3 things you likely don’t know about dreaming in recovery as a blog post titled grabbed my attention. As someone who has studied the importance of sleep for brain health and wellness, as well as its role as one of the key brain healers people seeking recovery can do, I was happy to share this guest post by Erin Gilday.

Erin is an author, activist and former substance abuse counselor. She likes classic cars, industrial sewing machines and The X-Files. She’s a copywriter at Little Light Copywriting, where she specializes in copywriting and content marketing for addiction treatment providers. She can be reached on Linkedin.

3 Things You Don’t Know About Dreaming in Recovery by Erin Gilday

You already know that getting a good night’s sleep is one of the most fundamental self-care tools in recovery. Catching eight hours a day helps us keep our mental health in check and helps to prepare us for the day ahead. It’s the foundation we build on.

But what about dreaming?

With all the focus on sleep—how much to get and when to get it—the recovery community is oddly quiet about dreams.

And that’s too bad, because the truth is, dreams can play a HUGE role in recovery.

From increased dream recall in early recovery, to upsetting dreams of relapse, once you get sober people talking about their dream life, you’ll quickly find that they have a lot to say.

And it makes sense: recovery is mostly an inside job, with most of the transformation happening deep within the human psyche. Dream space is the perfect place to process these revolutionary, but deeply private, changes.

Read on for the top three things you didn’t know about dreaming in recovery.

1 – Sober People Dream More

It’s easy to make the mistake of associating drugs of abuse with sleep. From nightcaps to nodding, many substances—particularly depressants—appear to work like sleep aids. Many addicts are under the impression that they cannot get “a good night’s sleep” without the assistance of their drug of choice. While drugs like alcohol and heroin might “knock you out,” the unconsciousness they offer is a far cry from healthy, sober sleep. The absence of dreaming in non-sober sleep is the first clue that something is not quite right.

In sober, healthy sleep, the brain alternates between two phases: rapid movement sleep (REM) and non-rapid eye movement sleep (NREM). Dreaming takes place during REM sleep only. The balance between these two states determines how restful one’s sleep session is.

Because drugs like alcohol depress brain function, sleepers who use depressants before bed will fall more quickly into a deep sleep, reinforcing the illusion that depressants are a great sleep aid. This NREM sleep looks like regular sleep, except, because of the depressed brain function, the sleeper is unable to enter REM sleep. This means that not only is the non-sober sleeper unable to dream, but the sleep they do enjoy will ultimately feel less restful than sober sleep.

New sobriety, like active addiction, also alters a sleeper’s dream life. Many newly sober people report a dramatic increase in dreaming. Some sleep scientists hypothesize that this is the brain’s way of catching up on the long-term REM deficits caused by months or years of dreamless sleep. Those enjoying longer-term sobriety notice that the initial dream surge often subsides only to be replaced by a more steady dream life, similar to the one they had before they began using.

2 – ‘Drunk Dreams’ Don’t Necessarily Mean Relapse

With all this increased dreaming in recovery, there’s one experience that nearly all sober people share—and that’s dreaming about using. These dreams can come at any time in the recovery journey and they are often hyper-realistic. Many sober people wake from these dreams thinking that they are actually real and that they actually just relapsed. It can take a minute for the panic to subside to recognize the dream for what it is.

That’s when the questions starts:

• “Why am I having this dream?”
• “Why am I having this dream NOW?’
• “Why do I feel guilty if it was only a dream?”
• “What does it mean if I enjoyed getting high in my dreams?”

It’s normal to feel paranoid about what these dreams could mean. Many people worry that these dreams portend relapse or that they will actually cause relapse. Some people feel guilty or scared about enjoying these dreams.

Rest assured, these dreams are completely normal in a healthy recovery. Most people in recovery have these dreams and very few of them lead to or predict relapse.

Depending on the person and depending on the circumstances, one’s experience of these dreams can range from mildly disorienting to annoying to completely terrifying. If you feel overwhelmed by your using dream or if you just want to talk to someone about it, trust your instinct and do that. This is a great time to reach out to a friend, sponsor, counselor, or crisis line and just talk about the experience.

Why do using dreams happen? As with most things in dreamland, we really don’t know. It’s likely that these dreams mean different things to different people at different times. Some popular theories include:

Using/drunk dreams are a way for your subconscious to process recovery and sobriety

• Using/drunk dreams are actually misplaced memories from brownouts or blackouts trying to get processed
• The substance abuse in these dreams actually represents something else entirely (i.e. control, freedom, perception, or the lack of these things)
• When using dreams include others, the substance abuse in the dream might be a shorthand for intimacy or a desire for connection
• These dreams are triggered by stress, and they are simply the addicted brain reverting to old coping mechanisms

Whatever the cause of these often upsetting dreams, it’s important to remember that they’re just that—dreams.

3 – Lucid Dreaming Can Be a Safe Way to Face Fears Sober

Dreams can sometimes feel like they are totally out of our control.

For most of us, they are.

But for those lucky few—and those willing to work at it—it is possible to take control of the reins with a dream practice called lucid dreaming. We’ve just barely scratched the surface of the potential for lucid dreaming in addiction recovery, but this unusual practice can be a powerful addition to the recovery toolkit.

During a lucid dream, the dreamer recognizes that they are dreaming but they do not wake up. This unique state of mind allows the dreamer to influence their dream as it unfolds, interrupting upsetting sequences, making decisions about what to do next, or creating totally new dreams as they see fit.

For those in recovery, lucid dreaming has tons possible applications. Not only is it fun and entertaining (an important component to a thriving sober life), but lucid dreaming can be a safe way to face fears sober, practice refusal skills, or even ask forgiveness from people who we can’t approach in real life for whatever reason. Lucid dreaming is just one of the many benefits of sobriety. Most importantly, lucid dreaming is a powerful way to connect with—and care for—yourself.

So, how can you jump-start lucid dreaming?

Early recovery, when REM is in overdrive and dream recall is sky high, is a great time to start but you can start practicing lucid dreaming at any time. The first step is to start recording your dreams. Place a notebook next to your bed and write down everything you remember when you wake up. If you don’t remember anything, write that. If you’re not getting anything, start writing about your intention to remember your dreams before bed every night until you start remembering your dreams.

The next step is start recognizing when you are dreaming. There are many ways to do a “reality-check” in a dream. Try to read a sign, a book, or a clock. Words and numbers are fuzzy and difficult to read for most people in dreams. Seeing these irregularities can tip you off that you in a dream. Another “reality-check” you can perform is turning on a light switch or opening a door with a door knob. These routine activities are really tough to complete in dreams.

Dreaming is an Important Part of Recovery

Although sleep is a vital part of a self-care, dream life is an important part of recovery psychology and wellbeing. We may never know the hows and whys of some recovery dream questions. What we do know is this: along with sobriety comes the return of dreaming. With so much internal transformation occurring during recovery, dreams are an ideal medium for exploring the hopes, fears, changes, and raw emotions that go along with early sobriety. As recovery becomes long-term, dreams—whether lucid or non-lucid—are there to continue to help us make sense of this journey.