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The psyche suffers – is this also reflected in sleep? Quite possible, says a professor of neurology who has been studying the question for around 30 years. In an interview she explains the warning signs of our dreams.
A notice: This article addresses mental illness, suicide and trauma.
Isabelle Arnulf is professor of neurology at the Sorbonne University in Paris. She has been studying dreams – and what they can say about people – for around 30 years. In an interview with Spektrum, Arnulf explains how depression, among other things, becomes noticeable through dreams.
According to the expert, possible pathological patterns that people experience at night while they sleep cannot be easily divided into dream types.
As an example, Arnulf cites people with schizophrenic psychoses – i.e. people who are affected by a loss of reality or delusions. According to the expert, they would dream “illogically and incoherently”, just as they may also think during the day. However This does not allow for the reverse conclusion: Not every person who dreams like this is schizophrenic.
Dreams alone are by no means sufficient for a diagnosis
““Dreams alone are not enough to diagnose mental illness,” clarifies the neurologist. The dream world can still provide clues. “For example, those who suffer from mental disorders such as depression, anxiety disorders or post-traumatic stress disorders are more often plagued by nightmares,” continues Arnulf.
Regular nightmares can therefore occur Be an indication of possible dangers. This is particularly noticeable among young people at risk of suicide, explains the expert. She says: “In every second case, doctors do not recognize suicidality, which is a serious problem. Since repeated nightmares correlate with an increased risk of suicide, dreams have recently been included in the diagnosis.”
Depression and sleep
Depressed people would often experience negative feelings while sleeping. According to Arnulf, dreams then function as a “reflection of the state of mind”. A study by psychologist Dieter Riemann at the University of Freiburg examined this connection. However no conclusions can be drawn yetwhether “the emotional tone of dreams” actually reflects the extent of depression.
A Characteristics of depressed people However, they felt sadder in the morning than in the evening. The opposite is the case in healthy people. “We tend to be happier when we wake up than when we go to sleep. We therefore suspect that sleeping and dreaming serve to dampen negative emotions and that this process does not work properly in depressed people,” explains Arnulf. Current research projects are investigating this assumption in more detail.
Basically – according to a thesis of the neuroscientist Matthew Walker – dreams can serve to process emotional memories of the day. According to Arnulf, she gets it Region of the brain that stores emotions (amygdala)then a kind of reset. The memories would be saved, but not the emotions associated with them. Reliving an event gradually reduces negative feelings.
“The mechanism obviously doesn’t work with nightmares.”
“The mechanism obviously doesn’t work with nightmares. Because if the dream or even sleep is interrupted, the emotional processing cannot be completed,” says Arnulf. About at traumatic experienceslike war or rape, the brain is overwhelmed with regulation. This can manifest itself in the affected person reliving the traumatic memory over and over again until they wake up with a start.
According to Arnulf, it is important to have recurring nightmares professionally clarified. Even when stressed, people tend to have worse dreams because the brain has to process many negative emotions at once.
Sources: spectrum
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