It could be difficult memories from the past that you can't forget and you're still struggling to let go of them. Time-traveling back may indicate that you can't move from your past yet. Instead of letting bygones be bygones, you're creating a space for the past to remain with you.
Have you ever been going about your day when you were suddenly struck by the somewhat strange sensation that you'd already dreamed the experience before? Not to be confused with déjà vu, this particular phenomenon is called déjà rêvé—and it's actually not that uncommon.
“In addition, some people experience dreams about memories or even future events. While this may seem strange at first, it is a relatively common occurrence and can be explained by how our brains process information.
Deadlines, running out of time; an acute awareness of the passing of time. Clock dreams often occur when one is faced with serious and life-threatening illness, or is close to someone who is in such a situation. Trying to stop a clock, or a clock breaking, can represent a fear of death.
The vast majority of people are incapable of reading in their dreams. The same goes for clocks: each time you look at a clock it will tell a different time and the hands on the clock won't appear to be moving as reported by lucid dreamers.
The added bonus to the dream time dilation is that it can happen again and again in different layers of a dream. Each time, the dreamers experience the five-minutes-to-an-hour time dilation, or they see time slow down by a factor of twelve. So, on the first level, time moves twelve times slower.
Sometimes the dreams we have seem so real. Most of the emotions, sensations, and images we feel and visualize are those that we can say we have seen or experienced in real life. This is because the same parts of the brain that are active when we are awake are also active when we are in certain stages of our sleep.
Dream flashbacks can occur once in a while and not that often, occur off and on, or occur for hours and even days. Dream flashbacks can precede, accompany, or follow an escalation of other anxiety sensations and symptoms, or occur by itself.
Vivid dreams are intense dreams that linger in your mind and feel similar to real-life memories. They arise from the normal REM cycles the brain goes through in a typical good night's sleep. Yet unlike most dreams, vivid dreams can feel so intense that they affect your mental health and wellbeing.
At this time there is little scientific evidence suggesting that dreams can predict the future. Some research suggests that certain types of dreams may help predict the onset of illness or mental decline in the dream, however.
So, to answer your question, it is completely normal to remember your dreams, even the dreams you had years ago. This just means that your brain functions differently, in some aspects, better than others. You are a high-recaller, meaning you have increased alertness and consciousness of your surroundings at all times.
Experiencing recurring dreams may point at underlying issues regardless of the dream's content. Adults who experience frequent recurring dreams tend to have worse psychological health than those who do not, and many experts theorize that these dreams may be a way to work through unmet needs or process trauma.
Waking up Crying From a Dream
The sensations you feel while sleeping and the emotions you experience before bed may cause you to wake up crying. If you wake up crying from a bad dream, that is your body's response to the weight of the suppressed emotion.
"Dreams are often about identity, because we're figuring out who we are and what we need, and the beliefs and perspectives we hold," says Wallace. "If you feel unfulfilled, undervalued or not the person you want to be in waking life, your dreams will often reflect that.
The results indicate that although pain is rare in dreams, it is nevertheless compatible with the representational code of dreaming. Further, the association of pain with dream content may implicate brainstem and limbic centers in the regulation of painful stimuli during REM sleep.
Flashbacks can be triggered by a sensory feeling, an emotional memory, a reminder of the event, or even an unrelated stressful experience. Identify the experiences that trigger your flashbacks. If possible, make a plan on how to avoid these triggers or how to cope if you encounter the trigger.
PTSD dreams, or nightmares, are commonly experienced in post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), a mental health condition that some people develop after experiencing or witnessing an extremely traumatic event. These dreams are understandably distressing, but it's possible to manage them and improve sleep.
About 80% of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) patients suffer from nightmares or dysphoric dreams that cause major distress and impact nighttime or daytime functioning. Lucid dreaming (LD) is a learnable and effective strategy to cope with nightmares and has positive effects on other sleep variables.
The length of a dream can vary; they may last for a few seconds, or approximately 20–30 minutes. People are more likely to remember the dream if they are awakened during the REM phase.
Lucid dreaming is a fascinating phenomenon in which a person is aware that they are asleep and dreaming. Those who are more adept at lucid dreaming are able to control the action and content of their dreams to varying degrees.
Some dreams are really weird. Even the really weird dreams may just be part of the brain's process of elimination-approach to problem solving, according to Stickgold. A lot of memory processing happens during sleep, he says. The brain is filing away new memories, deciding which ones to store and which ones not to.
It is estimated that people take an average of seven minutes to fall asleep, but we should not actually begin dreaming until much later during the sleep cycle. About an hour and a half into our slumber experience, we enter REM, or the rapid eye movement portion of rest. This is when the actual dreaming starts.