Stress dreams, adds professional dream analyst Lauri Loewenberg, are often more frustrating than truly frightening, particularly if they’re recurring. And according to both her and Ellis, nightmares are more likely to wake you up in a panic. A stress dream can be about anything remotely bothersome and even ordinary, whereas a nightmare tends to be “gruesome or life-threatening, and are frequently related to trauma,” Ellis notes. Stress dreams are often “fast-paced and go nowhere, like a hamster on a wheel,” she adds. Work can represent our livelihood, our finances, and our greater purpose, so if you’ve been worrying about any of those things, it may show up in your dreams as trouble in the office or with a co-worker or boss. According to Loewenberg, these dreams often relate to stress about your work life and career (even more than literal work dreams do). “For example,” she says, “if you can’t find your class or your locker, it can be because you’re stressing out about the fact that you are not where you feel you should be in your career.” It’s also not uncommon for stressful relationship dreams to include water because water tends to reflect our emotions, according to Loewenberg. “So, you might dream of drowning, a shipwreck, or a torrential downpour,” she adds. There is a continuity in the way our thoughts run amok, whether we’re sleeping or awake, she adds, and so if we’re ruminating, worrying, or running the same worst-case scenarios through our mind repeatedly during the day, “this may also be the way we dream at night,” she says. Stress is closely related to our nervous system, and Ellis adds if that’s out of whack, our dreams likely will be, too. “It is also a bodily felt thing,” she notes. “I believe dreams are often images of our physical state and represent what’s happening in our nervous system.” The most important piece to notice is your emotional feelings during the dream. Loewenberg says if this happens, it’s a red flag that you need a break. Take stress dreams as a sign you should give yourself some time off to recoup, take something off your plate, or practice healthy ways of dealing with stress. With recurring dreams, Loewenberg adds that it’s important to pay attention to the specific stress and emotion that’s present. Is it urgency? Frustration? Fear? “That’s a big clue, and it will be connected to that same specific stress in real life,” she says. “Do make time to constructively deal with the sources of your stress,” Ellis adds. “If there is a difficult conversation you need to have with a friend or family member, don’t put it off. If you are feeling unprepared for something, put in the time.” It’s all about giving yourself a break, so your sleeping mind can get a break, too. “Just throw the question out there to your dream universe, and you’ll get an answer,” she says. If you’re not typically able to lucid dream, you can also try this approach in the moments when you first wake up and journal about it, she adds.
