What Does It Mean When You Dream About Watching Yourself Sleep?

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When you dream at night, some scenarios you experience in the dream can seem very real; They can be a memory of what has happened, a collection of thoughts from the day, or just plain randomness. But, have you ever dreamt of watching yourself sleep?

What does it mean to dream about watching yourself sleep? Dreaming about watching yourself sleep could simply mean that you desire more sleep in your waking life. It may also mean that you need to analyze yourself more and your life decisions. Many also interpret this dream as symbolic of ignoring a particular situation you’re facing.

It’s entirely possible to have a dream such as this, and its interpretation may vary from one source to another. Dream interpretations are also discussed not just in psychology and superstition practices but also in religious practices as well. Mostly, all of them refer to dreams as possible interpretations of your inner emotions, repressed ideas, and unexpected experiences. In short, dreams can reflect what you truly wanted or desired.

For someone who lacks sleep, they may dream of watching themself tucked in and snoring on their bed. If there is something they’re ignoring in their waking life, this could also be the reason why. Perhaps they needed more sleep, which caused these particular dreams to occur. Some have stated an OBE, or out of body experience.

Out of Body Experience

An out of body experience is when you view yourself from the outside. There are many discussions and thoughts related to OBEs. One, for example, is that your spirit temporarily leaves the body. During this time, you are able to watch yourself sleep.

Indeed, Dreams can pop out of existence like a bubble. It happens when you sleep, and once you are awake, you forget it as if it never happened in the first place. Even if you realize you had a dream, it is nearly impossible to recall it. Dreams can be cryptic or just plain annoying. It is important to interpret your dreams properly. It’s even better to ignore them and move on with your daily lives. However, if it becomes re-occurring and bothering, it might be something to note of, and perhaps investigate.

From Superstition to Science

Ancient civilizations had long ago interpreted dreams as somehow a “preview” of what will happen later on. Some tend to be so drastic that people labeled them as prophecies. As the centuries went by, the world became industrialized. People used behavior analysis and logical approaches like psychology to break down a person’s dreams.

Famous psychologists, like Sigmund Freud, associated dreams as the fulfillment of wishes. Another renowned psychologist, Carl Jung, explained that dreams are illustrations of constant reflection of one’s self. The scenarios showed your fresh memories rearranged to your liking or characters representing what your impulses are. Moreover, as technology advances, more scientific approaches are being applied.

A closely related field to neurology, oneirology is the scientific study of dreams. It seeks better understanding through analysis of activities of the brain and the functional status of its parts, whether they are healthy or under a particular disorder. When you are sleeping, dreams mainly start to occur; based on the scientific research of brain activity, dreams occur during the rapid-eye-movement (REM) stage. At this stage, even when your eyelids are closed, the eyes move rapidly, and the brain activity is high. This suggests that what the brain had absorbed prior, whether thoughts or experiences, are being mashed-up, depending on what you had felt the moment or even hours before you sleep. Researchers suspect that the main culprits are the hippocampus – the memory controller and the neocortex – in-charge of higher-order functions like perception, reasoning, speech, and even motion control.

What Influences Dreams?

The future is not always certain, and therefore, dreams can never be a glimpse of what will happen next. There are many influences to dreams, whether they may be pleasant and sweet, or total nightmares.

• Stimulus

Have you ever dreamt of something pleasant like having a vacation based on an advertisement you saw, buying things you wanted after receiving your expected salary bonus or going on a romantic date? Those are the things that have stimulated your thoughts and triggered your senses to a high level, whether currently or just hours ago. Those might never be dreamt again after finding an actual outlet or alternative when you wake up, of course, without noticing it.

• Memories

A fun experience that ends in disappointment, a tedious journey that turns out to be an adventure or even just a set of routines you do daily when awake, can also be dreamt when you sleep. These memories can be a reminiscence or continuation of your daily happenings.

• Attachment

Many people have dreamt of feeling attached to someone before. It may be an illustration of regrets and sorrow, or just the loneliness felt and kept when you were awake. It may be scenarios of what-ifs, where someone you were attached to made a remarkable impact on your life.

• Food and Drugs

What you take in before you sleep can cause dreams. It is not advisable to sleep with either a full or on an empty stomach, since it may lead to complications. Drugs and alcohol, for example, are sedatives that will lead you to sleep disturbances and possible dream scenarios. Whatever you put inside the body before sleeping is processed by the brain and may lead to dreams.

• Trauma

A traumatic experience can make you restless as well. When you rest, flashbacks may continuously invade and pop into your dreams. Only time can tell when you can surely recover from a traumatic experience. Still, a therapy session may help you deal with the memory and overcome it, giving you peace of mind.

• Mental Disorder

Hallucinations, delusions, and other imaginations can appear so real in the dreams of a person with a mental disorder. Severe cases can also lead that person to have a very hard time grasping what is real or not.

Symbolisms and Supernatural Experience: What Do Specific Dreams Mean?

There can be many symbolisms derived, with a nod from science, from dreaming about watching you sleep. There may be additional details to the said scenario, which can be interpreted differently. Here are the examples and their common symbolisms:

• Dreams about yourself sleeping – this may mean that you are ignoring the circumstances of your surroundings.
• Dreams about you sleeping with someone – this also means that you are ignoring the circumstances related to that person.
• Dreams about you observing someone sleeping – this indicates that someone had made something hidden, and that person made you unaware of it.
• Dreams about you sleeping somewhere else – this symbolizes of an unforeseen circumstance, as you are planning to expand your opportunities and ideals or already had been doing it
• Dreams about you sleeping in a deathbed – this symbolizes of the worries and struggles accumulated during illness, along with the representation of persons contributing to your stress
• Dreams about you feeling sleepy – this symbolizes ignoring what can happen, including opportunities

How persistent or imaginative humans can be, we have limitations. So, when someone dreams of themselves sleeping, they tend to interpret it as a supernatural experience. The belief is that during the dream state, the consciousness or spirit separates from the physical body. The situation is often termed as astral projection. This is a common belief when one meditates under the guidance of a certain religion.

Another similar to the dream is the near-death experience. People who had experienced it see flashbacks of the lives they lived at a third-person view, just like watching a movie. Certain survivors can also have dreams of watching themselves sleep since they already had prior experiences while awake.

Understanding Dreams

Though some dreams are unnerving at times, we mustn’t let them take us over altogether in our waking lives. We can, however, use them to make reflections of our current state or life choices, helping us make better decisions in the real world. After all, some dreams are symbolic and are good signs that help us understand our thoughts. Although some seem nightmarish to us, view them with an open mind. Besides, what’s the use of your comfy pillow and warm comforter (view on Amazon)? With these to back you up at night, you’re surely going to have the best sleep ever, lessening your chances of getting nightmares when sleeping.

Conclusion – What Does It Mean When You Dream About Watching Yourself Sleep?

It is hard to visualize yourself in a dream since we see things from a fixed perspective. If you often look in a mirror or pictures of yourself at multiple angles, you will eventually find it easy to project yourself and, eventually, your movements. There can be many interpretations of your dream of watching yourself sleeping scientifically or superstitiously. Nevertheless, they occur in our head and not in reality. It may be best to forget it. The most important part of sleeping is resting the whole body to prepare yourself for another tomorrow.