I shouldn't be surprised. Long-winded, highly subjective posts are rarely appreciated.
It is an expanded report on what I have learned about the "ironic process", which has been proven to have an effect on dreams (The effects of suppressing intrusive thoughts on... [J Sleep Res. 2013] - PubMed - NCBI), and can be explained from a darwinistic POV.
In essence, "Ironic process theory holds that processes that undermine the intentional control of mental states are inherent in the very excersize of such control. According to this idea, the ironies of mental life are not just happenstance examples of the frailty of human endeavors but rather are logically entailed by the nature of mental control. The theory says that attemps to influence mental states require monitoring processes that are sensitive to the failure of the attempts and that these processes act subtly yet consistently in a direction precisely opposite the intended control. This means that when efforts to implement the intended mental control are undermined in any way, the monitoring process itself will surface and ironically overwhelm the intended control to yield the opposite of the mental state that is desired." - Daniel M. Wegner, Ironic Processes of Mental Control
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This morning, there was an amazing—very ecstatic, if not dark—dream that I had, where the things I would normally want to have happen were mentally suppressed. Needless to say, it worked. This, being fresh in my memory, has put something into perspective: that is, negative emotions drive a person to repress thoughts, but the reason they continue to persist is indirectly caused by the negative emotions. Breaking this habit is a bit difficult at first; still, you don't need to force yourself to hate what you currently enjoy.
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