Dreams can often feel like a strange and mysterious world where anything is possible. While dreams can be fun and exciting, there are some actions and behaviors that should be avoided while dreaming. Making the wrong choices in a dream can lead to stressful or frightening dream experiences. Being aware of what not to do in a dream can lead to more pleasant and positive dream adventures. This article will provide an overview of behaviors to avoid and why they can negatively impact your dreams.
Don’t do anything illegal or unethical
Just because a dream feels detached from reality, that doesn’t mean normal rules of ethics and legality no longer apply. If you wouldn’t consider doing something illegal or unethical in your waking life, it’s best not to do so in dreams either.
Some examples of inappropriate dream behaviors to avoid:
- Committing violent crimes like assault or murder
- Stealing money, cars, or other valuables that don’t belong to you
- Vandalizing property through graffiti, smashing windows, slashing tires, etc.
- Taking harmful drugs or abusing alcohol
While dreaming, the subconscious mind is still at work. Engaging in unethical scenarios can potentially impact your psyche or emotional state once awake. At best, such dreams leave you feeling uneasy upon waking. At worst, they negatively impact your mental health or relationships with others. Maintaining ethics in dreams keeps your conscience clear.
Don’t confront dangerous dream characters
Sometimes in dreams, characters appear that seem sinister, angry, or violent. These figures can include criminals, monsters, or other unsavory types. It’s best not to directly engage or confront these threatening dream characters. Like confronting a bear in the wild, standing up to a dangerous dream character is unwise. They are likely a manifestation of your subconscious rather than a real person, but provoking them can still lead to stressful dream events.
If a villainous character appears in a dream, avoid making eye contact and slowly back away. You can try willing yourself to wake up or focusing on changing the dream scene. Getting into a confrontation is not worth the risk of a nightmarish outcome. The dream is yours to control, so avoid conflict with unsavory characters.
Don’t overly manipulate the dream
Upon realizing you are dreaming, it can be tempting to treat it like your own playground and radically manipulate the dream’s contents. While some dream control can be fine, taking it too far risks manufactured dream experiences feeling hollow or unsatisfying.
For example, willing money to appear or conjuring your celebrity crush for a date might entertain you briefly. But these overly engineered scenarios will likely leave you feeling unfulfilled once awake. Dream experiences tend to have more meaning and impact when they align with your inner state.
Make subtle dream tweaks but avoid excessively controlling all the details. Allow some mystery and unpredictability to unfold for dreams that feel more authentic.
Don’t purposefully wake yourself up
Sometimes in an unpleasant or stressful dream, your first instinct may be to force yourself to wake up and escape the situation. However, unless the dream is truly becoming a nightmarish or traumatic experience, it’s better to try riding it out.
Intentionally waking yourself up whenever dream events get difficult means missing out on chances to address subconscious issues constructively. Dreams often process your real life anxieties, fears, and concerns through metaphorical scenarios. With some bravery, you can confront challenges that arise for ultimately cathartic dreams. You might learn or gain insight about yourself or current problems.
Allow the dream story to play out instead of cutting it off prematurely via forced awakening. Face and work through the unpleasant dream for possible benefits. You can always wake yourself up if the dream becomes too harrowing.
Don’t obsessively analyze dream symbols while dreaming
When intriguing symbols or metaphors appear in a dream, you might feel tempted to stop and deeply analyze them right away. For instance, you might see a whale swallowing a bicycle then start mulling over the potential meanings. But becoming excessively lost in dream analysis can potentially cause you to lose lucidity or wake yourself up.
Instead of obsessively diving into one dream symbol, make a mental note and allow the dream to continue unfolding naturally. The meaning may become clearer based on subsequent events. Record the symbol and analyze it thoroughly after you wake up and remember the full dream narrative. Avoid becoming so distracted by a single symbol that you miss the broader messages and story of the overall dream.
Don’t purposefully have nightmares
Sometimes people become so adept at lucid dreaming that they try inducing nightmares out of curiosity. Attempting to scare yourself in a dream may seem fun or thrilling briefly. However, intentionally conjuring traumatic dream scenarios generally isn’t psychologically wise.
Subjecting yourself to frightening images, threatening characters, and disturbing situations in dreams can negatively impact your mental health. Nightmares are stressful and can intensify real-life anxieties or tap into deep fears. They may also cause you to dread going to sleep.
It’s better to cultivate positive or insightful dreams than deliberately generate nightmares. Your dreams reflect your inner state, so populate them with uplifting themes and scenes. Leave nightmares for occasions when they organically occur as part of processing emotions.
Conclusion
Dream experiences often have meaning and impacts that continue once you wake up. For this reason, conduct yourself in dreams as you would in waking life. Avoid illegal actions, unnecessarily provoking aggression, excessively controlling dreams, prematurely waking yourself up, overanalyzing symbols, and purposefully inducing nightmares. With the right dream behaviors, you can have safe and fulfilling adventures. Pay attention to messages from your subconscious but don’t disempower yourself or induce trauma. Pleasant dreams can improve your outlook the following day. By making wise choices within them, you’ll wake up feeling mentally balanced and at peace.