Posted by tabitha on October 7, 2004, at 13:20:33
In reply to using your dreams to judge sleep quality, posted by octopusprime on October 7, 2004, at 11:03:32
Too much dreaming is supposed to be bad, since the REM (dreaming) sleep isn't as restful as the deep sleep. In fact there's a UK website that makes a whole theory of depression around the amount of REM sleep. Here's a link
http://www.clinical-depression.co.uk/Understanding_Depression/understanding.htm
I found this fascinating, but also odd I've never heard this theory anyplace else. The jist of it is that dreaming is your brain trying to work off excess emotional arousal. So if you have too much emotional arousal (due in large part to cognitive distortions), then you end up dreaming too much, then your sleep quality is degraded, then you develop depression, and it becomes a vicious cycle.
poster:tabitha
thread:399952
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/health/20041005/msgs/399985.html