I’ve been having vivid and violent dreams lately. The violence is not being inflicted on me in these dreams, but around me. I think last night’s was a car accident narrowly missing me. I can still hear the crunch of the metal as the two cars made impact on one another. Despite my dreams being vivid, that’s the only part of my dream I can remember.

My depressed mood has persisted to today, so it made me think of what else could be affecting my mood – which brought be to think of my dream again. My dreams are usually fairly vivid and sometimes violent, but my dreams recently seem to have increased in violence lately.

…depressed patients with a history of suicidal thoughts or behaviors report more death themes in their dreams. However, one study found that depressed patients reported less negative, but more neutral affect in their dreams; the authors interpret this finding to be consistent with the affective flattening seen in depression. […]

Besides affective content, depressed patients have been found to play a relatively passive role in their dreams…

Dreaming in Depression (and Other Mental Illnesses) by Michelle Carr, Ph.D

On my way home from work today, I also narrowly missed a car accident, albeit certainly not as violent as the one in my dream. A car failed to look before merging into my lane and I had to slam on my brakes to avoid a collision. Of course, this would happen during one of the few times that I don’t check whether my dash cam was connected before driving. It wasn’t. I don’t want to say my dreams are predictive of what may happen in reality, but I think they just make me more aware to what’s going on around me. I usually have some slight anxiety when driving because I don’t trust others on the road.

I still don’t know what I need to pull myself out of this funk, besides needing to cry. But this feeling only comes when I am not at home in my bed. Surely, this is mostly placebo, because otherwise it doesn’t make sense. I felt like crying at my desk at work; I felt like breaking down and bawling once I exited my car and began the walk to my apartment. But then I walked through my front door, was greeted by my cats, and I no longer feel the urge to bawl. I do feel a headache coming on though – perhaps stress.

I noticed that I felt like I couldn’t breathe while at work also, which was substantiated by my non-stop yawning. There was an old hypothesis that yawning helps bring more oxygen to the brain; however, studies have failed to confirm this hypothesis. It’s also theorized that yawning helps thermoregulate the brain or otherwise increase alertness. Or simply sleep deprivation. I did not sleep well at all last night. I definitely kept tossing and turning.

A change in heart rate, breathing, and tight chest muscles can make it seem like you are short of breath, which can cause excessive yawning. 

Excessive Yawning Anxiety Symptoms by Jim Folk & medically reviewed by Marilyn Folk, BScN.

I must end this post short and rather inconclusive; my laptop battery is dying. Until next time.