Re-reading this post 3 months later, I see I was definitely all over the place with it. I would now say that yes, it can just go away. Email Address:. A blog about healthy living! Jill Whalen's healthy lifestyle transformation. This was one of those times. There was certainty that all would be well soon enough. Overall, I was struck by the seeming solidity of the dream. How cool is that? Upon waking I contemplated what happened. Yet, this concept seemed and still seems nearly impossible for me to grasp.
Or does it? What if we could take away space and time? Prefer listening? The occurrence of dissociative symptoms during the course of BPD may be associated with childhood traumatic events. According to one of the theories of the etiology of BPD, this personality disorder develops in individuals who report that traumatic events were a characteristic of their early lives, mainly physical abuse and emotional neglect.
A study of patients with BPD found that those who had high scores on the Dissociative Experience Scale DES , which measures the frequency of dissociative symptoms, such as autobiographical amnesia, derealization, depersonalization, absorption, and identity alteration Bernstein and Putnam, , experienced significantly more severe emotional and physical neglect and emotional and physical abuse but not sexual abuse during childhood than those who had low scores on the DES Watson et al.
The results suggest that individuals exposed to severe traumatic events during childhood are more likely to develop dissociative symptoms. Traumatic experiences also often interfere with the integration of mental functions, thus, leading to their dysfunction Vermetten and Spiegel, Moreover, dissociative symptoms involve automatic avoidance strategies that defend consciousness from traumatic memories Briere, It is noteworthy that dissociative symptoms are one of the correlates of DRC Rassin et al.
Levitan , p. It seems that frequent experiences of dissociative symptoms or their intensification may produce frequent intrusions of dreams into experiences during the waking state. Dissociative symptoms and proneness to fantasy — characteristics linked to DRC — are correlated, and it appears this correlation can be mediated by experiences during sleep Giesbrecht and Merckelbach, High fantasy-prone students report more dissociative symptoms than their friends who score low or medium on fantasy-proneness Rauschenberger and Lynn, ; Waldo and Merritt, Furthermore, individuals who find it difficult to discriminate between dreams and reality score higher on scales that measure dissociative symptoms and fantasy proneness than individuals who do not confuse dream content with experiences during the waking state Rassin et al.
A study of 51 women from the general population found that fantasy proneness is linked to both dissociative symptoms and everyday cognitive failures Merckelbach et al. Moreover, dissociative symptoms, fantasy proneness, cognitive failures, and sleep disturbances are correlated van Heugten — van der Kloet et al. Later in the current paper, we present data indicating that disturbances in cognitive functioning are among the variables that increase proneness to DRC.
The relationship between dissociative symptoms and fantasy proneness also has been observed in clinical populations. Merckelbach et al. In addition, Steiger et al. To summarize, the above findings support our hypothesis that individuals with diagnosed BPD are more likely to experience DRC because of their tendency to experience dissociative symptoms and related phenomena, such as fantasy proneness, sleep disturbances, and cognitive problems.
Individuals suffering from BPD experience more negative life events than other individuals — even those with other personality disorder s Pagano et al. The quantitative analysis of a group of 27 individuals diagnosed with BPD and a non-clinical group of 20 individuals showed that the BPD group had dreams with more negative affect than those in the non-clinical group.
Generally, individuals suffering from BPD experience negative dreams, including nightmares, more often than individuals who do not have any of the characteristic symptoms of this personality disorder Schredl et al. Nightmares are sleep disturbances that are related to sleep disorders. They are defined as vivid dreams, charged with negative emotions that awaken the dreamer from sleep DSM-V; American Psychiatric Association, The higher frequency of nightmares among BPD patients compared to the non-clinical population is related to greater emotional instability and heightened neuroticism in this clinical group Simor et al.
The intensity of BPD symptoms is positively correlated with the frequency of nightmares Semiz et al. To try to explain the prevalence of nightmares in persons with BPD, we present two theories: a nightmare model proposed by Levin and Nielsen , and the Emotional Cascade Model developed by Selby et al.
Levin and Nielsen proposed a theory to explain the occurrence of dysphoric dreaming, which is based on two major assumptions: cross-state continuity and multilevel explanation.
The first, cross-state continuity , assumes that some structures and processes implicated in nightmare production are also engaged during the expression of pathological signs and symptoms such as dissociative symptoms during the waking state Levin and Nielsen, , p. The second, the multilevel explanation , refers to the idea that nightmare formation can be explained at two different levels: the cognitive—emotional level and the neuronal level.
At the cognitive—emotional level, there are imagery processes that represent emotional dream imagery, whereas the neuronal level contains a network of brain regions responsible for imagistic and emotional processes. This model was created to explain the occurrence of nightmares in the course of posttraumatic stress disorder PTSD ; however, it may also be used in an attempt to describe experiences related both to nightmares and cross-state continuity in patients diagnosed with BPD.
We will not discuss the concept of neuronal correlates of DRC and BPD, as this is beyond the scope of the present article. Instead, we will focus on the notion of cross-state continuity with reference to BPD. Other factors include high degrees of physiological and psychological reactivity, maladaptive coping, fantasy proneness, imagery vividness, and thin boundaries.
Numerous studies suggest that almost all of these factors are usually present during the course of BPD, however more recent studies indicate that there is no heightened physiological reactivity in BPD e.
Persons diagnosed with this personality disorder are characterized by emotional dysregulation, which is the inability to flexibly respond to and manage emotions, entailing emotional sensitivity, heightened and labile negative affect, a deficit of appropriate regulation strategies, and a surplus of maladaptive regulation strategies Carpenter and Trull, In addition, BPD entails affective instability and a low level of emotion recognition Cole et al.
Studies confirm that BPD patients display a negative distortion in the identification of their own emotional states and the emotional states of other persons e. The inability to accurately recognize emotional states may intensify negative affect, emotional instability, and emotional reactivity in everyday life. Furthermore, patients with BPD are unable to tolerate distress and they usually use maladaptive regulation strategies to cope with distress and the negative emotions they experience, such as ruminations, impulsive behaviors, or cognitive avoidance Carpenter and Trull, Disorders of emotional processes in patients with BPD seem to occur not only in the waking state, but also during dreaming, as in the case of nightmares Simor et al.
The effects of nightmares and other bad dreams, apart from the fear they produce, can involve deficits in appropriate emotion-regulation skills, and decrease ability to cope with distress during the subsequent day, according to the ECM.
Patients with BPD experience emotional cascades during the waking state, and this negative affect induces rumination — repetitive thoughts with mainly negative content. Ruminations increase negative affect, which, in turn, intensify ruminations.
These processes result in increased cognitive activity during sleep that favors the appearance of nightmares and maladaptive behaviors during the waking state that are intended to cope with negative emotions.
It seems that frequent nightmares in persons with BPD may influence the occurrence of negative life events Selby et al. Elevated cognitive arousal during sleep may cause awakenings or semi-awakenings, which consequently may lead to difficulty distinguishing between dreaming and waking experiences Trajanovic et al.
In addition, the inability to cope effectively with stressful situations may enhance the tendency toward dissociative states Mosquera et al. Moreover, a study by Rassin et al. Taken together, the findings suggest that frequent unpleasant dream content in BPD may be a factor that increases proneness to DRC.
Patients with BPD can experience a number of different cognitive disturbances. Usually, executive functions, such as working memory and response inhibition, also are disturbed in BPD Hagenhoff et al. Moreover, BPD is characterized by deficits in feedback processing, altered social inference, and poor decision-making skills Trivedi, ; Mak and Lam, Generally, four types of cognitive disturbances are distinguished in BPD: i transient, quasi-psychotic cognition, ii dissociation, iii social cognitive biases, and iv neurocognition Fertuck and Stanley, A detailed description of cognitive problems in BPD, however, remains beyond the scope of the present paper.
What is important is that problems with reality testing may occur in patients with BPD Fiqueierdo, Reality monitoring, which is related to reality testing, seems to play a significant role in the process of distinguishing dream content from waking experiences. Reality monitoring, a type of source monitoring, is defined as the ability to discriminate between memories of actual events, and memories of dreamed events, imagination, or delusions.
Memory source is distinguished on the basis of its characteristics: memories of actual events include more perceptual and contextual details, whereas memories of consciously imagined events include traces of cognitive operations that were involved in their creation.
Dreams are classified as internally generated events, which are difficult to distinguish from similar, external events because they are created without conscious cognitive operations Johnson et al. In the case of dreams, conscious cognition, which is the most important cue that would help differentiate between internally generated memories and those generated externally is not present. These conclusions indicate that DRC may be associated with difficulty with reality monitoring.
The temporary suspension of the source monitoring process, along with reduced ability to respond to a sensory stimulus and reduced attention, is one of the common features of both dreaming and waking fantasy.
These processes may make it more difficult to distinguish between the content generated during dreaming and waking fantasy. Both waking fantasy and dreams play an integral role in mood regulation, adaptive information processing, and maintenance of self-cohesion by providing working templates for future goal-directed behavior and the development and maintenance of self-schemas Levin and Young, BPD patients exhibit certain cognitive disturbances that make them more prone to problems related to reality testing, and waking fantasy may also disturb the processes involved in correct source monitoring.
Furthermore, it seems that mood regulation is disturbed in BPD because of more negative dream content and emotional cascades at night Selby et al. Moreover, individuals who are more likely to make cognitive mistakes are less likely to trust their cognitive skills van Heugten — van der Kloet et al. We hypothesize that people with BPD who have some cognitive deficits will trust their cognitive processes less because they are not sure if their perception of reality is correct.
Our assumption is that due to their cognitive disturbances, persons with BPD, compared to non-clinical populations, more often will be unsure what the source of certain events or experiences are dream vs. The difficulty that BPD patients encounter in reality testing Fiqueierdo, and their problems with metacognitive monitoring and metacognitive knowledge Sharma and Singh, seem to be the only examples of cognitive disturbances that could lead to a higher probability of experiencing DRC, compared to people from non-clinical populations.
The concept of boundaries, which was defined by Hartmann , refers to a wide spectrum of boundaries in the mind, including interpersonal boundaries the self vs. Comparison between Dream and Reality: Dream Reality Meaning A dream is a series of images, events and sensations occurring during sleep.
Reality is the existential state of things without any sort of imagination or interpretation involved Origin Dreams are a product of the mind Reality has been existing, had existed and will exist for time immemorial Occurrence Dreams occur during sleep Reality is what happens and keeps unfolding Remembrance No dream can be fully memorized or recalled as it was Reality can be memorized or recalled Conclusion Dreams end at a point of time Reality is never ending.
Image Courtesy: halfwaybetweenthegutter. Comments Sir, More about differences between Dream and reality. Your name. Plain text. Observations and data were extracted by routine clinical practice while the presentation of findings to international congresses was self-funded.
This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and build upon your work non-commercially. Withdrawal Guidlines. Publication Ethics. Withdrawal Policies Publication Ethics. Sleep Medicine and Disorders: International Journal.
Opinion Volume 1 Issue 5. Authors declare there is no conflict of interest in publishing the article. Meduna LJ. Oneirophrenia: the confused state. Colman AM.
0コメント