Dreams Affect Your Feelings

I would like to share something that I have observed many times, making me think that it just is the way it is. This despite the fact that I haven't really heard this discussed much. I think that the dreams that we have at night have a massive impact on the way that we feel the next day.

I've observed this in myself many times. I have a nice, pleasant dream and then I wake up the next day feeling nice and pleasant. I have a sad dream and then I wake up the next day feeling sad. I've many times felt the continuity between the dreaming and waking up and being awake when I have a certain feeling and emotion in my dream and then I wake up and I can just feel this exact same emotion and I carry it with me through the day. So I think that this happens to us all the time, that dreams have a massive impact on how we feel, we are just generally not aware of the continuity.

If we accept this, certain questions naturally follow. If our dreams really have such an impact on our feelings, what determines the nature of our dreams? Is it random, are they chosen for some spiritual reasons, or what? It seems a bit off that we would have dreams which play a very large part in determining how we feel , and these dreams would just be random and arbitrary. Something to think about.

a reply to: TheJourney

We were dreaming before we were ever born. Some think we may have dreamed up our whole lives as infants. Some babies who cry alot may or may not grow up and have sad lives. Think about it if our whole reality is a dream, maybe our whole life is nothing more then our dreams as children. I think there is a reason most people cant remember there dreams before the age of 5.

It just makes sense and maybe that is what causes Deja-Vu.

So is it the dream affecting the waking mood? Or is it the waking mood that affects our dreams? Or are they interwoven in more interesting ways than we think?

Spot on, OP! I think it will take people a long time before we recognize the importance of dreaming in our waking lives. I think to most, dreams are just some pretend 8 hours of consciousness that we can throw away like it never happened. I take dreams just as seriously as I do the events in my waking moments. There are still many mysteries left to solve with dreams and I hope to see some startling discoveries in my lifetime.

a reply to: NarcolepticBuddha

I had a dream one time that scared me to death, but had no effect on the rest of the day. So nothing is ever truly concrete. Although we'd like to think that way. I guess we need to wait and see what scientists come up with in the future that they've discovered today.

a reply to: TheJourney
And eating Chinese food too close to bedtime affects my dreams.
It works both ways.

a reply to: TheJourney

My wife has woken up "mad" at me for something "I" did in one of her dreams.


So yeah. Dreams can definitely affect your waking emotions.

originally posted by: grey580
a reply to: TheJourney

My wife has woken up "mad" at me for something "I" did in one of her dreams.


So yeah. Dreams can definitely affect your waking emotions.

Yep, I had that happen.
My ex had a dream that I was getting down with some young lady on our couch and she caught us. She was meaner than normal for about a week.

a reply to: TheJourney

I wish I could control my dreams....You know how awesome it feels when you win the lottery in your dreams and buy all kinds of cool stuff? I love it! Dreams are awesome and I really feel bad for people who don't remember their dreams, I remember mine every single morning about what I dreamed about....It is really cool to experience that I think!

This may just be something you do as a person. I have my dream and it probably affects my mood for about an hour and then my day decides the rest, but maybe it is just something you do or did awhile ago. You may have somehow accidently connected some emotions towards the dreams so your brain senses as reality and when you wake up that reality just happened so you would be feeling the emotion you were feeling in the dream. This is just my take on things. I see where you are coming from, I guess my dreams just aren't vivid enough to affect my whole day.

-Or is it just that you become consciously aware of your feelings through your dreams?

In other words, I tend to think that dreams are the way in which our deepest emotions rise to the surface and become conscious, instead of remaining unconscious and expressed through the body.
The feelings in a dream may originate from events and thoughts that happened the day before, but that you were not aware of at the time. Those feelings gave birth to images and symbolism in a dream.
That's is just my opinion.