Our fears, anxieties and feelings usually take the type of desires once we are asleep. This magical journey undertaken each evening can familiarise us with our deepest feelings. Our unreleased, unprocessed and powerful feelings make for a compelling narrative, virtually like a film or episode of a tv sequence throughout desires. There are specific widespread themes that all of us see in our desires like being chased, flying, falling, enamel falling out, lacking bus, giving examination amongst others. In case of recurring nightmares, there are sometimes irritating or traumatic emotions which can be discovering their launch. (Additionally learn: 5 causes behind recurring desires and what they are saying about our psychological well being)


Meeti Vaidya, Psychologist, Mpower in an interview with HT Digital analyses a dream of being chased with the assistance of a case research.
A, a 27-year-old monetary planner has been grappling with recurring nightmares for a number of months. These nightmares constantly contain her making an attempt to flee from an unidentified risk, with the concern of impending hurt or loss of life. The shortcoming to visualise the face of her pursuer provides one other layer of thriller and misery to her recurring desires.
Dream description
In A’s recurring nightmares, she finds herself in numerous settings the place she is desperately making an attempt to flee from an unknown assailant. Though she will really feel the upcoming hazard and a powerful sense of terror, she by no means manages to see the face of the particular person pursuing her. These nightmares all the time culminate with the second when she is about to be harmed, at which level she abruptly awakens, usually in a state of maximum anxiousness and concern.
Dream evaluation
1. Unresolved anxiousness and concern
A’s recurring desires of being chased and the persistent feeling of impending hazard counsel the presence of unresolved anxiousness and concern in her life. The shortcoming to establish the risk may point out that she is grappling with a obscure, underlying concern that has not but been totally acknowledged or addressed in her aware thoughts.
2. Stress and stress in her career
Given A’s occupation as a monetary planner, it is potential that her recurring nightmares may very well be linked to emphasize and stress associated to her job. The sense of being pursued and the concern of hurt might symbolize her emotions of being overwhelmed by work obligations, deadlines, or the concern of creating vital monetary choices that might impression her shoppers negatively.
3. Suppressed feelings
A’s lack of ability to see the face of her pursuer is perhaps indicative of suppressed feelings or ideas. The faceless risk may symbolize a side of herself or a state of affairs that she is avoiding or denying, and her recurring desires could also be a unconscious try to confront these unresolved points.
4. Emotional regulation
The recurrent theme of imminent hazard and escape means that A could also be battling emotional regulation. These desires is perhaps her thoughts’s means of processing and releasing the extreme feelings that she might discover troublesome to specific in her waking life.
Intervention
Based mostly on the evaluation of A’s recurring nightmares, the next interventions had been carried out:
“Cognitive-behavioural remedy (CBT) is a broadly practiced and efficient type of psychotherapy. It focuses on figuring out and altering damaging thought patterns and behaviours that contribute to emotional misery. In A’s case, CBT helped her discover the thought patterns and beliefs that could be resulting in her emotions of being trapped and anxious. By way of guided periods, she was studying to acknowledge and problem these damaging ideas,” says Vaidya.
This is what helped her:
- A was inspired to maintain a dream journal the place she will file her recurring nightmares and any feelings or ideas related to them. This could assist in figuring out patterns and triggers.
- A was requested to take pleasure in self-care practices, together with common train, wholesome sleep patterns, and rest strategies, to reinforce her total psychological and emotional well-being.
“On this case, A’s recurring nightmares seem like a mirrored image of her underlying anxiousness, concern, and potential office stress. Addressing these points by remedy and self-care will help her achieve a greater understanding of her desires and work in the direction of attaining improved psychological well being and emotional well-being,” concludes Vaidya.

