Maybe because of my worrying yesterday and some (or rather most) of the days during this pregnancy, I have been having more vivid bad dreams and some of them woke me up in the middle of the night. I was woken up last night too. My dreams were random, weird and scary. Yesterday I dreamt that I was being chased by an ugly-looking scary man, it was like a combination of 'saw-massacre' murderer with 'underworld' creatures man and I was running up a hill extremely extremely slowly. He was trying to grab me from behind and I woke up. What a relief when I woke up but it was definitely scary. There was one time that I dreamt that SJ went clubbing and left the pregnant me at home, I was so angry at him for leaving me at home alone that I woke up and scolded him. Poor him as he got scolded by me in the morning before he went to work that day. It was so weird and funny at the same time because he is definitely not a clubbing/disco person. The chances of me leaving him with the baby at home while I go clubbing is higher than him doing it to me.
I don't really think about my dreams during the day and the details of the bad dreams would slowly fade away unless I described to SJ in the mornings. I can function quite normally during the day and the bad dreams don't affect me much. I have read about bad dreams and pregnancy in babycenter.com.my before I started to have bad dreams. I was quite prepared to have some weird dreams because I was informed by that website that this is usual in pregnant women and these are due to the anxiety and fears of the expectant mothers. Expectant mothers are champions of bad dreams.
I goggled about this and there is this website that has some good news about bad dreams in pregnancy.
First, there's the link between bad dreams and "good" labor. The late psychologist Patricia Maybruck, the grandma of pregnancy dream research, published a dissertation in 1986 based on research suggesting that pregnant women with stressful dreams — particularly ones in which the dreamer acted assertively against a threat — had shorter labors, as in fewer than 10 hours. Her hypothesis: that there is a connection between successfully "fighting back" in nightmares and fighting to more fully control labor.
Secondly, there may be a link between bad dreams in pregnancy and doing better, emotionally, after the baby is born. In a 2003 Hebrew University study, Tamar Kron and Adi Brosh cite a lower incidence of postpartum depression (PPD) among women who'd had disturbing pregnancy dreams. Perhaps, Kron and Brosh speculate, the pregnant women who did not later develop PPD "did 'emotional work' with the help of their dreams."
I guess this is one positive thing about bad dreams; it's because the expectant mother cares a lot about her baby. I noticed that I get more bad dreams on the days that I worried more. There is definitely a link between the emotional-being and the mind; the dreams are interpreting my thoughts when I sleep. Spoke to my associate today, who is also pregnant and she been having bad dreams too. I didn't know about pregnant women having such vivid bad dreams until now as no one I know has mentioned this to me. I used to have so much vivid dreams before I got pregnant that I thought I was the only one experiencing this now.
Must really think happy thoughts everyday because I want these bad dreams to go away.
Happy news for 23rd March! It's our 3rd official (registration of marriage) wedding anniversary & SJ has got a much fatter with a bump wife compared to a super thin new wife 3 years ago. I remembered I was so thin that my mother-in-law asked me to gain some weight to look better. Oh well, I'm sure I can get back to that shape after baby arrives :P
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