DENVER — Are you having weird dreams? We took our messed up sleep stories to a professional, who said this is normal.
Katie Mason, a licensed counselor and psychotherapist with 15 years of experience in the mental health field, said our messed up sleep stories are normal.
Below is an interview between Mason and 9NEWS photojournalist Tom Cole (Editor's Note: The interview has been edited for context and clarity):
9NEWS: Why have dreams been more vivid for some people since the COVID-19 pandemic began?
Katie Mason: Dreams are always calling us to grow and evolve. When we are in this crisis state we are more likely to remember our dreams. It’s like a nightmare, we’re more likely to pay attention to it. It doesn’t mean they’re necessarily bad, it just means it’s a very charged emotion within the context of the dream.
I think what’s going on is we are being called to grow and evolve more and then our dreams are reflecting that state.
As a therapist I have learned that people grow and they evolve in times of crisis, they don’t grow and evolve when everything’s just going OK and everything is kind of calm and easy.
The dream states are likely revealing some deeply repressed emotions that needed to be healed. They’re also revealing the collective state we’re in that’s very charged right now, all so we can release it and actually heal it.
What should people make of these dreams? Should they be freaked out? Relieved? Feel normal?
Mason: They should not be freaked out. If there’s a really heightened, charged emotion the tendency is to over analyze it and even work ourselves up more. But no, this is good that stuff is coming up in our dreams.
It's likely a combination of two things.
Let's say you're having dreams of panic. The first week everything happened I was having dreams where there was a lot of panic, so the way I work with that is it's two-fold.
One, that is my own experience of panic that was probably really repressed. I don’t experience panic on a day-to-day conscious level, but because it showed up in my dream I now know that it was always within me. So the good thing is it’s being brought to the surface so it can be released, so I can feel it, to let it go.
But two, I’m also tapping into the collective panic and so what that tells me is that I need to take more space to ground my body, take better care of myself physically so that I’m not getting swept away in the collective energy. All of that is really good and it’s going to help me grow.
What does it mean if you are dreaming about specific rooms in a house?
Mason: There's so many ways to work with a dream, so it's challenging to talk about universal dream images because they are often very subjective or unique to the dreamer.
However, with a house or a particular environment, I often play with 'what part of the house am I in?'"
The basement historically, often in area ms, has been referenced to unconscious parts of our self. So this is a deeper part of myself that I am not familiar with. The attic is more illuminated like we're going upstairs. So we can play with that idea and say we're going to a higher, more expanded state of consciousness.
You can play with the room in the house that you're in, and also say, 'OK, what can the room that I'm in teach me about myself.'"
The kitchen might be like 'oh, I’m in a place of needing to nourish myself.' The bathroom might be 'oh, I'm in a place of needing to cleanse myself.' Each room might invite you to look at where symbolically that shows up in your life.
Is there such a thing as a universal dream? Is it possible that a lot of people are dreaming of something similar?
Mason: There are absolutely universal themes that show up in dreams and therefore there can be some collective understanding of what those images or themes mean, and there’s also the personal message for the dreamer.
Usually, there can be an experience of a dream that multiple people are having right now.
For example, when I said I had panic show up in my dream, a lot of people said that they have dreams where they’re experiencing heightened anxiety, and that is going on in the collective right now. The dreamer has to also be willing to look how that is unique to them.
What is the purpose of dreams? Why do we dream?
Mason: Carl Jung, founding father of analytical psychology, believes dreams serve an evolutionary function and I agree with him on this.
Dreams are an altered state of consciousness where we actually can access more of our subconscious. It’s calling us to heal and release parts of ourselves that we’re not conscious of in waking life.
That can be repressed emotions, feelings and memories. It also gives us access to greater creative potential. Dreams are beckoning us to expand our view of reality and then to be able to go into this altered state to access parts of ourselves that we aren’t conscious of in daily life, so that we can heal it and release it.
Dreams give me a better idea of what's going on with my clients than the words they are telling me.
Dreams are really calling us to wholeness and if we learn to be in a consistent relationship with our dreams we can heal things that we aren’t even aware are getting in the way.
Somebody might have a lot of anger in their dreams, but they don't think they're an angry person. But I can assure you that with a little work that anger will resurface and they'll need to release it. So the dream is giving us hints at what needs to be healed.
So it is important that we are dreaming?
Mason: I believe dreaming is essential, especially now when we’re being bombarded with so much information all the time that it’s challenging to discern what is real in some respects. Dreams give us a direct path to our own intuition and to our own healing.
When something is brought up in our dreams it’s because we’re ready to look at it, we’re actually ready for it.
What would say to the average viewer about their dreams?
Mason: Take a deep breath after you have a dream, write it down and trust that there is some wisdom in it. It just takes a little bit of exploration to learn, to understand the language of your dream. Don’t get into a heightened panic if you had a nightmare. Continue to explore ways of uncovering your own dream language.
Should we pay attention to our dreams?
Mason: Now is an excellent opportunity to dial into your dreams because they’re going to continue to reveal more information to you about your own personal life and about what’s going on in the collective. We need to expand our ability to access our own intuitive healing, which can happen through dreams
I think that with the surge of collective fear and stress in the environment that yes, it is making it a charged time to dream, but also a fruitful time to dream. So we want to pay attention to our dreams because they’re beckoning us to listen.
So all these weird dreams are normal in a time like this?
Mason: Anytime we’re in a crisis or a major time of stress we are going to see a spike of the unconscious or subconscious mind interpreting. That’s what’s happening in our dreams.
SUGGESTED VIDEOS: COVID-19 Coronavirus