boundaries. Numerous studies suggest that almost all of these factors are usually present during the course of BPD, however more recent studies indicate that there is no heightened physiological reactivity in BPD e. Persons diagnosed with this personality disorder are characterized by emotional dysregulation, which is the inability to flexibly respond to and manage emotions, entailing emotional sensitivity, heightened and labile negative affect, a deficit of appropriate regulation strategies, and a surplus of maladaptive regulation strategies Carpenter and Trull, In addition, BPD entails affective instability and a low level of emotion recognition Cole et al.

Studies confirm that BPD patients display a negative distortion in the identification of their own emotional states and the emotional states of other persons e. The inability to accurately recognize emotional states may intensify negative affect, emotional instability, and emotional reactivity in everyday life. Furthermore, patients with BPD are unable to tolerate distress and they usually use maladaptive regulation strategies to cope with distress and the negative emotions they experience, such as ruminations, impulsive behaviors, or cognitive avoidance Carpenter and Trull, Disorders of emotional processes in patients with BPD seem to occur not only in the waking state, but also during dreaming, as in the case of nightmares Simor et al.

The effects of nightmares and other bad dreams, apart from the fear they produce, can involve deficits in appropriate emotion-regulation skills, and decrease ability to cope with distress during the subsequent day, according to the ECM. Patients with BPD experience emotional cascades during the waking state, and this negative affect induces rumination — repetitive thoughts with mainly negative content. Ruminations increase negative affect, which, in turn, intensify ruminations.

These processes result in increased cognitive activity during sleep that favors the appearance of nightmares and maladaptive behaviors during the waking state that are intended to cope with negative emotions. It seems that frequent nightmares in persons with BPD may influence the occurrence of negative life events Selby et al.

Elevated cognitive arousal during sleep may cause awakenings or semi-awakenings, which consequently may lead to difficulty distinguishing between dreaming and waking experiences Trajanovic et al. In addition, the inability to cope effectively with stressful situations may enhance the tendency toward dissociative states Mosquera et al.

Moreover, a study by Rassin et al. Taken together, the findings suggest that frequent unpleasant dream content in BPD may be a factor that increases proneness to DRC. Patients with BPD can experience a number of different cognitive disturbances. Usually, executive functions, such as working memory and response inhibition, also are disturbed in BPD Hagenhoff et al.

Moreover, BPD is characterized by deficits in feedback processing, altered social inference, and poor decision-making skills Trivedi, ; Mak and Lam, Generally, four types of cognitive disturbances are distinguished in BPD: i transient, quasi-psychotic cognition, ii dissociation, iii social cognitive biases, and iv neurocognition Fertuck and Stanley, A detailed description of cognitive problems in BPD, however, remains beyond the scope of the present paper.

What is important is that problems with reality testing may occur in patients with BPD Fiqueierdo, Reality monitoring, which is related to reality testing, seems to play a significant role in the process of distinguishing dream content from waking experiences. We dismiss dreams because they end when we wake up. However, the duration of the experience doesn't mean it has any less basis in physical reality.

Certainly we don't think day-to-day life is less real because we fall asleep or die. It's true we don't remember events in our dreams as well as in waking hours, but the fact that Alzheimer's patients may have little memory of events doesn't mean their life is any less real. Or that individuals who take psychedelic drugs don't experience physical reality, even if the spatio-temporal events they experience are distorted or they don't remember all of the events when the drugs wear off certainly, anyone they had sex with would confirm this.

We also dismiss dreams as unreal because they're associated with brain activity during sleep. But are our waking hours unreal because they're associated with the neural activity in our brain? Certainly, the bio-physical logic of consciousness -- whether during a dream or waking hours -- can always be traced backwards, whether to neurons or the Big Bang. But according to biocentrism, reality is a process that involves our consciousness.

In contrast to dreams, we assume the everyday world is just "out there" and that we play no role in its appearance. We think they're different.