Bad dreams in your premenstrual phase? Here’s why.
Image: Lux Graves via Unsplash
If you’ve ever woken up from a nightmare the day or so before your period starts, you’re not alone. And if you’ve ever found yourself laying awake all night in your premenstrual phase, you’re not alone either. Sleep disturbances are a PMS symptom that (The Sleep Health Foundation reports) affects around 7 in every 10 women in the lead up to their period.
Like the menstrual cycle, sleep is a bodily function that’s heavily influenced by hormones and the endocrine system as a whole. Fluctuating levels of progesterone in the luteal phase of the cycle (that’s around the week or two before your period) is thought to be behind the reason as to why so many women find falling, and staying, asleep more difficult during this time (and may explain why we feel more tired during the day).
Progesterone rises right after ovulation and increases your resting body temperature in case you’re pregnant (think of it as your body preparing to become an incubator). You might find that you feel hotter while sleeping in your luteal phase, especially in winter when we tend to get cosy in pyjamas and use hot water bottles. When you’re body is overheating, it will affect the quality of your sleep (and I don’t know about you, but I know that when I’m too hot, I have the wildest dreams - in any part of my cycle).
Dreams happen in the REM (Rapid Eye Movement) state of sleep, and the amount of REM sleep we get in the premenstrual phase is less than normal. When we wake up from this state, we can have very vivid recollections of what we’ve just dreamt about, and when this happens multiple times a night, it can feel like we’re having non-stop dreams and/or nightmares.
During the premenstrual phase of your cycle, you might notice:
Vivid dreams
Anxiety and panic dreams
Nightmares
Prophetic dreams
Intuitive dreams
Insomnia
Restless legs
Sleep paralysis
Lucid dreams
So, what to do? While it’s great that science can explain a lot of this, it’s also worth remembering that dreams have long since been thought to be representation of what’s happening in our inner worlds, especially things that have been repressed.
“Dreams,,,are invariably seeking to express something that the ego does not know and does not understand” - Carl Jung
One of things I recommend, is to keep a journal of your dreams in the luteal phase. Are there any patterns that keep coming up, or a recurring theme? Having an anxiety dream about being at work and being constantly hit by obstacles that stop you from going home might point to an important question about how fulfilled you really are there. On the other hand, you might dream up the answer to a question or problem you’ve been pondering over and unable to find the answer to while you’re awake. Nightmares might be pointing you to a situation in your life that desperately needs re-evaluating, or hidden fears that you keep butting up against.
Sleep is a time when the conscious mind quietens and we can get to hear what our soul truly wants or needs from us. We’re often taught to trust only the logical things we can touch and grasp, but so much of the luteal and menstrual phases of our cycles rely on us diving deeper to the hidden depths of who we are. And that isn’t always logical, especially when we’re talking about feelings of confidence, trust, inner power and purpose.
Dreams can be a powerful portal into our psyches and when combined with the premenstruum, it can be a place to unearth the rawest, most truest parts of ourselves.
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