Dreams Disturbing Sleep

New Zealand Listener, Volume 31, Issue 794, 8 October 1954, Page 17

Dreams Disturbing Sleep

This is the text of a talk on health broadcast recently from ZB, YA

and YZ stations of the NZBS

by

DR

H. B.

TURBOTT

Deputy-

Director-General of Health

"| DIDN’T sleep very well last night. I was troubled by dreams." Quite a few people will recognise this as their lot and their way of thinking about it. First, that they are constantly dreaming at nights, and secondly that they’re privately a bit worried about it, not regarding it as healthy, normal sleep. In the Mediterranean basin, before Christ, there were temples everywhere practising the cult of Aesculapius, the god of medicine. They were sited in beautiful spots, wafted usually with sea breezes, and contained either pure or mineral spring waters. The sick who came for healing were soothed by the beauties of both architecture and environment. To gain admission a preliminary period of dieting, bathing and purging had to be endured. In the inner temple the priests prayed for them, for the cure that was coming, and recounted triumphs over disease. When the patient seemed to be psychologically ready, a cure climax was deliberately planned. The last night was spent at the feet of the god, sleeping in an open air colonnade. The dream that always came in that last night provided the cure, directly through seeing the God or through his advice, and there are no reports of failures. This early cult cleverly exploited environment for soothing and suggestion to give the mind power over the body. There was dependence on the universality of dreams and the ability to produce the right one by crowding the conscious moments with suggestions of personal cure and stories of cures of others, This cult lasted for many centuries up to -the time of Christ..Its power came from a healing dream. Mankind then regarded dreams kindly. Hundreds of years later, in Renaissance times, dreams became something to dread, something of great moment, needing interpretation. There would be a guide to conduct, or warnings of troubles and disasters, hidden in them. In our day there still persists in communities of European extraction, this

feeling that dreams -are harmful and disturbing. Oriental peoples retain.something of the Aesculapian thought, that cures can be wrought in high places through dreams. It matters little that suggestion and hypnotism are’ used to assist the healing dream. Anything that happens to us in waking moments is stored away in the sub-conscious.-’Thoughts, feelings, sensations -pleasant or otherwise. All emotionsanger, joy, jealousy, fear or what notare there in our memory. When asleep, the mind draws on this vast storehouse. Sometimes it reassembles things in the way we would wish the outcome to be. At other times our experiences are reproduced so that we fail to recognise them as our own. Nevertheless, these strange presentations, pleasurable or fearful, belong to us, arising from the subconscious store. You may be making up for frustrations in your dreams. You may be mirroring something of the day’s happenings. You may be having wishes fulfilled that are impossible in everyday life. There is no harm in this. A great deal of tension is probably relieved in dreams. When you are sleeping, dreams are happening all the time. You don’t realise this. Only the fringes are caught, in light sleep when deep recuperative sleep has passed, or when you wake suddenly and record the tag end of a dream. Dreams are nothing to worry about. They are normal. Regard them as a safety valve. Just as your physical body is relaxing and resting while you are asleep, your mind is in some part, at least, relieving itself and recuperating through dreaming. The setbacks, the stresses, the

tensions tumbling about in the memory are somewhat compensated for in wishfulfilment, fantasy dreaming. You may be puzzled by the camouflage and new settings of the situations, but they are really your experiences being reshuffled to give some easement, and let you get on better with the daily task. Very few people dream so much as to interfere with adequate sleep. If dreaming seems to be as bad as this, maybe there’s an anxiety or neurotic state. A visit to a doctor is the best idea. He will know whether to reassure you or send you on for a psychiatric consultation. However, for 999 of us in each thousand, dreaming is not disturbing, but normal.