It is clear that frequent nightmares or the type of dreams you have can bring up some mental health problem, but while you sleep, you also see symptoms of physical illness.
Although in the field of dreams human knowledge is for the moment as small as a sand in the desert, the truth is that its typology may point to certain physical illnesses.
From the organization The National Sleep Foundation, Americans point out four health problems that your dreams can indicate. If you only paid attention to them when you thought they reflected poor mental health – as in the case of stress, for example – you were very wrong.
4 health problems that can signal your type of dreams
Low blood sugar
If you are diabetic, having vivid and overly realistic dreams can indicate a sudden drop in blood sugar, known as hypoglycemia, caused by a change in medication or an error in insulin dosing. To help prevent low blood sugar, you better consume protein in the hours before bedtime instead of sugary foods or simple carbohydrates.
An approaching cold
If you’ve woken up from a nightmare wrapped in cold sweat, a flu or cold may be approaching, as feverish dreams serve as a warning to the rest of your body. When your immune system “checks the system” and senses that something is wrong, an alarm sounds, causing biochemical materials, called pyrogens, to flow through the bloodstream and eventually reach the temperature regulation zone in the brain. In REM sleep, your body may have difficulty regulating temperature, so vivid dreams in that phase combined with increased pyrogens prior to illness result in unpleasant cold sweats.
Sleep apnea
If you have spent months without remembering a dream, it could indicate that something is interrupting your sleep cycle. Because most dreams occur in the REM phase, lack of sleep indicates that sleep has been interrupted. One of the possible causes is sleep apnea, a condition in which breathing is interrupted briefly and frequently, causing the brain to wake up the body to restart breathing.
Stress and anxiety
Although they are mental in nature, they are reflected in the body with multiple physical symptoms, from stomach aches to lack of appetite, breathing problems, and stiff limbs. When you’re stressed, it’s common to have trouble falling asleep or staying asleep, which can lead to less REM sleep, and therefore fewer dreams. Similarly, recurring stress-related dreams can reflect stressful real-life situations. Common themes of stress dreams include falls, teeth that fall out, and being naked in public, among others.
