Your Drug Dream Isn’t An Omen
By: Michael Patanella
Tags: Sleep, Health, Addiction, Dreams, Life

If you have any knowledge or familiarity with the world of addiction, than there’s a good chance that you may be familiar with a phenomenon known as “drug dreams.” It’s something that touches a strong majority of drug addicts and alcoholics, at almost any point in life. It happens for addict addicts, still stuck and suffering, and it also happens to those in sobriety; it doesn’t discriminate. You may experience this whether you have two months sober, or even if you have twenty years of recovery time.

The dreams seem to normally choose from just a handful of specific themes, drugs, alcohol, events, and people. From my research there probably isn’t more than a half a dozen type of storylines for your typical drug dream. Very often quite repetitive in nature. Many say they are experiencing with literally, the same exact dream and story each and every time. I will attest that from personal experience, I don’t keep having the same identical dream each time. However, the stories are always extremely similar each time. Same kind of places, same drugs, same miscellaneous people each time.

It is often a stressful experience for most of us. Stress levels and symptoms varying person to person. I normally wake up stressed, maybe breathing heavy and sweaty. But, it usually dissipates rather swiftly. Unlike many dreams where I usually forget them quickly, the drug dream lingers in my memory, and I can usually still be descriptive about a specific dream even many months later.

Unfortunately, I don’t seem to be the majority. I hear of many recovering addicts having a significant higher level of stress and experience when they drug dream. Their symptoms are quite amplified, and go beyond the way I normally feel after mine.

One of the more intense and intriguing statements that I have heard an endless amount of times is how the person wakes up, and they feel high, and some even go so far as to feel like they just had a real, fully blown relapse. It can be truly upsetting.

I can’t give a factual response to that specific issue with addicts and their drug dreaming. However, I can give a very strong opinion, that a sober person should not have any reason to feel guilty over a drug dream. Nobody deserves a self beating over it.

It seem to be common knowledge that a lot of the studies and science of dreams is still as they say, “not quite known.” There are plenty of scientific theories, and there’s been countless studies for decades.

When I explain which theory that I happen to lean towards, I will then be able to easily lay out why we deserve no ill will towards ourselves, and we cannot literally judge our recovery and life in sobriety, based on a random dream, on some random night.

An unknown expert in the field wrote the following statement. “Dreaming any kind of dreaming is a way for the brain to categorize and consolidate memories and experiences. And for the recovering addict and alcoholic, there are many experiences and memories involving drug use because, well, most of our time involved being under the influence. So, it isn’t strange to be dreaming about drug-related actions, such as getting and using drugs.”

That statement is very complete, very detailed, and is clearly defining an opinion covering not only drug dreams, but any dream in general. Now, I’m no professional in the science of dreaming. However it’s just my opinion that dreams are the daily clearing of files, like a computer. Removing the junk, and emptying the recycle bin. Filing away millions of thoughts, processed from the day before that represent our subconscious thinking. Like the thoughts used when driving a familiar route, or thoughts used when being able to clearly read something, or, whatever blind thoughts are used to help us do every little task we know. It may also represents the constant regenerating, and natural changes that our brains might go through, day to day.

Now, the purpose of this piece is not one of all scientific theorizing of why you’re having a specific dream. I do wish to speak to any addict who is recovering, and feeling defeated when drug dreams occur. First, remember that no matter how much it might feel like you just relapsed upon awakening, I assure you, at that moment, you still are sober.

One thing to keep in mind for those who may be newer to recovery. Those dreams might be coming up more often than expected, because the brain is still very new in a change phase where it’s recovering from the drug or alcohol abuse. So, I would think there’s just a higher chance that drug thoughts might be still swirling around the brain more at first.

Try to utilize this for what it is. Either create a tool out of it, or process it with tools you already have. We have times of anxiety, as well as strong cravings that just seem to appear out of nowhere.

We can all get through these stressful experiences by utilizing the skills that sobriety teaches us. When you are awoken in high stress after a bad drug dream, try to contain yourself and realize that that dream is a reminder and a representation, of a life you are no longer imprisoned by.

Be Well, Be Sober,

MICHAEL PATANELLA