Dreams and Your Mood

Dreams play a major role in our life and it is therefore not surprising that dreams can affect mood. Fortunately, dreaming can actually improve your mood. Also, the mood you are in when you go to sleep can affect the dreams you have.

Dreams affect mood

You have many dreams during the night but generally it is the last dream that you remember when you wake up. Some dreams can be so emotive that you wake up still feeling those emotions in a very powerful way. How you feel can go on to make an impact on your day. It can also alter the way you relate to the people who featured in your dream. This is all fine if it was a pleasant dream with positive emotions and you wake up feeling great. However, it is not so good if it was a bad dream that led you feeling unhappy or in distress.

Dreams can improve your mood

Research has shown that dreaming can improve how you were feeling when you went to bed. When going to bed in a bad mood, early dreams may not be good ones. However, as the night progressed, it seems the bad dreams got less frequent during the night. Upon awakening, it was found that people’s mood had actually improved. The research was conducted by Cartwright and colleagues (1998), published in the Journal of Psychiatry Research.

Other research investigating depressed patients, found those whose dreams got less negative throughout the night, had improved mood by morning. More encouragingly, their depression symptoms had decreased in 72% of cases a year later. Those who had more disturbing dreams just before they woke up ended up with a low mood upon awakening.

Mood affects dreams

Your mood and current mental state has also been shown to impact on your dreams. Research suggests that people who have suffered trauma, loss, are unwell or are suffering from stress or anxiety tend to have more nightmares. Such conditions can also affect the vividness of the dreams.

Happy dreams -- happy mood

It is therefore apparent that mood can affect dreams which in turn can affect mood. Can anything be done about this? It is important that a person addresses any concerns going on in their life. Try to reduce stress, or speak to a counsellor or a doctor.

There is one exercise I would suggest to anyone who is concerned about the dreams they are having. Seligman recommends it for children in his book ‘Authentic Happiness’, but I believe can benefit us all. Just before going to sleep, imagine a really positive picture. Conjure up the details and think about how it makes you feel. You could even give it a name. Then tell yourself that you intend to dream about it. Hopefully this will bring about happy dreams.

Copyright Julia Barnard 2007

Julia Barnard is a professional counsellor living in Adelaide, Australia. She provides an online counselling service through her website http://www.makethechange.com.au. Julia also writes articles for the website aimed at enhancing well-being and promoting good mental health.