How to Help Control What You Sleep About

Have you ever woken up and desperately tried to get to sleep because you want to continue the dream you were having?

While there’s no Dream Guide that we can scroll through to select what we want to dream about, there are actually a few things you can do to exert greater control over your dreams. So, let’s take a look at some of them:

Write in Your Gratitude Journal Before Bed and Think Positive Thoughts

We often tend to dream about something we’ve been thinking about before we drift off. This is why it makes sense to fill your mind with positive thoughts before you go to sleep.

One of the best ways of doing this is by keeping a gratitude journal and writing in it before you go to bed. Simply spend a few minutes writing down all of the things you’re grateful for. This will help you to get into a positive mindset before you go to sleep.

Induce REM Sleep

We tend to dream during REM sleep. Betway Insider describes REM sleep as the following:

“REM sleep is more about the brain than the body. In this stage, your body is effectively paralyzed while your brain becomes more active. REM sleep gets its name from how rapidly your eyes move under your eyelids during this stage, and it’s when most of your dreaming takes place. Babies spend around 16 hours per day asleep, eight of which can be in REM sleep, but as we get older, this decreases to around two hours in adults.”

Interestingly, Betway discovered that watching the news results in the highest percentage of REM sleep, with participants averaging 55% REM sleep. This is high when you consider that most adults only enter the REM stage for around two hours per night.

Give Yourself a Physical Reminder

Last but not least, you need to focus your mind on the topic you wish to dream about before you fall asleep, whether this is a specific experience, person, or the solution to a problem you’re trying to fix.

If it’s possible, putting a physical reminder on your bedside table can make all of the difference. For example, if you want to dream about a specific person, putting a photo of that person on your bedside table can help you to dream about them.

If you’re struggling with creativity and you want to have a dream that helps you find answers, you can also use physical objects. For example, if you’re an artist, you could place a blank canvas in your bedroom, and this may help you to dream up an artistic creation to work on next.

Controlling Your Dreams Is Possible

So there you have it: some of the tips and tricks you can use to control what you dream about. Of course, you can never predict what’s going to happen when you enter dreamland, but there are some things you can do to increase the chances of getting the dreams you really want.