Yes, absolutely depression, anxiety, and stress can interfere with dream recall. Note: you will still have dreams, but are much less likely to remember them. That is potentially a big issue because you may well be having very negative dreams that fuel your depression and anxiety subconsciously, but you do not remember them, so it is harder for you to understand the cause and effect.
I remember when I first came to this site, I was pretty low in part because of interactions on a different forum which had undermined my self esteem. I did not remember my dreams. I did however realize eventually after almost a year of being on that forum that it was having negative effects on my psyche. I quit the other forum, and I felt good about that, but I was still not well overall psychologically. I out of some reason remembered my lucid dreaming hobby from twenty years ago, and decided to try it. At first my dream recall was very poor. But when I worked on it,I was able to improve it somewhat despite not being well, and to my surprise, I realized that while in waking life I had left that forum, in my dreams I kept reliving the worst parts of those interactions. So you see, when I had not been remembering my dreams, I likely was having these dreams, and it was contributing to my depression subconsciously.
My example shows that you can and should try to improve your dream recall even if you are depressed and anxious. It will be harder because depression and stress make dream recall harder, but you may discover part of the cause of your problems lies in negative thinking in your dreams which you now don't remember and thus are less likely to be able to counteract. And yes, one can improve one's dreams with effort. Sometimes even becoming aware of them may help you improve. Peace be with you.
|
|
Bookmarks