Dream Of Looking At Old Photos? 216 Most Correct Answers

There’s nothing worse than accidentally bumping into someone in your dreams while you’re happily enjoying your REM cycle and drooling on your pillow. Whether you’ve totally forgotten about the person you kissed at summer camp by the lake or are still embarrassed about that big fight with your high school best friend, having people from your past appear in your dreams can be extremely unsettling .

Read more: What do dreams about cats mean? Here’s what experts say

Your dreams may seem completely random or unfounded (cue: you jump out of a cartoon plane into a pile of spaghetti), but Lauri Loewenberg, a professional dream analyst, says Bustle can allow you to look at your dreams with a metaphorical approach to tap into what your subconscious is trying to convey. Rather than trying to find the literal or logical meaning behind the people or places in your dreams, Loewenberg suggests following your emotions and intuition.

A surprise metaphysical visit from your old college roommate or your mean boss from your old internship appearing out of nowhere might seem like utter nonsense, but Loewenberg says there’s always a deeper reason behind everything in your dreams.

“The subconscious often pulls a specific memory or person etc. from our past when something is happening in our present,” Loewenber tells Bustle. “There was a lesson from back then that we need to apply now.”

According to Loewenber, your subconscious is total packrat. It stores every experience, every thought, every emotion and every encounter – even if you are not consciously aware of it. If you’ve been actively thinking about someone of yours lately, or someone approached them in a conversation, it might be more obvious why they’re appearing in your dreams.

Whether you’ve had that person on your mind for a week or haven’t thought of them in ages, Loewenberg points out the importance of taking a moment to examine both the dream and your feelings .

“Our dreams are very good at warning us when we’re falling into the same old patterns or when we’re getting into the same type of relationship,” says Loewenberg. “[They] speak to us to guide us, advise us, and warn us so we can do it right.”

according to dr Carla Marie Manly, a clinical psychologist and author of Joy from Fear, your dreams can be an invitation to heal a hurt part of yourself or to learn something new about who you are or who you want to be.

“In Jungian psychology, each person in a dream represents an aspect of the dreamer,” says Dr. Manly to Bustle. “The person who ’emerges’ is generally symbolic of some aspect of the dreamer’s self; other people are simply conjured up by the psyche to offer a symbolic representation of a particular issue or problem.”

If you’ve always felt judged by your high school choir teacher or never knew how to talk to your best friend’s older brother, seeing him in a dream can be a reminder to be more confident at your next staff meeting. Maybe you were too nervous to tell your middle school crush how you feel and seeing them in a dream inspires you to ask your cute colleague for a coffee. Or maybe you see a girl you weren’t very nice to in college and you make a mental note to be kinder to your little sister. dr Manly says that seeing people from the past in a dream means there is a lesson to be learned in the present.

Of course, knowing exactly what that lesson is isn’t always easy. When you wake up and scratch your head, totally confused as to why you just had a dream about your ex-boyfriend’s mom or your college newspaper editor, Loewenberg suggests asking yourself the three adjectives that describe personality or essence best describe the person.

“Do any of the three descriptors you selected suit you right now? Or someone you’re dealing with right now? Determine if this is a good thing or a bad thing,” says Loewenberg.

Rev. Connie L. Habash, MA, LMFT and author of Awakening from Anxiety: A Spiritual Guide to Living a More Calm, Confident, and Courageous Life adds pondering what these descriptions or qualities mean to you in the present traits, you look for in people? Are there things you are currently missing? Are they things that you never try to deal with again? If you get lost in your own thoughts, Habash suggests keeping a journal to slow down and really reflect.

Additionally, Loewenberg suggests thinking about what you remember most about the relationship you had with the person from the past and considering whether you currently have similar relationships.

“Sometimes dreams use people from the past as a friendly reminder to tell us, ‘Remember that? Let’s not repeat it,'” says Loewenberg.

Habash goes on to say that it can be helpful to reflect on what that person has meant to you and whether you feel like you have anything unresolved about them. “You’ll know when it’s worth exploring by the intensity of the images and feelings,” says Habash.

While reaching out to her might be your first instinct, Habash suggests taking a moment to really collect your thoughts.

“Before you decide to reach out, take some time to work with the symbolism and explore what that person means to you,” Habash says. “Often they represent something to you that has regained meaning in your current life, and you can work with the representation rather than seek it out.”

Sources:

Lauri Loewenberg, a professional dream analyst

dr Carla Marie Manly, clinical psychologist and author of Joy from Fear

Rev. Connie L. Habash, MA, LMFT, and author of Awakening from Anxiety: A Spiritual Guide to Living a More Calm, Confident, and Courageous Life

If you’re dreaming about someone you’re not friends with or haven’t seen in a long time, chances are you’ll wake up confused. Dreaming about someone from your past can make you wonder if you should reconnect with that person or what it even means when they invade your nightly thoughts. But in reality, a dream about someone you no longer speak to isn’t really about the ghosts of your past – it has more to do with yourself.

Read more: What do dreams about cats mean? Here’s what experts say

It’s actually common to dream about people who are in your life right now. Theresa Cheung, the author of The Dream Dictionary From A To Z, previously wrote for Bustle, “Friends usually play an important role in your life, so they will naturally meet you and you will meet them again and again in your dreams.” If you appearing in other people’s dreams, it feels good to know they are thinking of you.According to Jungian dream interpretation, the people who appear in dreams reflect your inner workings and aspects of your own personality.

It can be distressing when the ghost of someone you no longer speak to reappears in a dream, for many reasons, especially if you have stopped speaking for painful reasons. Having occasional dreams about people from your past that you haven’t seen or even thought about in a long time can cause you to spiral into rethinking. “Notice about dreams that everything and everyone in your dream represents a part of you or something that affects you directly,” professional dream analyst Lauri Loewenberg tells Bustle. “Besides, if you dream about a person you haven’t seen in ages, or someone you don’t interact with on a daily basis, or someone who doesn’t even really exist, they become a part of you represent personality.”

Dreaming about other people can be a way for you to better understand yourself and your behavior. If there is something that needs to be worked through and addressed in your waking life, it may show up in your dream in some way. Often it will show up in the form of a person in your past or present, even if you are no longer friends. Before you jump to conclusions, here’s what dream experts have to say.

What it means when you dream about someone you no longer speak to

Many people will dream of old friends and classmates from elementary school days. It can be a little strange, especially if you haven’t seen or heard from a certain person in years. Does that mean you should hurry to get in touch with them again? According to Cheung, no. “Their appearance in your dream scene is a metaphor for a neglected or forgotten aspect of yourself that you would like to reconnect with or benefit from reconnecting with,” she wrote. Think about the person you once knew and the qualities they have that stand out to you the most. According to Loewenberg, that outstanding quality or flaw is a trait that you can have or want.

“There was a time when I would have daydreams about this third-grade boy named Jeff,” says Loewenberg. “I don’t remember his last name, but I do remember that he was the shyest person I’ve ever known. I realized that when I wasn’t talking about something in real life, he appeared in my dreams… on something I had to do. My subconscious said to me, ‘Well, you might as well just be Jeff.'” Maybe there are qualities in that person that you either wish you had more or less of in your life. To recognize that within yourself , is the first step when you wake up — not reaching for Facebook to see what they’re up to.

It doesn’t matter how the person is now. They appear in your dream so that you can pay attention to something important that needs to be addressed in your life at the moment. Studies show that your dream consciousness is very similar to your waking consciousness. So if you are dreaming about someone you no longer speak to, it indicates daily emotions that you are currently feeling (and may need to process). In some cases, there may still be something unresolved with the person who is no longer in your life or with yourself that you need to deal with.

You should also pay attention to how people from your past are behaving in your dream. For example, are they helping you or are they angry? According to Loewenberg, how you behave in dreams is directly related to how part of you is behaving in real life. “They show you this behavior from a different perspective so you can understand yourself better,” she says. Analyzing the dream and turning it into your own life is a method to get to the bottom of what has been bothering you lately.

People will appear in your dreams randomly for all sorts of reasons. If you’re interested in astrology, Joy Strong, a transformational life coach and professional dream analyst, tells Bustle that planetary declines can stimulate unconscious thoughts from the past to resurface.

“It’s important to remember that just because someone pops up in your consciousness doesn’t dictate whether or not they should have a current role in your life,” says Strong. This is important if you’re dreaming about an ex you haven’t thought about for a while and wondering if you should reach out. If you stop speaking to that person, there is probably a very good reason, and remembering it is the key to inner peace.

Dreams say more about you than the people in them. So when you dream about someone from your past or present, think about what they might represent in your own life. If they appear in your dream, there is something to pay attention to.

Additional reporting by Marianne Eloise

Referenced Studies:

Franklin, MS (2005). The Role of Dreams in the Evolution of the Human Mind, Sage Journals, https://doi.org/10.1177/147470490500300106.

Nir Y (2010) Dreaming and the brain: from phenomenology to neurophysiology, Trends Cogn Sci., https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2814941/.

Questioned sources:

Lauri Loewenberg, dream expert, author of Dream on It, Unlock Your Dreams Change Your Life

Joy Strong, Transformational Life Coach and Professional Dream Analyst

Excerpted with permission from The Secret World of Sleep: The Surprising Science of the Mind at Rest, by Penelope A. Lewis. Available from Palgrave Macmillan Trade. Copyright © 2013. (Scientific American and Palgrave Macmillan are part of Holtzbrinck Publishing Group.)

You’re scared and run down a dark, narrow corridor. Something very evil and terrifying is chasing you, but you’re not sure why. Your anxiety is compounded by the fact that your feet aren’t doing what you want them to — it feels like they’re moving through molasses. The pursuer wins, but when he finally catches you, the whole scene disappears… and you wake up.

Almost by definition, a dream is something that you are aware of at some level. It may be fragmentary, incoherent, and illogical, but if you are unaware of it while you sleep, then it is not a dream. Many people will protest, “I never remember my dreams!” but that’s another matter entirely. If you don’t remember a dream later when you’re awake, that doesn’t mean you weren’t aware of it when it occurred. It just means the experience was never really etched into your memory, has expired in memory, or isn’t amenable to easy recall.

We all intuitively know what a dream is, but you may be surprised to learn that there is no universally accepted definition of dreaming. A fairly safe collective term is “any perception, thought, or emotion experienced during sleep.” Since this is very broad, there are also different ways to evaluate, classify and evaluate dreams. For example, one uses an eight-point grading system from 0 (no dream) to 7 (“an extremely long sequence of 5 or more stages”).

Physical basis of dreams

But let me go back. One goal of neuroscience is to map the brain locations of thoughts and mental experiences. Everything we see, imagine, or think about is connected to neural responses somewhere in the brain. Even dreams have a home. Neural activity in the primary sensory areas of the neocortex creates the impression of sensory perception. This means that neurons firing in the primary visual cortex create the illusion of seeing things, neurons firing in the primary auditory area create the illusion of hearing things, and so on. When this firing happens randomly, these perceptions can feel like crazy, randomly fragmented hallucinations. It is easy to imagine that the images and sensations randomly generated in this way could be woven together to create a complex, multi-sensory hallucination that we might call a dream.

…

Do dreams serve a purpose?

Contrary to an activation-synthesis model that views dreams as epiphenomena — a simple byproduct of neural processes during sleep — other scientists have proposed that dreams serve an important function. As is usual in psychology, there are many different ideas about what this function might be. Sigmund Freud’s suggestion that dreams express forbidden desires is of course the most famous of these, but there are many other theories as to what dreams might do, many with more empirical support than the Freudian view. For example, the threat simulation hypothesis suggests that dreams can represent a kind of virtual reality simulation in which we can rehearse threatening situations even if we don’t remember the dreams. Presumably, this probe would lead to better responses in real life, so the probe is adaptive. This is supported by the large proportion of dreams that involve a threatening situation (more than 70 percent in some studies), and the fact that this percentage is much higher than the occurrence of threats in the dreamer’s actual day-to-day life. In addition, studies of children in two different areas of Palestine show that those who live in more threatening environments are also much more likely to experience threats in their dreams. Responses to these threats are almost always relevant and meaningful, so the sample (if any) clearly includes plausible solutions, which in turn suggests that they represent some sort of valid simulation of possible real-world scenarios.

Another suggestion is that dreams affect the way you feel the next day, either in terms of mood or more basic physical states. Forcing people to remember the worse dreams from their REM sleep definitely puts them in a bad mood, and nightmares (defined as very negative dreams that can wake you up) can even lead to ongoing mood issues. On the other hand, there is also evidence that dreams may help regulate long-term mood. For example, a study of divorced women’s dreams showed that those who dreamed about their ex-husband more often were better adapted to the divorce. Amazingly, dreams also seem to be able to influence physiological state: one study showed that people who were deprived of water before sleeping but then drank in the dream felt less thirsty when they woke up.

The content of dreams can be influenced in many ways. For example, recent work has shown that sleepers tend to initiate pleasant dreams when presented with pleasant smells during REM sleep and have negative or unhappy dreams when presented with foul, unpleasant smells. Some people can achieve lucid dreaming, in which they control the sequence of events in their dream, and there is evidence that these techniques can be learned through intense practice and training. All of this is, of course, very tempting because it suggests (although it doesn’t tell us anything at all about the originally developed purpose of dreams) that not only might we be able to tune into pleasurable experiences while we sleep, but that we might eventually be able to use these techniques to treat mood disorders, phobias and other mental health issues. We already know that hypnotic suggestion can lead people to include snakes, spiders, or other things of which they have a phobia in their dreams, and when combined with more harmless forms of these menacing objects, such incorporation helps the eliminate phobia. Hypnotic suggestion can also make dreams more pleasant, and mental imagery practiced during the day can be used to modify (and often nullify) persistent nightmares.

There is little evidence that people actually learn during their dreams. That they can learn while they sleep is another matter, but dreams themselves don’t seem like a good forum for imprinting new information into the hippocampus (after all, we don’t even remember our dreams most of the time). Studies on language learning illustrate this well. Although learning efficiency is predicted by an increase in the percentage of the night spent in REM, the dreams experienced during this extra REM do not have much to do with language. When they refer to it at all, it’s mostly about the frustration of not being able to understand something, rather than the mechanics of how to construct or decipher a sentence.

memories in dreams

What is the last dream you can remember? Was anyone you know in there? Did it happen in a place you know well? did you do something familiar Most dreams contain fragments of waking life experiences. It’s common to dream of disjointed fragments, such as a specific person, place, or activity. But do dreams ever repeat complete memories – for example, the last time you saw your mother, including the place, the activities, and the people? Memories like these are called episodic because they represent whole episodes rather than just fragments; Studies on the secret world of dreaming asleep show that these types of memories are sometimes repeated during sleep, but it’s fairly rare (about 2 percent of dreams contain such memories, according to one study). Most of our dreams just recombine fragments of waking life. These fragments are relatively familiar and reflect the dreamer’s interests and concerns. That means cyclists dream of cycling, teachers dream of teaching, and bankers dream of money.

Some researchers have used dream accounts to gain insight into the process by which memories are received immediately (i.e., the first night after they are originally experienced). Freud famously referred to this as the “day residue”. One study showed that daily residues appear in 65 to 70 percent of single dream reports. On the other hand, a recently described phenomenon called the dream-lag effect refers to the extraordinary observation that after its initial appearance as a daytime lag, the likelihood of a particular memory being incorporated into dreams steadily decreases over the next few nights after the memory is formed, then rises again in the following nights (Fig. 20).

So it’s very common for memories to be built into dreams the first night after they’re originally experienced (if I have a car accident today, I’ll probably dream about it tonight). The likelihood of such an ingestion gradually decreases over the next few nights, with few memories being ingested into the dreams three to five days after their occurrence. Extraordinarily, however, the likelihood of a memory being incorporated into a dream increases again on nights six and seven after the first experience. What is going on here? Why are memories less likely to be incorporated into dreams three to five days after they originally occurred than six to seven days later? One possibility concerns the need for consolidation. Memories may not be accessible at this stage as they are being processed in some way, making them temporarily “offline”. Notably, this effect only applies to people who report vivid dreams, and it only seems to apply to REM dreams as well. As with most research, the dream lag effect raises more questions than it answers.

Why do we have different types of dreams at different times of the night?

Dreams are not all the same. Everyone knows the difference between good and bad dreams, but we fail to realize that some dreams are more logical and structured while others are more bizarre. Some dreams are so very realistic that it is difficult to convince us that they are not real, while others are blurry and indistinct. Some dreams are fragmented and quickly jump from one topic to another, while others progress in a more coherent story. Recent analysis has shown that these differences are far from coincidental; Instead, they can be driven by the physiology of different brain states and the extent to which structures like the hippocampus and neocortex communicate with each other during different stages of sleep.

Dreams occur at all stages of sleep but seem to become increasingly fragmented as the night progresses. In general, they seem to be constructed from a mishmash of previous experiences. As mentioned above, dreams contain disjointed fragments of memory: places we’ve been, faces we’ve seen, situations we’re partially familiar with. These fragments can either be put together in a semi-random mess or organized in a structured and realistic way. The dreams that occur in non-REM sleep tend to be shorter but more coherent than REM dreams, and often they relate to things that just happened the previous day. REM dreams that occur early in the night also often reflect recent waking experiences, but they are more fragmented than their non-REM counterparts. Conversely, REM dreams that occur late at night are typically much more bizarre and disjointed.

Just thinking about where these memory fragments come from and how they are connected can provide an explanation for the difference between early and late dreams. The various elements of an episode are thought to be stored in the neocortex, but they are not necessarily connected to form a complete representation. For example, if your memory of last night’s dinner includes memories of a specific place, specific sounds, specific actions, and perhaps even memories of other people who were there, each of this information is represented by a different area of ​​the neocortex. Although together they form a complete memory, these different neocortical areas may not be directly connected to each other. Instead, the hippocampus tracks such connections and forms the appropriate shortcuts, at least while the memory is relatively fresh. However, the communication between the neocortex and the hippocampus is disturbed during sleep, so this process is also disturbed. During REM sleep, both the hippocampus and the parts of the neocortex involved in an actual dream are highly active—but they don’t appear to be in communication. Instead, responses in the neocortex occur independently, without hippocampal input, so they must refer to memory fragments rather than linked multisensory representations. When memories stored in the neocortex are accessed or activated during REM, they essentially remain fragmentary, rather than incorporating other aspects of the same memory to form a full episodic repeat. These fragments aren’t connected in the way they might be if you were thinking about the same place while awake (or actually non-REM sleep). For example, cortical representations may be triggered by both someone present at your dinner last night and the location where it was held, but these will not necessarily be connected, and they may not be involved with the idea of dinner or food at all. Instead, seemingly unrelated characters and events associated with the memory of that location can be activated. A possible driver for this is the stress hormone cortisol, which rises steadily overnight. High levels of cortisol can block communication between the hippocampus and neocortex, and since levels are much higher in the early morning, this could provide a physiological reason for the incoherent characteristics of nighttime (early morning) dreams.

Regardless of how it happens, it is clear that dreams not only reflect fragments of memory, but also create brand new, highly creative blends of memories and knowledge. This process has led to the creation of many literary, artistic, and scientific works, such as Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, the molecular formula of benzene, and the invention of the lightbulb. A particularly good demonstration of this sleepy creativity comes from a study of 35 professional musicians, who not only heard more music in their dreams than a normal man on the street, but also reported that a large proportion (28 percent) of it was music they heard had never heard of in waking life. They had created new music in their dreams!

Although we don’t fully understand how dreams achieve this kind of innovative recombination of material, it seems clear that the sleeping brain is somehow unconstrained and thus capable of generating whole sequences of free association. This is not only useful for creativity, but is also said to facilitate insight and problem solving. It can even be critical to the integration of newly acquired memories with more distant ones (see Chapter 8). In fact, this facilitated lateral thinking in itself could be the true purpose of dreams. It is certainly valuable enough to have come about through natural selection.

A photo album or photo album is a series of photographic prints collected by a single person or family in the form of a book.[1][2][3] Some book-style photo albums have compartments that photos slide into; other albums have heavyweight paper with a rough surface covered with clear plastic sheets onto the surface of which photos can be affixed.[4] Older-style albums were often simply books of thick paper onto which photos could be glued or secured with self-adhesive corners or sides.[4]

history [edit]

The oldest photo albums in the collection of the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. date from the 1850s.[5] Early family photo albums were often displayed indoors.[5] “Families who could only afford a few pictures put them in an album to which other family members added theirs.”[3]

Illustrated books / photo books [ edit ]

Coffee table books get their name from their intended purpose, to be placed on a coffee table to entertain guests. Coffee Table Books are photo books and come in various sizes from very small to very large. They are printed books with soft and thin pages like regular books. A photo book is usually larger and bound in a hard cover, while a smaller photo book is usually bound in a soft cover. Photo book print quality varies from photographic paper prints to inkjet prints on plain paper.

Digital photo books [ edit ]

Digital photo books have digitally printed pages, unlike albums, which are made up of traditional photos. Both slip-in albums and coffee table books are digitally printed. Slip-in album photos are printed on photo paper of comparable quality to conventionally developed photos. Coffee table books, on the other hand, are inkjet printed on ordinary paper and are therefore of lower quality. Digital printing offers the album designer a variety of design options, for example magazine-style albums or assembly albums are only possible with digital printing.

Digital photo books are becoming increasingly popular because they allow anyone with a digital camera to create photo books of their photos. Also, it is often found easier to print photos directly onto pages than to position and mount individual prints on the pages of a traditional album. Aesthetically, digital photo books look neater and more professional than albums. This has led to their growing popularity among both professional and amateur photographers. Digital photo book printers have leveraged the Internet to make designing and producing photo books very easy for the general consumer.

Flush albums[ edit ]

Slip-in albums have hard covers with thick, uncurved pages. They consist of photo prints that have been dry mounted on cardboard. The covers are usually made of leather, imitation leather or glass. The photos lie completely flat and span the entire page. Built-in albums are usually designed in a magazine style. They are most commonly used for special occasions such as weddings and anniversaries as they are of higher quality and more expensive to produce than illustrated books.

Magazine style albums/montage albums[edit]

The term magazine style refers to the design style inspired by fashion magazines, but the style can vary greatly between albums depending on the designer. The layout is usually referred to as a digital montage, hence the alternative name Montage Albums. The layout is designed on the computer using custom or template-generated images.

Storybook Albums[ edit ]

Storybook albums tell a story, like the story of a wedding day or a vacation, from beginning to end. When printed digitally, the designer can use images as well as text, graphics, and color to tell the story.

Scrapbooking albums[ edit ]

Scrapbooking albums describe a story, like the story of a particular box or digital console from beginning to end or today. When printed digitally, the designer can use images, as well as text, graphics and color to convey the story’s ongoing theme.

Homemade decorative albums[ edit ]

Homemade decorative albums are easy to make at home. The items needed to create such an album may already be part of home office supplies. The items consist of: folders, transparent sleeves or picture sleeves, fabric of your choice and a hot glue gun. Some may choose to use filler to add a fluff to the album. This type of album is easy to create; and allows the crafter to explore their creative side while adding a personal touch.

Frosted album [ edit ]

Mounted albums are albums with recessed frames in which each photo is mounted by hand. The photos are printed digitally or traditionally and can be altered even after the album is finished.

DIY album[ edit ]

Self-adhesive albums are the most common form of traditional albums. They contain manually assembled digital or traditional photos that can be rearranged. Self-adhesive albums are easy to make and can be used for any occasion.

software [edit]

There are many software programs for organizing images into folders or albums. These programs generally allow you to sort and organize different images, tag the images, and view them in slide shows or print them. These programs generally allow the user to perform basic edits such as cropping, red-eye removal, and some basic “one-touch” color and lighting tweaks. Some online albums have introduced techniques for separating special effects from the original image so that the image is not edited – effects are applied when viewed without destroying the original image.

There are also many other lay-up software programs for creating photo books. These are usually offered free of charge as design tools, but require the user to share the costs for the production of their printed photo book. These programs are generally not designed specifically for photo editing, but rather for the express purpose of creating a book that will eventually be printed and bound into a photo book. These programs are usually provided by the company that prints and binds the photo books. Therefore, the home printing function is generally not available.

See also[edit]

References[edit]

Media related to Photo Albums at Wikimedia Commons

Have you ever visited your parents and leafed through their old photo albums? Did you look at the pictures, each capturing an important memory and saving it for years to come? Did you learn something about a family member by looking at a picture you’ve never seen before?

With photo albums you keep important memories not only for yourself but also for your children, grandchildren and even your great-grandchildren! They are historical and deeply personal references to your past and that of your families. That’s why you should start creating photo albums today.

Share your favorite memories

Flipping through a photo album in nostalgia has a special personal meaning. Not only can you enjoy them yourself, but you can also share these personal snaps with your loved ones. Each image contains a story, and this visual reference will provide an easy way to connect with your family about your experiences.

time travel.

We can travel through time in a way only possible through our photographs. They allow us to look back on the lives of our grandparents and those who came before us, and to discover similarities with family members we may never have had the opportunity to meet. In return, we can also share memories of deceased family members with children and grandchildren who otherwise would not have known them. You allow us to leave a legacy; We can pass them on to our families so that these special moments last and bring joy to generations to come. Give your old photos a new, lasting life by scanning them and putting them into a beautiful photo book or album. This gives you the ability to keep multiple high-quality copies of these important images so they can best be treasured and cherished.

The offline experience in an online world.

In the digital age, it can be all too easy to store the photos of our lives and special moments on a computer and never get around to printing them. But how often do we back up and protect our digital copies, let alone actually take the time to look through them? The experience of scrolling through a computer screen is incomparable to the sense of joy and satisfaction that comes from gently flicking through beautifully printed pages in a real book or album. Photos tell our stories and for that reason should be cherished and above all enjoyed. You capture a moment and that moment deserves to live on. Adding them to a photo keepsake makes room for more joy as the sight becomes even more special.

Who are you.

Time inevitably passes and overwhelms us all. What would you like people to know about how you lived your life? A family photo book is the perfect way to capture the most beautiful and unforgettable moments. This way you can tell the story of who you have been all your life. Preserving the moments you hold dear will reflect who you are to everyone who can flip through the pages of your family keepsake, such as future generations of your family who will be curious about what their wonderful ancestors were like. When you put together a keepsake, you can tell that story.

A thoughtful gift.

Give your family a quality photo book or album that will stand the test of time and celebrate your memories for years to come. The great thing is that there are so many ways you can do this to reflect your unique life together. One idea that’s perfect for families with young children is to create an annual album or yearbook. When our precious little ones are young, they keep reaching new milestones and they change and grow so fast. By making an album every year, you can capture more of those wonderful moments and keep your child growing. Once they’re a little older, you can reduce the frequency of albums to focus on events, holidays, and other rites of passage.

To tell a story.

Think about your family’s story and what format will help you tell it best. Options include individual albums that focus on each family member, family history albums that contain things like family trees and genealogical information, memory books to commemorate the deceased, and any number of other themes. It’s never too late to start keeping the memories you love alive. Be inspired by these 6 great ideas for your next family photo book, lovingly designed by the MILK community. You can also find inspiration in the MILK Gallery, where we present printed customer books.

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Lately it seems like I keep dreaming about my ex.

Although I haven’t seen him in ages, he appears in my dreams several nights a week.

I had heard the old saying, “If you dream about someone, it means they miss you.”

Super confused about what was going on, I decided to get to the bottom of things and find out if dreaming about someone really means they are thinking about you.

What I discovered was, yes, dreaming about someone could mean that they miss you or that they are thinking of you.

But our dreams often say far more about us and our own deepest thoughts, feelings, fears, and desires than anyone else’s.

Read on to find out what it really means to dream about a person and how to tell if it’s because they miss you or not.

What does it mean when you dream about a person? Do you miss me? 5 signs to look out for

If only knowing what it means to dream about someone was an easy answer. But the truth is that dreams, by their very nature, can be very confusing.

There are scientific and psychological explanations, as well as more supernatural or spiritual answers. In this article we will look at a few.

To understand if your dream really means that the other person misses you, you need to try to interpret your dream to look for clues.

While the signs I mention below will give you a good idea of ​​what your dreams mean, an even better way is to talk to a real psychic.

The key is to find a psychic you trust.

I recently tried Psychic Source after going through a bad breakup. They gave me a unique insight into the direction of my life, including who to be with.

I was truly blown away by how caring, compassionate and knowledgeable they were.

Click here for your own psychic reading.

If you dream about a person, you should pay attention to these 5 things:

1) Whether a real event is repeated in your dream

Everyone dreams while they sleep (in fact, many animals dream), but the truth is we don’t really know why.

Surprisingly, although there are many theories, there are still no concrete answers.

A fairly simple explanation for why we dream is the activation synthesis theory, which states that dreaming helps us process information from our lives.

Biologically, many circuits fire in your brain when you are in REM sleep (the dream state).

Certain areas of the brain involved in emotions, sensations, and memories are activated.

Our mind is essentially a meaning-making machine.

So if you notice that real life events or situations involving another person have been repeated in your dream, this could be the way your mind is trying to process and understand certain things that happened .

2) If you experience strong emotions during your dream

Sometimes it’s less about the who, what, or where of a dream and more about the feelings and emotions it evokes for you.

Since dreams are often not meant to be literal, it can be helpful to look for other hidden clues in the dream that can help you better understand why that particular person is appearing.

And whether it’s because they miss you, or maybe more because you miss them.

How do you feel about them in the dream?

Do you feel happy or do you remember a time that has now passed? Maybe you long to revive those times or simply to experience such moments of happiness again.

Or maybe you are feeling sad, scared or angry at her in your dream?

If so, you might be wondering if you have any feelings towards them that might resurface.

If this is someone with whom you had a romantic relationship or even a strong friendship that has since ended or drifted apart, it’s natural for us to have lingering emotions that may reappear in our dreams.

Sometimes our dreams are there to reflect and give voice to the things we are feeling.

You may not even be aware of these emotions — in fact, according to Sigmund Freud’s theory of dreams, they often represent what’s going on in our deep subconscious.

It may mean that there are strong feelings or thoughts buried somewhere in you about that particular person.

3) When you notice creepy coincidences that you can’t explain

So far we have dealt with more psychological reasons why someone might appear in your dream.

But many people also believe that dreams are a gateway to a higher self and realm. And in many ancient cultures, dreams were considered spiritual guides.

Science can explain a lot, but new discoveries keep pushing the boundaries of what we once thought of as logical.

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Evidence of extrasensory perception (ESP) and connections in ways we don’t fully understand have been examined with some very interesting results.

Have you ever had the experience of thinking about someone and then having them call you right away? And you wouldn’t be alone, as is really common.

Is it coincidence or are you actually absorbing each other’s energy?

Or maybe you thought of someone on purpose and got them to reach out and they do. It’s almost like you telepathically made her miss you.

Well, you might be surprised to discover that a biologist has found something called morphic resonance – telepathic connections between organisms along with the ability to share collective memories.

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That said, it might not be such a far-fetched idea after all that you can communicate with others in your dreams.

So if you keep noticing strange clues or coincidences in your life about this person, maybe that’s a sign from the universe that they were thinking of you.

Maybe you keep seeing memories of that person wherever you go, you meet them unexpectedly, or they text you after you just dreamed about them.

If you would like more clarity on this, I would suggest speaking to a gifted consultant at Psychic Source.

I mentioned her earlier. They have helped me in the past and I have always found them honest and compassionate in their readings.

Instead of trying to decipher your dream yourself, talk to a counselor who will help you put the pieces together.

Click here for your personal reading.

4) If their appearance in your dream seems completely random

If someone was on your waking mind a lot and then appears in your dream that night, it may not seem so strange.

But what does it mean if someone randomly appears in your dream?

If you haven’t given her special thought beforehand, you might be able to psychically sense her feelings for you.

In this case, it might make more sense to assume that the energy is coming from them rather than you – and it’s a sign that they’re missing you, and you can feel it.

At the end of the day, we are all just a collection of vibrant energy coming together in physical forms.

And there’s a lot of energy around us that we can’t see or touch, but we can still feel it in other ways.

How can you tell if they miss you or you’re thinking of them?

If your dream about her didn’t bring up any strong emotions and seemed to come out of the blue, it may seem like it wasn’t your emotions or thoughts that caused the dream.

In this case, you may think that it is more likely that they have thought of you or will appear in your life.

5) When that person could actually represent something else

Because dreams are often ambiguous, sometimes we dream of a thing even though the real meaning is much deeper or something entirely different.

Our fears, desires, old traumas, and past hurts can resurface and begin to play out while we sleep.

According to contemporary dreaming theory, this is anything but random. Instead, the events that unfold are guided by the dreamer’s emotions.

As Professor Ernest Hartmann, director of the Boston Center for Sleep Disorders, explains in Scientific American:

“When there is a well-defined emotion, dreams are often very simple. Thus, people who have experienced trauma often have a dream like: “I was on the beach and was swept away by a tidal wave.” This case is paradigmatic. It is evident that the dreamer is not dreaming about the actual traumatic event, but instead is imagining the emotion, “I’m scared. I’m overwhelmed.” If the emotional state is less clear, or if multiple emotions or concerns are present at the same time, the dream becomes more complicated.”

If you interpret your dream instead of taking it at face value, you can reveal some hidden meanings that you hadn’t considered before.

What does it mean when you dream about someone repeatedly?

You have unresolved issues with them.

So if you are interested in finally moving beyond those dreams, maybe it is time to heal yourself from what happened in the past.

I’ve been in your position before, and there was one thing that helped me get to the root of the cause and resolve it – the free love and intimacy video by world-renowned shaman Rudá Iandê.

Rudá doesn’t smooth things over, he gets real and he dives deep into the relationship you have with yourself and how this affects the relationships you have with others.

So if you are ready to finally understand and overcome these feelings and dreams, watch his incredible free video here.

Is it true that when you dream about someone, they dream about you?

The possibly surprising answer to this question is maybe.

As unlikely as it may sound, there are scientifically proven examples of people who have had the same dream.

The best recorded examples are from professionally trained therapists and their clients who shared the same dream at about the same time.

More anecdotally, many people have experienced dreaming about someone only to find out that their dream included you.

While it’s difficult to say what’s really going on, it at least makes it possible that when you’re dreaming about someone, maybe they’re dreaming about you.

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In fact, there are several reasons why dream sharing might be more plausible than you might think.

What does it mean when you keep dreaming about someone you no longer speak to?

As we have said before there are many reasons why you dream about someone even if they are no longer in your life as many of our dreams come from our subconscious.

It could be a secret desire you still have for her, something you miss about the connection you once had, or something unresolved between you.

If you want to know exactly what it means to dream about someone you no longer see, I also recommend reading this article.

Bottom line: how do you know if dreaming about someone means they miss you?

Hopefully this article has given you some ideas on how to look for signs and dig into your own psyche.

But if you really want to find out if the person you keep dreaming about is missing you, don’t leave it to chance.

Instead, speak to a real, certified psychic who will give you the answers you are looking for.

I mentioned Psychic Source earlier, it’s one of the oldest professional psychic services available online. Your psychics are experienced in healing and helping people.

When I received a psychic reading from them, I was surprised at how knowledgeable and understanding they were. They helped me when I needed it most and that’s why I always recommend their services to anyone who needs advice.

Click here to get your own professional psychic.

Waking up from a deep sleep should leave you feeling refreshed and ready to start the new day. But that’s almost impossible when you’ve just had a dream about someone and suddenly you’re overwhelmed with questions about it. It’s easy enough when your significant other or best friend shows up in your REM cycle, but it can be a lot more confusing when the star or even a minor character in your dream is someone you rarely think about in waking life.

But before trying to understand why you might be dreaming about someone, it’s important to first consider what exactly a dream is. “A study conducted in Germany found that a dream is the equivalent of a data dump between the hippocampus (your brain’s browser) and the neocortex (your memory). So dreams are the hippocampus that clears the browser for the day and prepares your brain for the next day,” says Christina Jeffrey, licensed mental health counselor and associate director at Humantold, a New York-based psychotherapy service. “Through more traditional psychotherapy -Lens understood, a dream is a conversation between your conscious and subconscious mind – an opportunity to explore fears and the forbidden.”

So what does it mean when someone shows up in this so-called thought conversation? “At some level — maybe conscious, maybe unconscious — your mind is focused on one person, and your brain erases that image while you sleep,” Jeffrey explains.

This often happens when there are unresolved emotions or dialogue that need to be explored; When you are unable to do so in the waking state, the dream state steps in to help you express yourself, resolve conflict, or let go of emotional baggage. “But ultimately, I think dreams are about what we make of them, what meaning we give them, and what feelings come with them,” she adds.

How can the people you interact with affect your dreams?

If you’ve ever had people you see or think about in your waking hours popping up in your dreams, you are not alone. Oh, and – get it – you don’t even have to know a person for them to be able to live rent-free in your dreamland. “What you observe or record through media or interactions with others may show up in your sleep…especially if it’s alive or one of the last things we see of the day,” notes Jeffrey. So, if you’re watching The Notebook before bed, don’t be surprised if Ryan Gosling is starring in your dream that night (and what a dream that would be!).

To keep your dreams pure and unaffected by external media, the advisor suggests setting healthy sleep boundaries for yourself — turning off screens an hour before bed, being discreet about what you watch or read, and setting a regular bedtime — to make sure you’re getting the best possible zzz’s quality.

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The tone of what you do can also greatly influence the tone of your dreams. “Relaxing and therapeutic activities like yoga, journaling, or spending time with loved ones can promise peaceful sleep because they promote stillness. These dreams can be vivid and easy to remember because we are in a relaxed state before bedtime,” says Nicole Bowman, a board-certified dream analyst and avid counselor. “On the other hand, if we go to bed in a chaotic state, our dreams can be incoherent and difficult to remember, or we can’t sleep at all.”

How do you know when it matters that you dreamed about someone and when it means nothing?

It’s no secret that out of the many dreams you have throughout the night, you will usually only remember one or two, if any. As Bowman points out, “meaningful dreams are the ones you can’t forget — the ones you remember in great detail, even years later.”

But beyond that, it really goes back to what you believe and think is important. “This is one of those ways that dreamwork often comes up in therapy: A client has a dream that makes them so distressed or confused that they need help to unpack the feeling,” says Jeffrey. “We can find out whether a dream is meaningful or not when we decode the meaning by exploring and unpacking our feelings around the event or image.” Even if at the end of the day you decide the dream means nothing, process it You still have the feelings that surround him.

Check out this to learn more about what some common themes in your dreams can mean:

What does it mean when you dream about an ex?

Dreaming about an ex can mean a number of things depending on your specific circumstances, but it can often mean that you have work to do. “Sometimes the dream is about getting the degree you didn’t get [in waking life]. If they were emotionally immature or dishonest, the dream may offer a solution they were unable to provide,” Bowman explains.

It’s also possible, she says, for an ex to appear in your dream because they’re thinking about you, whether it’s because they want you back or simply remembering your relationship. But if you’re thinking of texting “I noticed you tried to telekinetically reach me” the next day, you should probably just leave sleeping dogs alone. You’re your ex for a reason – it’s best to leave it that way.

What does it mean when you dream about someone you are with?

Likewise, it can mean different things depending on your situation and the nature of your relationship. “If the relationship is relatively new, the dream may reflect the hope and optimism you feel about the union, but it may also touch on your fears and insecurities about dating,” says Bowman. “Alternatively, if you’re having disagreements with a long-term partner, the dream can be a way to vent frustration and hint at what you need to address with him in waking moments.”

It could also just be a brain dump, as Jeffrey puts it. “They’re on your mind and you probably see them regularly,” she says. “So your brain gets rid of those images that aren’t meaningful enough to become memories.”

What does it mean when you dream about having sex with someone?

In dreamland, sex is often about intimacy and a desire to feel a connection, rather than the sexual act itself. As a result, one dreams of having sex with someone when one is feeling alone, isolated, or about to is to start over. “For example, it’s very common to have sexual dreams when you’re moving to a new place, starting a new job, or feeling distant from loved ones,” explains Bowman. “Body contact is actually a metaphor for the spiritual and emotional connection we desire. It’s a sign of opening up, trying new things and letting the good things in.”

In addition, sex dreams can be triggered by hormonal changes. “Depending on where a woman is in her cycle, hormones can affect how we think, so why not our dreams?” Jeffrey poses. “It could also mean that you’re really attracted to someone and your mind is playing with the idea. So the dream means what you think.”

What does it mean if you dream about cheating on your partner or your partner is cheating on you?

Jeffrey believes these two dream scenarios are two sides of the same coin. “Cheating is often a reaction to dissatisfaction, so your dream may reflect either your dissatisfaction or your insecurity about your partner’s dissatisfaction,” she says. Instead of taking these dreams at face value, take a second to unpack the feelings that arise both in and out of the dream. Were you cool in your sleep and now you’re suddenly wracked with guilt? Journaling your dream and the emotions it evokes can help you figure out what it means.

On that note… a dream about cheating could also indicate a lack of trust in your partner or questions about their devotion and loyalty to you, which could very well stem from your own insecurities or past experiences. For example, if your last partner cheated on you, you may have an increased fear that it will happen again, even if your current S.O. gave you zero cause for concern.

And of course, practically speaking, if you are indeed cheating on your partner, or think they may be cheating on you, your brain is simply digesting the images of the day.

What does it mean when you dream about someone who is no longer in your life?

“Sometimes we wonder about the people who have left our lives: where do they live? What do you do? Are they happy?” Bogenmann explains. “And those dreams can be the answer to those questions because they give us a snapshot of the person we once knew and a glimpse into their life.” The way we marvel at these people can mean that we marvel at them miss, but it could also be a memory of an experience you had with the person or even a quality they possessed.

What does it mean when you dream about someone who is no longer alive?

For Jeffrey, dreams of the deceased are ultimately about “missing that person, missing what brought them into your life, or wishing they were still there,” but Bowman offers a more spiritual interpretation. “It is confirmation that you have help and succor in the spirit world,” she says. “The deceased can appear when we are feeling alone, in doubt or in need of a little more love, and their presence means that an unseen force is constantly supporting and guiding us.”

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What does it mean when you dream about someone you’ve never actually met?

There’s an old belief that you can only dream of people you know, but that’s not true. Not only can people you’ve never met appear in your dreams, but it’s often not as harmless as it might seem. “If we’re dreaming of people we’ve never met, they could be a placeholder for someone we don’t want to see for whatever reason,” notes Jeffrey. But these strangers could also be a manifestation of a part of ourselves that is not yet known or familiar.

However, if you’re dreaming of Beyoncé, it’s probably not because you’re secretly a world-class singer, it’s because you heard “LEMONADE” last week.

Gabby Shacknai Gabby Shacknai is a New York-based journalist and editor who produces high-quality content for a variety of outlets and brands across multiple industries.

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While a good dream can start the day blissfully, a bad one can shake you for hours – making you wonder exactly why you dreamed of giving a work presentation stark naked in front of an audience of your ex-boyfriends.

As uncomfortable as bad dreams can feel, dream psychologists believe that dreams can reveal a lot about our mental wellbeing — and ignoring the key psychological “cues” our dreams are trying to tell us could have unhealthy consequences and prevent us from addressing anxiety and address stress in our waking lives.

why do we dream

“Everyone dreams,” says dream psychologist Ian Wallace (ianwallacedreams.com). “It’s a biological necessity, and people who think they’re not dreaming actually don’t remember their dreams when they wake up.”

Wallace, whose work with dreams forms a fundamental part of his psychological practice, says he has always been fascinated by their practical application and how observing them can help us achieve our goals and ambitions in waking life.

“As humans, we sleep in 90-minute cycles — or so-called ultradian rhythms — and in each of those cycles we have a dream episode.”

According to Wallace, if you manage to get seven and a half hours of sleep a night, you will have about five total dream episodes. At the start of the night these episodes are usually fairly short and fragmented – maybe 10-15 minutes – but by the time you hit the morning they can be closer to 40 or 45 minutes long.

“We spend about two hours a night dreaming – a total of one-twelfth of our entire life,” says Wallace. “People often say, ‘No one knows why we dream,’ but that’s nonsense. In the 1970s, experiments at UCSF California Medical School found that when we are awake we are only aware of about 2% of what we are actually experiencing.

Dreaming woman sleeping in bed

“Most of the other 98% of the unconscious mind is emotional, so we take in a huge amount of emotional experiential information during the day,” says Wallace. “Our brain has to do something with it.

“The basic function of dreaming is to process our emotions—our understanding of who we are, our needs, and our beliefs. We also use this time to consolidate our memories. People often imagine dreams as a series of images, but they are actually a flow of emotions.”

What do frequent nightmares actually mean?

If you keep having a certain nightmare, your subconscious might be trying to tell you something important. “Nightmares are the brain working through emotions,” says Wallace.

“Mental health is fundamentally emotional. So when you’re creating something that’s a bit nightmarish or disturbing, you’re processing some really strong emotions.

“Just as we might try to run away from an emotionally stressful situation in life, we do exactly the same thing when we force ourselves to wake up from a nightmare.”

What kind of dreams might indicate that you need to pay attention to something?

“It really depends on the source of the anxiety, the stress, or the depression,” says Wallace. “There will often be a feeling of being out of control or things happening that can be quite powerful and often quite violent.” He says that you might get caught in a thunderstorm, tsunami, or hurricane, and the dream might, too look quite dark and shadowy.

“One of the most common dream scenarios is someone trying to find their way home,” says Wallace. “The number one dream image is the house, and the reason we see it so often in dreams is that we use the house as a symbol to represent the self; They have inside and outside just like we do.

“If you dream that you can’t find your way home, it could be that you’re trying to reconnect with who you are. Perhaps you take on a role in the outside world to fit in and make sure everyone likes you? Over time, this can create a tremendous amount of hidden stress that contributes to nightmares,” Wallace explains.

What other common dream themes might emerge?

“Dreams are often about identity, because we’re figuring out who we are, what we need, and what beliefs and perspectives we hold,” says Wallace. “If you’re feeling unfulfilled, undervalued, or not the person you want to be in waking life, your dreams will often reflect that.

“For example, very successful people and true perfectionists often have dreams that they are unprepared for an exam. These are often the last people to be unprepared for anything, but if you think of it as a symbol, an exam is essentially a way of judging something. People who have these kinds of dreams test their abilities endlessly.”

Wallace says being naked in public is the fourth most common dream people have, and it usually occurs when we’re feeling exposed and vulnerable in an unfamiliar situation — like a new job or relationship.

“The dreamer creates the vision of nudity because we use our clothing to convey to other people an image of who we are. When you’re naked you feel like you’ve lost control of your self-image and people can see the real you.”

In processing our emotions, Wallace says, dreams actually do a helpful job — helping to reduce stress, anxiety, and depression. “That said, because dreams are an overlooked strand of psychology, people just tend to think, ‘Oh, it’s a bad dream,’ and they don’t really engage with the images and do anything proactive with them.”

How can you be more in tune with your dreams?

So how could we be proactive? “Dream journals can be helpful. When you wake up, you might write down some key things from the dream — or it might be easier to record yourself recounting the dream on your phone,” Wallace says.

Generally, over time, you will find that themes emerge. “Usually these will come with big emotional arcs in your life,” Wallace adds.

What is really important is that you notice all the trends. “There’s no point in just letting those dreams pass you by because if you don’t listen to the messages you will start having recurring dreams.” This is when you see the same symbols keep coming back representing months, years and can even take decades. “Essentially, in recurring dreams, you send yourself the same message over and over until it gets through; until you become active in waking life.”

How can you analyze your dreams?

“I always say the best person to analyze dreams is the dreamer,” says Wallace. “People are very good at understanding their own imagery in their dreams – and it’s about exploring your own dream language and the similarities between them.”

Woman looking at the sea

A dream dictionary might help. Wallace has published a useful book called The Complete A To Z Dictionary of Dreams: Be Your Own Dream Expert (£14.99, Ebury) that can help you decipher dream symbols and what they are trying to tell you .

“There’s another really powerful thing you can do when you’re having disturbing dreams. The moment you become aware that you are dreaming an uncomfortable dream and are trying to wake up, you can try to consciously change the image in that semi-waking state,” Wallace adds.

“For example, if you are being pursued by a scary monster, you can learn to make the monster smaller, weirder, or brighter in your lucid state. Understanding your ability to work on your dream imagery can be truly empowering.

“The number one thing I tell my clients is don’t be afraid to dream, even if you’re having nightmares,” says Wallace. “Dreams can help you understand yourself better, set boundaries, and realize that you always have far more power and choices than you think to make changes in your life. That’s an uplifting thing to hold on to.”

Have you ever had a memory so vivid that you swear it happened but no one can confirm it? Sometimes the line between your waking reality and dreamed experiences can blur. So, can dreams evoke false memories?

The short answer is yes. First of all, human memory is fairly error-prone, says Dr. Nancy Irwin, PsyD, a clinical psychologist. The brain can distort or create memories because of our natural biases and because of outside influences like suggestion, says certified dream analyst Lauri Loewenberg. For example, you would remember witnessing a car crash, but you might not remember one of the cars being blue unless someone mentioned it – and even then it could be wrong. And similar confusion can happen while you sleep.

Read more: What do dreams about cats mean? Here’s what experts say

While you may never know if your vivid memory of that amazing meal you had last week actually happened or not, here’s why and how your dreams can bring false memories, according to dream experts.

Why do dreams cause false memories?

False memories, according to Irwin, can be a way of coping with unresolved trauma. “We don’t like not knowing things,” she tells Bustle. “At night, the mind may be looking for clues and answers, and it’s entirely possible that the brain is filling in the blanks or encoding a memory that might explain things.” According to this 2015 study in the journal Frontiers in Psychology, it can take the form of excessive memory of trauma as your brain tries to process it.

In other cases, your brain can create a semi-false memory by distorting real memories of trauma to protect you from emotional pain, which can happen whether you’re awake or dreaming, Loewenberg adds. “The subconscious can alter or rewrite the trauma to desensitize the memory so you can live in peace.” Research shows this could be happening at the cellular level: According to a 2018 study in the journal Science, your neurons can Reprogramming anxiety-provoking memories to feel safer, which Lowenberg says can be part of healing.

And sometimes it’s just completely random, she points out. “One purpose of dreaming is to consolidate experiences in long-term memory,” Loewenberg tells Bustle. Things that happened the day before can affect your dreams and make them feel all the more real. Because of this, many false memories are pretty commonplace, like talking to a loved one who you might have actually spoken to the day before versus a three-headed dog in your driveway, she says.

Your brain is malleable, so external influences like your friend’s perspective on a situation or watching the news can also distort your memory. Maybe you fell asleep listening to a comedy podcast and now have a memory (or is it?) of going to a stand-up show. While there’s still a lot to learn about brain dreaming, research shows that suggestive forces — in this case, this podcast — can trick you into remembering things that didn’t actually happen.

False memories can also be the result of declining cognitive abilities due to age, medical conditions such as depression, or drug use, according to Irwin. Frequent false memories can be a symptom of borderline personality disorder, Loewenberg says, and you should see your doctor if you notice it happening regularly.

How to tell the difference

Unfortunately, according to Irwin, sometimes you never tell the difference between real and false memories. If you don’t have a witness or someone to corroborate the memory, it may remain a question mark.

Feeling deja vu might cue you into whether or not your memory was actually a dream, says Loewenberg. Although the mechanics behind deja vu aren’t fully understood, if you feel like you’ve experienced a moment before, it could be because something similar happened in your dreams, she notes. “I wouldn’t exactly call those memories fake because it’s something you experienced. But it can be a memory from your inner world instead of your outer world,” she says.

According to Loewenberg, you can start analyzing the difference between what you dreamed of and what happened in waking life by keeping a dream journal. Record your dreams in as much detail as possible as soon as you wake up to help you keep track of what happened in dreamland.

Experts:

dr Nancy Irwin, PsyD, C.Ht, clinical psychologist

Lauri Loewenberg, certified dream analyst

Referenced Studies:

Khalaf, O. (2018). Reactivation of memory-induced neurons contributes to the attenuation of distant fear memory. Science, https://science.sciencemag.org/content/360/6394/1239

Otgaar, H. (2017). What drives false memories in psychopathology? A case for associative activation. Clinical Psychology, https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29170722/

Riba, J. (2015). Distinguishing truth from falsehood: Cannabis users show an increased susceptibility to false memories. Molecular Psychiatry, https://www.nature.com/articles/mp201536

Schachter, D. (2011). Memory bias: an adaptive perspective. Trends in the cognitive sciences. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3183109/

Schachter, D. (1997). False memories and aging. Trends in cognitive science, https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21223912/

Schilling, L. (2013). False memories and memory trust in borderline patients. The Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry, https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23648802/

Strange, D. (2015). Memory distortion in traumatic events: The role of mental images. Boundaries in Psychology, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4337233/

Wamsley, E. (2014). Dreaming and offline memory consolidation. Current Neurology and Neuroscience Reports, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4704085/

Zaragoza, M. (2011). False Proposal Memories: The Impact of Conceptual Elaboration. Journal of Memory and Language, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2981863/

Of all the places we spent time growing up, our home was probably the place we hung out the most. During these formative years, we associate our home with our family, our sense of security and comfort, and even with ourselves as we identify with objects and possessions to form an image of ourselves.

With that in mind, therapist and dream expert Leslie Ellis, Ph.D., mbg says that given these deep and longstanding associations in our minds, dreaming about your childhood home makes sense. “Ideally, we bond with our childhood home because we have memories of being loved and supported. It can be a time of freedom and so poignant because we experience so many ‘firsts’ in our young lives,” she explains.

And of course, there are also cases where our parental home doesn’t bring back happy memories, but rather memories of difficulties and even trauma, she adds.

In any case, the places we live in throughout our lives, and our primary childhood home in particular, have far-reaching effects on the subconscious that are likely to show up in our dreams from time to time.

They’re scary, disturbing, uncomfortable, and they occur when you should be rejuvenating your body and brain: the nightmares that follow a traumatic experience.

Nightmares are quite common in people who have experienced a traumatic event. The aftermath of a nightmare often follows them into the next day, which can affect their emotional well-being and ability to function. Nightmares can be quite frightening and negatively impact the amount of restful sleep a person gets. You may feel like you are reliving the traumatic event, and the thought of going to sleep can provoke anxiety. The less sleep a person gets, the more difficult it is for the brain to process and properly store a traumatic experience. Sometimes the symptoms that are present as a result of trauma are the very barriers that stand in the way of a person’s ability to heal.

The function of dreams

According to Hartmann (1996), one theory about the function of dreaming is that it allows the brain to make connections more efficiently and effectively than consciousness. In other words, it’s the time when the brain reviews observed information and then sorts and organizes it in a meaningful way.

Hartmann (1998) also notes that dreaming is a way for the brain to process trauma, and the dreams are often based on the main emotion the person experienced during the trauma, or experiences when adapting to the trauma recall. This is important to the healing process but, as mentioned above, can be problematic if the person’s nightmares are interfering with their sleep and ability to function in everyday life. According to Leskin et al. (2002) individuals diagnosed with post-traumatic stress had significantly higher rates of sleep problems. They state that 96% of participants in their study who were diagnosed with PTSD had nightmares and 100% had insomnia.

So what can a person do to process unwanted trauma nightmares?

Keep track of your dreams and nightmares and discuss them with your therapist. Dreams can contain information that is important for therapy work. I often encourage people in therapy to write down the underlying themes of their dreams and nightmares so that we can explore their relevance to the trauma treatment work we do. I often find that the information gleaned from dreams is directly related to the issues that are exacerbating or perpetuating the trauma-related disorder (e.g., a sense of helplessness). Develop coping and self-soothing skills. Practice self-soothing and anxiety reduction techniques before bed and/or when waking up from a nightmare. Continue self-soothing throughout the day to deal with the aftermath of a nightmare. Some of the tools that people have found most useful in therapy are guided meditations, body scans, progressive muscle relaxation, and mindfulness exercises. Another tool that many find particularly useful is called “Container”. Essentially, the person experiencing the disorder creates a container (real or imagined) in which to store the things that bother them the most (thoughts about the event, flashbacks, or even the nightmares or other disturbing material) down to a time when he or she is able to sort through the material with his or her therapist. When the disturbing material comes up, the person can let whatever it is into the container pending therapy, where we can decide what to address. Some common containers are safes, crates, vaults, and jars. The container should have a lid or door of some sort. A person can visualize this container in the form of an image in their mind and imagine how the offending material gets into the container. Alternatively, the person may have a physical container and write the offending material on a piece of paper and then place it in the container. Don’t stay in bed if you can’t sleep. When waking up from a nightmare, it can often be difficult to get back to sleep. Also, the act of initially falling asleep can induce anxiety for fear that the nightmares or other symptoms the person may be experiencing will return. If you can’t fall asleep in a reasonable amount of time, get up and do something self-soothing. Sleep can take time to come, but engaging in self-soothing exercises is better than getting upset and more anxious because sleep isn’t coming. Make changes to your sleeping environment to avoid associating anxiety with where you sleep. When a person has repeated nightmares, the sleeping environment can become a trigger for anxiety and other trauma symptoms. Changes in the sleeping environment, such as Things like moving furniture, getting new beds, or changing the decor can all help start a clean slate when it comes to sleep. Remind yourself that your brain is trying to heal. Healing is not always a pleasant process and takes time. As uncomfortable as nightmares are, your brain gives you the information you need to process them. Nightmares can bring to light issues that you may not have been aware of while you were awake. Work with a therapist so you don’t feel alone in this process. A therapist can normalize what you’re going through and can help you process your symptoms in a way that makes them less overwhelming.

References:

Hartmann, E. (1996). Outline for a theory on the nature and functions of dreaming. Dreaming, 6(2), pp. 147-170. Hartmann, E. (1998). Post-Trauma Nightmare as a Paradigm for All Dreams: A New Approach to the Nature and Functions of Dreaming. Psychiatry: Interpersonal and Biological Processes, 61(3), pp. 223-238. Leskin, G.A., Woodward, S.H., Young, H.E., and Sheikh, J.I. (2002). Effects of comorbid diagnoses on sleep disorders in PTSD. Journal of Psychiatric Research, 36(6), pp. 449-452.

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