For most of us, the majority of our dreams stay in dreamland, but every so often, you may have vivid dreams that can activate all of your senses and stay with you after you awaken. These nocturnal adventures blur reality and imagination, leaving you surprised to wake up in your own bed. You might even be able to recall a vivid dream years after you had it.
So what causes some dreams to be more intense than others? While there are still a lot of mysteries surrounding dreaming, here’s a look at vivid dreams, potential causes for them, and how you can calm them down for more serene sleep.
What’s a vivid dream?
Every night, you spend an average of two hours dreaming. You probably don’t remember it most of the time, but every once in a while, you might have an intense dream that feels real and may even cause strong emotions that you feel after waking up. That’s a vivid dream.
“It’s not like you’re watching a movie or seeing flashes of information — vivid dreams are much more complex than people realize,” says Christina Geiselhart, a licensed clinical social worker with Thriveworks in Illinois, who specializes in stress, anxiety, and coping skills, and has experience in the fields of sleep and dreams.
She continues: “For a lot of people, they really feel it. When they wake up, it takes them a while to get out of the dreamlike state because it felt so real or intense for them. You can wake up with your heart racing.”
But not all vivid dreams have to be unsettling or nightmarish. Some vivid dreams can be incredibly positive experiences that evoke feelings of joy, fulfillment, or even inspiration. These dreams can leave you waking up with a fresh perspective on a problem, or feeling more motivated about something in your life. In some cases, they can spark new ideas, change your mindset, or help you see a situation in a completely different light.
While dreams can happen in all stages of our sleep cycle, the most vivid ones tend to occur during our REM sleep, according to the National Institutes of Health (NIH). This stage is when our brain tends to process emotions and information, as well as consolidate memories — hence why dreams might be particularly vivid during this time. In fact, research shows that people tend to recall more elaborate, emotional dreams when they wake up during REM sleep compared to other phases of sleep.
What’s the difference between lucid and vivid dreams?
Vivid dreams and lucid dreams have some overlap. They’re both striking and often feel real. With lucid dreams, however, you have a conscious awareness that you’re dreaming while it’s happening, according to a 2009 report in the journal Sleep.
“Vivid dreams are not always lucid, but they are more intense than a typical dream and we often feel like it’s real life,” says Dr. Veronica Sesi, a neurologist and sleep medicine specialist..
With that being said, there’s no strict medical definition for vivid dreams or lucid dreams. The two terms are often used interchangeably, explains Geiselhart. “Most vivid dreams are lucid dreams,” she adds.
What’s the difference between dreams and nightmares?
All nightmares are dreams, but not all dreams are nightmares. A nightmare is a particular type of dream that takes a dark turn. While dreams can range from delightful to downright bizarre, often leaving you with a mix of emotions or just a puzzling memory, nightmares cause fear, distress, anxiety, despair, or sorrow. You might wake up from a nightmare feeling frightened or disturbed and have a difficult time shaking it off right away.
Like dreams, nightmares can range from hazy, barely memorable sensations to immersive experiences that feel like they’re real. But keep in mind that vivid dreams aren’t necessarily the same as nightmares. Some can feel frightening or devastating, while others are blissful. What makes a vivid dream cross into nightmare territory is when it provokes strong feelings of fear, anxiety, or distress that linger even after you wake up in the morning. Vivid dreams, even intense ones, don’t always carry those negative emotions.
What causes vivid dreams?
The jury’s still out on what happens in our brain that causes vivid dreams. It may have to do with certain neurotransmitters that are released or suppressed during sleep.
Dopamine, which has been linked to hallucinations, is higher during REM sleep, as is acetylcholine, a neurotransmitter involved with attention. These factors might contribute to the intensity of a dream, but more research is needed.
“We don’t know what the content of dreams really means, but the mental imagery we have during sleep is a natural part of memory formation and the ability to manage and process emotions,” says Sesi.
With that being said, there are some health and lifestyle factors that may increase the likelihood of having vivid dreams, say Sesi and Geiselhart.
Stress
Vivid dreams can often be blamed on something we all experience from time to time: stress. Research has shown that the state of your mind when you’re awake can influence the content of your dreams, so it makes sense that when you’re going through a particularly stressful time, you might have anxiety-ridden dreams that feel real.
While the occasional stress dream isn’t something to be alarmed by, having them continuously could be a sign that stress is taking a toll on your body. Ongoing stress can also affect your sleep in other ways.
“A couple of nights of stress dreams can have a domino effect,” Geiselhart says. “If you’re having trouble sleeping and you’re not getting restful sleep within a week or two, talk to your primary care physician or look for counseling to piece through what could be going on that’s causing these dreams.”
Health conditions
Vivid dreams are a known symptom of several health conditions, including post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
“With PTSD, people often have recurring nightmares where they have the opportunity to prevent [the traumatic incident] from happening, or save someone,” says Geiselhart. “A lot of times they will wake up before the trauma ends and they feel like they never had the chance to get closure.”
REM sleep behavior disorder is also linked with “dream-enacting behavior,” according to the Mayo Clinic. When someone with this disorder has a vivid dream, they may physically act out certain parts of it, like kicking, punching, laughing, cursing, or yelling.
Pregnancy
Sleep changes — including an uptick in vivid dreaming — are particularly common during pregnancy.
“With all the hormonal changes during pregnancy, a lot of women will report more vivid dreams and more frequent dreams,” notes Sesi.
Research shows that the nightmares that tend to occur in late pregnancy can be so disturbing, they may cause sleep impairment. According to a 2014 study in the journal Sleep Medicine, pregnant women were significantly more likely to report bad dreams more than once a week, as well as lower sleep quality and more night awakenings, than non-pregnant women.
Medication
Switch to a new medication recently? That might be the reason you’re experiencing an uptick in vivid dreams, says Sesi.
“It’s very common to see vivid dreams with beta blockers used for cardiac conditions,” she says. “Sometimes medications that increase REM sleep, like melatonin and sleep aids, can increase dreaming. Antidepressants are also known to affect sleep in different ways and might make dreams more vivid.”
Alcohol and Other Substances
If medications can affect your dreaming, it should come as no surprise that alcohol and other substances that alter our mental state may also increase vivid dreams and how well we remember them.
“Alcohol is a big disrupter of sleep, and affects REM sleep directly,” says Sesi. “It leads to more arousals at night, so if you’re having vivid dreams, you’ll wake up and recall those.”
Sleep deprivation
If you haven’t been catching the recommended amount of Zzz’s, you might be in for a night of vivid dreams once you finally do get to sleep. Research shows that when people are deprived of REM sleep one night, their dreams feel more intense the following night. “When you have suppressed REM sleep, the body compensates by rebounding and getting a higher concentration of REM the next night,” says Sesi.
What do vivid dreams mean?
From a health perspective, experiencing frequent, vivid dreams — especially ones that feel upsetting — could be a sign that something’s not quite right. A lifestyle habit or an underlying condition might be affecting your dreams, so it’s worth talking it over with a doctor.
“Vivid dreams can be distressing and emotionally draining, or cause anxiety and depression,” says Sesi. “If the dream content is unsettling, you might resist sleeping, and when we’re sleep deprived, we don’t function well.”
It’s also possible to draw a deeper meaning from the content of your dreams. While there’s no scientific formula to dream analysis, exploring the themes of a dream by journaling or talking it over with someone you trust could provide some insight into parts of your life.
“People put a lot of stake into what their vivid dreams mean to them, and how they interpret them can guide real-time solutions for some people,” says Geiselhart. “At the end of the day, we don’t know what vivid dreams mean, but we need to take all aspects, including religious and cultural beliefs, into consideration when interpreting them.”
How do you calm down vivid dreams?
If vivid dreams are disrupting your sleep, get in touch with a doctor or therapist. Medications are not typically used to directly stop vivid dreams, but treating the potential root of the dreams, such as stress and anxiety, could offer some relief from unwanted trips to dreamland. That could involve calming techniques, like meditation and mindfulness practices during the day.
Keeping up with your sleep hygiene can help, too. A cool, dark, quiet bedroom and keeping a regular schedule all help promote more restful sleep.
Finally, try to avoid reading or watching anything disturbing close to bedtime and set yourself up for a calm, positive state of mind when it’s time to hit the hay, says Geiselhart.
“Before you go to bed, really try to focus on the positive things, like a picture or an image, or a mantra you say over and over to yourself,” says Geiselhart. “A lot of people will dream about the things they put active thought into before going to bed."
