by Mark Schiffman, M.S.
When I was younger, my dreams were more fantastical than realistic. Now, my dreams are more realistic than fantastical. Bad dreams used to be about monsters, aliens, or zombies. Now, bad dreams are about exploiting my commonplace fears and anxieties like being late or getting up to speak in front of an audience and forgetting what I was supposed to say. While these dreams are more realistic, they are also more irrational (from an REBT perspective), which makes them even more disturbing than monsters, aliens, and zombies.
The other night I had a dream that I was on the 6 train on my way to do something (I cannot recall what). I looked at my phone and had the sudden realization that I was two hours late to see my client and I was heading in the wrong direction. To make matters worse, it seems that one of the unwritten rules of the dream was that I wasn’t allowed to get off the train to switch directions. I was overtaken by an immediate wave of panic and anxiety. Luckily, I was saved from a prolonged exposure to these unhealthy negative emotions by my alarm clock. I was so relieved that I wasn’t actually late and this terrible dream did not actually take place in reality.
Later in the day, as I quite punctually arrived at the Albert Ellis Institute, I shared my dream with a colleague. As I was retelling it, I realized that my dream acted as a window into some of my core irrational beliefs. Since I generally come on time to important appointments and events, I do not have many Activating Events that trigger my irrational beliefs that would surface if I was late. From this perspective, my dream acted as an Activating Event that unveiled some of my deeply held irrational beliefs that don’t always have the opportunity to manifest during my normal waking hours.
Thinking back to my dream, when I began to feel the panic and anxiety, a torrent jumble of irrational inferences and beliefs started flooding in:
“I can’t believe I am so late! I shouldn’t be so late! I am such a terrible person that I left my poor client waiting there for so long. What if he doesn’t come back? My supervisors are going to be so angry at me. I don’t think I will be able to stand the criticism. This is terrible and awful!”
With that feedback in hand, I can start questioning and disputing these irrational beliefs:
“Must you always be on time? It is not great that you made your client wait, but does making him wait make you a terrible person? Even if your supervisors do yell at you, would you really not be able to tolerate it? This situation might be unpleasant, but is it completely terrible and awful?”
Going forward, every time I have a dream that invokes unhealthy negative emotions, I will look at what happened in the dream as an Activating Event. I will take time to reflect on what irrational beliefs might be festering in my preconscious state that may be feeding into my dreams. Once I identify the beliefs, I will dispute them and try replacing them with rational alternatives. If I do that, instead of having scary realistic and irrational dreams, maybe I can go back to the less-scary monsters, aliens, and zombies.
