
Dreaming Is the Inverse of Anxious Mind-Wandering - FailMore
https://psyarxiv.com/k6trz
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StrangeOrange
Really interesting study. Matches well with my own experiences. I used to have
recurring dreams (both specific instances recurring and themes recurring)
which mostly revolved around being chased, being attacked, most often with
knives (I grew up in Glasgow, and there's lots of them about). I realised at
some point that as my self-confidence grew (due to various factors), instead
of getting caught in the dreams I would manage to escape and run away. And
then eventually (with greater amounts of confidence) I started fighting back
and winning. These themes still recur when I'm in various states of high or
low self-esteem/self-confidence. And there are separate themes related to
separate fears which also follow this pattern.

It's a shame that so many people will blast studies like these for being too
small, but it's the start that needs to happen before we get to the end, and I
think it's fascinating work. I hope to see more detailed investigations like
this in future, and a building body of literature on the subject.

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FailMore
Thank you very much for sharing your experience with dreams! I have made a
website to gather scientific research on this interpretation
[https://docbt.org/](https://docbt.org/) (Dream Orientated Cognitive
Behavioural Therapy) and we are on twitter too
[https://twitter.com/docbt1](https://twitter.com/docbt1). I know that the gold
standard of studies are random control trials, but to begin the argument I
think that more qualitative studies can be useful to establish an idea. That
was my intention with this paper.

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erokar
Are you aware of "the functional approach to dreams":
[https://www.amazon.com/Dreaming-Waking-Functional-
Approach-D...](https://www.amazon.com/Dreaming-Waking-Functional-Approach-
Dreams-ebook/dp/B00ILCPODM)

Seems a bit similar and might be worth checking out. (One of the authors,
Corriere, later lost his licenses to practice psychology -- but it doesn't
necessarily invalidate their theory.)

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FailMore
Thanks, I will research it. Read a lot of papers so I can’t remeber if I’ve
seen that theory or not!

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FavouriteColour
“Fourteen examples of dreams are presented, including seven examples of
interpretation, three examples of successful dream content prediction (a first
for an interpretive theory of dreams), and four examples of dreams which
demonstrate how in-dream behaviour changes during successful therapy, three of
which are my own”

The study includes a total of 14 dreams of which 3 are the author’s.

I’ll take it with a grain of salt.

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FailMore
Fair enough, as I write in the conclusion:

This paper should not be viewed as an attempt to prove beyond doubt that the
function of dreams is to highlight anxieties, but to provide food for thought
for future research. There is a neurological basis for the argument put
forward and using dreams in this way has been beneficial in my own therapy and
in directing my guidance of others. Please play with your own dreams and those
of your friends using the methods of interpretation and prediction outlined
above and, if you are in the position to do so, consider testing the ideas
presented using established research methods. If we do have an inbuilt method
of anxiety diagnosis, which means we are not forced into taking such drastic
maladaptive actions while awake in order to communicate our anxieties to
others, then a great deal of mental pain may be able to be avoided.

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vanderZwan
So would you say it is more fair to treat the paper as if it argues this
hypothesis passes a basic smell-test and is worthy of deeper investigation?

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FailMore
My personal experience with the theory has been extensive and I am quite
confident, but yes - from a broader point of view I think anyone with academic
perspective should read it as food for thought for potential future
investigations.

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flavor8
I'd say meditation is the inverse of anxious mind wandering. I've tried a few
techniques, and Vipassana is to me the most interesting. There's a _little_
bit of buddhist dogma which comes with most books / lessons, but that's easily
ignored - otherwise it's zero woo: the 99% core of what is taught is
psychology and practical techniques. The practice itself involves balancing
concentration with active awareness / "mindfulness" \- once you've got a
handle on it, it's a robust technique for staying on top of stress, among
other benefits.

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FailMore
It is the content of the dreams which is the inverse of the anxious mind-
wandering.

During anxious mind-wandering situations which demand avoidant behaviour enter
the mind. For example, an individual with obsessive compulsive disorder may
visualise that they are contaminated (imagined experience) and therefore must
wash their hands (the avoidant action; Mcguire et al., 1994). Alternatively,
an individual with social anxiety disorder might im-agine being in a
conversation and having nothing to talk about (imagined future scenario) and
therefore will avoid entering a conversation (avoidant action; Richards,
2013).

However in dreams I am suggesting that the situations imagined call for un-
avoidant behaviour. For example Tim's dream in the paper:

> Tim’s father gives him a large volume of prescription drugs which he knows
> could kill him if he takes them all. Tim’s father wants him to swallow all
> the pills at once. Tim does not want to! However, he swallows the pills
> without protest.

In this situation it is clear that avoiding the confrontation and swallowing
the pills is not a sensible decision. The situation calls for un-avoidant
behaviour (saying no to his father). It is in this way that I am arguing that
dreaming is the inverse of anxious mind-wandering.

It is interesting that those who do a lot of mediation have been seen to be
less reactive to norepinephrine (a neurotransmitter associated to stress).

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vanderZwan
> _It is in this way that I am arguing that dreaming is the inverse of anxious
> mind-wandering._

I am still a bit uncertain what you mean with "this way". Are you saying that
anxious mind-wandering typically results in a pro-active reaction, whereas in
the dream one is passive? That is: an appropriate response and an
inappropriate response to the imagined scenarios? (note: this is not the same
as whether the imagined scenarios themselves are appropriate)

> _It is interesting that those who do a lot of mediation have been seen to be
> less reactive to norepinephrine (a neurotransmitter associated to stress)._

Mediation or meditation?

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FailMore
I hope this response is not too confusing, but for the moment let's remove
behaviour and focus on the situation.

Some imagined situations create an urge to take avoidant action. For example,
let's say you are in a queue of a rollercoaster, but you have a fear of them -
you might imagine it getting stuck with you upside down, or you might imagine
yourself falling out of the rollercoaster. These are bad futures, and they
make you want to take behaviour to AVOID the rollercoaster (like don't get on
it in the first place!). If you get out of the queue these scenarios will
leave your mind.

In dreaming, the situations are ones where instead of making it obvious that
you should avoid something, they make it obvious that you should confront
something. Confront is a very delicate word to use, as obvious confrontation
(e.g., arguing instead of being passive) is one form of it, but so is being
boring if you fear that others will ignore you (by being boring you are
confronting the fear that you will be ignored unless you perform).

For example, Curtly's dream from the paper:

> Curtly is in a shopping mall. A young child comes up to Curtly and demands
> his wallet and phone. Curtly does not want to hand over his possessions, but
> he does. The young child stands near Curtly with Curtly’s belongings in
> front of him (accessible to Curtly should he decide to try and take them
> back).

Having your possessions stolen warrants a confrontational response. This is
especially so as the person doing the stealing is a child, as it will be safe
to respond with confrontation (the child cannot beat you up!). You can see
that, in the opposite way of anxious mind-wandering, this dream situation does
not demand avoidant behaviour.

Does that make more sense?

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wayfarer2s
I think I get it, but I'd suggest sticking with the same example when
explaining the confrontational aspect of it. When you switch contexts it makes
it hard to imagine the inverse. If you don't mind, can you explain the
confrontation aspect in the context of getting onto the rollercoaster?

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SolaceQuantum
This paper focuses mostly on interpreting reactions to in-dream situations as
a way to evaluate what things we are anxious or avoidant about. Eg. If someone
makes a demand you don’t want to do in a dream, and you do it, you have
anxiety about standing up for yourself.

This is highly generic and I am skeptical it’s applicable to anyone with off
the Wall dreams or people who have specific illnesses that affect the way they
dream (eg. Schizophrenics have anecdata about unusual dreams).

But I think in More neurotypical perspectives with certain kinds of dreams
this could work as a way to frame interpretation.

What rubs me the wrong way, however, is that the paper also implies that the
less anxious you are the more normal you are in your dreams. I’m not sure how
I feel about that.

(Some disclaimer: I have a condition that gives me very vivid dreams that are
not set in reality. I’ve yet to find a way to suitably interpret them in a way
that meshes with academia.)

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FailMore
> What rubs me the wrong way, however, is that the paper also implies that the
> less anxious you are the more normal you are in your dreams.

Hi, thanks for your comment. To be clear, it is not a value judgement by any
means. We do not have responsibility for the feelings that we have and how
they are surfaced in dreams. I have found it is the case that as an anxiety is
worked through (e.g., I was anxious about standing up for myself, and
practiced this in real life and found that I did not need to be so scared of
it) the behaviour in the dream shifts to suit the demands of the situation
more. These changes could be in accordance with the reconsolidation of the
fear memory in the retrosplenial cortex (an area of the brain thought to be
responsible for storing episodic fear memories which is more active during REM
sleep than during waking). However, this is not where the process ends. When
an anxiety is dealt with, another one surfaces and the behaviour is again at
odds with the demand of the situation. So the 'normality' is short lived (and
is not useful).

It is the case that individuals who experience less fear have more positive
dream content, such as those with non-functioning amygdalas (Domhoff, 2017),
individuals with greater wellbeing (Sikka, Pesonen, & Revonsuo, 2018), and
even the Dalai Lama (Mehrotra & Lama, 2005). Those who have greater wellbeing
also have fewer recurring dreams (Gauchat, Zadra, Tremblay, Zelazo, & Séguin,
2009). These are not my views, and I do not have an opinion on what type of
content is 'better', but they are the results from other studies.

~~~
SolaceQuantum
Thanks for your response.

Yes, however, what none of these addresses is when the response is incongruous
with reality but normalized in the dream- it establishes there is a specific
demand of a situation in a dream that is congruous with how reality would
respond as reasonable. My criticism is that this doesn't apply to dreams that
explicitly have their own "reasonable" behavior rules as established in the
dream- off the wall things.

In a dream where drinking unicorn blood is the norm, is the reasonable
behavior to resist doing so or is the reasonable behavior to follow the norms
of the dream, and what does it say about onesself to not want to or want to do
this goresome act? Imagine that this act is viewed neutrally in the context of
the dream.

In a dream where it is dangerous to make friends with pepole, what does it say
if you resist and purposefully befriend someone even if you're scared of
friendship? It's reasonable to befriend people in waking life, but it's
unreasonable to befriend people in a context where friendship is explicitly
dangerous. By the paper, it may mean one is anxious about conformity- but in
this case conformity is nonsensical/unreasonable.

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FailMore
The norms of the dreams should be accepted. If it is the case that drinking
unicorn blood is normal in the dream, then it should be viewed as normal in
the interpretation. The theory does not seek to normalise the dreaming
situation, the norms of the situation are normally extremely useful in the
interpretation.

~~~
SolaceQuantum
Hm. I’d like to try applying this theory to my dreams, but I’m having some
difficulty in a few edge cases (that have proven to be sticking points in the
past). Would you mind if I reached out to you on your opinion on how they
should be interpreted according to this proposed paradigm? And what channels
are mode convenient for you? Thanks again for your responses.

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FailMore
Yes, please reach out to me. My email is visible on the paper.

~~~
SolaceQuantum
Tried the email on the paper but I got in response an address not found
return. Is the email correct? I double-checked it and I did send it to the
email on the paper as it was typed.

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jimkri
I haven't read the paper yet, but I plan on reading it tonight. It's so great
that this came at a time where I've been researching Neurofeedback treatment,
how Meditation effects certain brain activities, stoicism, and other
mindfulness practices.

When I was younger I would have a lot of night terrors, sleep walking, you
name it because of a stressful family situation. So I'm really interested to
read about the studies, because I never thought about using my dreams to
understand how my brain/thoughts are while awake.

I'm totally open to discussing this more with anyone that is interested!

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vanderZwan
I'm sure this is nuanced in the paper, but what about when someone dreams that
their partner does something bad to them, then when awake is upset with said
partner for this imagined event? I speak from experience with being the
partner in this scenario.

I mean, yes, in some sense the dream encourages someone to confront the
anxiety rather than avoid it, but here it feels more like jumping past the
real source of anxiety and lashing out against the imagined one.

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FailMore
I think this could be a good example of the theory. I'm afraid that your
partner believing you have done something is a bit unlucky! But you should ask
her what she is doing in the dream when you are doing something bad to them.
If she is repressing her response to you in the dream, I am suggesting it is
likely that she is repressing this emotion in waking life too.

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samirm
>"Though the situations in dreams call for un-avoidant behaviour, dreamers act
with avoidance."

this is the biggest issue I have with this paper. This assumption is simply
false

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nyc111
But dreaming is related to the gut not the brain. What we eat before we go to
sleep decides what we dream about. Dream is related to the microbiome. We are
conscious of only the dreams just before we wake up. That is, before the
conscious mind awakens.

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IAmGraydon
Source? I was always under the impression that what you eat affects your
dreams is an old wives tale.

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navd
Not necessarily a food, but nicotine can create insane dreams. People who are
in the process of quitting cigarettes can have really disturbing dreams if
they fall asleep with the patch.

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poslathian
So true. I had some wild, wild rides at night while wearing the patch (which I
wore 23hrs and removed before exercise)

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OscarTheGrinch
Not reading an article with a silly title is the inverse of reading it.

