A glass of wine in the evening? Tasty. Some extra drinks during a night out? Pleasant! Keep in mind that after such an evening you can not only get a hangover, but also bizarre dreams. This is how alcohol affects your dreams.
This affects alcohol with your sleep
We probably don’t need to tell you anymore that alcohol has a major influence on various processes in your body. You know the hangover, the vomiting feeling the next day. And yes, your sleep quality also deteriorates considerably after a drink.
While you fall asleep faster after a few drinks, alcohol makes it harder for you to recover. Your sleep always follows the same phases, but alcohol causes you to wake up more often and therefore have to start the next sleep cycle again and again. You also do not end up in REM sleep often enough: this is not just the phase in which you dream, REM (rapid eye movement) sleep is also important to be able to fully relax and process all the stimuli of the day. Alcohol suppresses this phase. The result is a restless night – and possibly very bizarre dreams.
This is how alcohol affects your dreams
Have you ever had particularly vivid dreams or even nightmares after a night out? That can be annoying, but it is not surprising at all. It has to do with the effect of alcohol on all processes in your body.
Research into the effect of alcohol on your sleep indicates that you do not dream more than normal – you spend less time in the dream phase – but that you do wake up during REM sleep, in the middle of your dream. Normally you would go through all of REM sleep, then move on to the next stage and usually forget about your dream as well. Because you wake up ‘at the right time’, you simply realize that you are dreaming.
But alcohol also affects your emotions, positive and negative. For example, did you know that many couples argue more after drinking alcohol? Perhaps the drinks bring out all kinds of things, such as suppressed emotions that demand your attention, making you emotional or afraid. It is not surprising that this can also affect your dreams and you may experience particularly intense dreams or even nightmares.
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