我為什么總做同一個夢？

My very first job was working at a Blockbuster. It also ended up being by third job.

我的第一份工作是在影像店，這剛好也是我的第三份工作。

It's been around 10 years since I last scanned a bar code on a DVD rental case or explained that, no, a Blu-Ray disc will not play in a DVD player, yet I still dream about Blockbuster. It's the same dream every time: It's always closing time, but I can't get the door to lock and customers keep coming into the store, and they're renting a ton of movies, so there's always a lot of scanning to do. Sometimes the scanner gun stops working, so I have to find another one and, naturally, I can't.

離我最后一次掃描DVD租借條形碼，或者這樣說吧，都還用DVD播放藍光影碟的時候，已經(jīng)有十年了。然而到現(xiàn)在，我還是會夢到它，而且每次內(nèi)容都一樣：總是臨近打烊，我鎖不上門，顧客還一直進來，甚至成噸成噸的租片兒，于是我要掃更多碼。有時候掃碼器出故障了，我就會再找一個，但自然地是我找不到。

I normally wake up from this dream, which just tapers off, feeling incredibly anxious and stressed because the dream is weirdly intense. And also because it's been a decade since I even worked at Blockbuster. So why am I still dreaming about it?

夢漸漸消失，我也正常醒來，但會感到特別不安和壓抑，因為這個夢出奇地強烈。也因為這已距我在影像店工作已經(jīng)10年了。所以為什么我老是夢到它呢?

Anxiety dreams, like my Blockbuster experience, differ from nightmares in that they don't cause you to wake up; they just increase your stress level, according to Vice. (But maybe if one of those scanner guns turned into a piranha ...) Like nightmares, however, anxiety dreams still kick in during REM sleep.

像影像店這種焦慮的夢，其實和噩夢還是有區(qū)別的，因為它們不會嚇醒你，它們只是一直增加你的壓力。(但如果那些掃碼器有一個變成食人魚的話可就……然而焦慮的夢卻還是會像噩夢一樣，一直在快速眼動睡眠時打擾你。

That I have anxiety-inducing dreams isn't particularly rare. In fact, most recorded dreams involve some type of negative emotion. Dr. Michael Nardoff, a clinical psychologist speaking to Vice, explained that more than half of all dreams involve some kind of negative emotion, regardless of if we remember them or not. Historical data backs this up. The 1966 book "The Content Analysis of Dreams" found that one-third of dreams contained some kind of "misfortune," with 80 percent of men and 77 percent of women experiencing dreams with some kind of "negative element."

我老做這種焦慮的夢其實并不稀奇。事實上，大多數(shù)有記載的夢都有點消極意味。臨床心理學家Michael Nardoff博士說道，不管我們記不記得，超過一半的夢都含消極情緒。再看看歷史數(shù)據(jù)，1966年出版的《夢的內(nèi)容分析》發(fā)現(xiàn)，1/3的夢都包含著某種“不幸”，80%男性和77%女性都會做些帶有某種“消極元素”的夢。

Given the time the book was written, that isn't too surprising. Between the Cold War and political turmoil, people in the late '60s had reasons to be anxious. We're not too different now. The World Health Organization reports that there was a 50 percent increase in the amount of people with depression or anxiety between 1990 and 2013. The upside is that general anxiety isn't necessarily going to result in more anxious dreams.

看看這本書寫成的時間也就沒什么好驚訝的了。冷戰(zhàn)和政治動蕩時，60年代末的人們總是有理由不安的。但現(xiàn)在不一樣了，世界衛(wèi)生組織報告稱，1990年到2013年間，抑郁焦慮的人增加了50%。但好的一面是，這種一般焦慮不一定會發(fā)展成更焦慮的夢。

"It's not just being more anxious that makes you likely to have anxious dreams," Antonio Zadra, a psychologist, told The Guardian. "It's being more anxious and finding yourself in a stressful situation."

“不僅僅是情緒上的不安讓你做些焦慮夢，”心理學家Antonio Zadra說道，“發(fā)現(xiàn)自己身處壓力很大的環(huán)境中也會越來越焦慮。”

Of course, anxiety dreams can make you feel more stressed when you're awake, too, leading to a vicious cycle of being stressed regardless of when you're awake. It could cause you to avoid sleep altogether, and the result can be ill effects of chronic unrest. This can include REM rebound, where your brain prioritizes REM sleep and induces it sooner in the sleep cycle. This can, as Vice notes, result in more bad dreams than usual.

當然醒著的時候，這些夢也會讓你壓力巨大，從而陷入被壓力折磨的惡循環(huán)。它還不能讓你和別人一起睡覺，長期休息不好，最后情況會越來越糟。這就包括快速眼動反彈這種情況，你的大腦會優(yōu)先選擇快速眼動睡眠，甚至誘導它在睡眠周期中更快進行，從而導致比平常更多的噩夢。

So what's an anxious dreamer to do?

所以一個“焦慮的做夢人”要做些什么來緩解壓力呢?

1. Try image rehearsal therapy (IRT). This process requires you to write out your stress dream and alter it in ways that make it less negative. This process is to be done several times a day for 10 to 20 minutes, according to recommendations published in the Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine. IRT "acts to inhibit the original nightmare, providing a cognitive shift that empirically refutes the original premise" of the dream.

1.試試意向排演療法(IRT)。這個操作需要寫下讓你有壓力的夢，再把它改的沒那么消極。臨床睡眠醫(yī)學雜志建議，一天做幾次，每次持續(xù)10-20分鐘，IRT“的作用是抑制最初的噩夢，提供一種可識別的轉(zhuǎn)變，可以有經(jīng)驗的將最初的噩夢拒之門外。”

While IRT is recommended for helping to alleviate nightmares, it could easily help alter the flow of anxiety dreams. For instance, I could rewrite my Blockbuster dream so that the door locks. This might simply stop the dream in its tracks.

雖然IRT受推薦以幫助緩解噩夢，但它也可以輕易改變焦慮夢的走向。比如，我可以重復寫下關于影像店的夢，直到門鎖上。這就可能簡單地阻止了這個夢的進行。

2. Don't do anything. Provided the dreams aren't truly causing you too much distress, you may just want to allow the dreams to run their course. According to The Guardian, psychoanalysts could see something like IRT "as a contamination of good material" that could lead to a better understanding of what's happening in your brain and your life. Indeed, a Jungian psychologist told The New York Times that changing up a dream robs the dreamer of an "opportunity to really get some meaning out of it."

2.什么都別做。真正導致你壓力大的元兇不是這些夢，你可能只是想讓它們按自己的軌跡進行。心理分析師可能會認為IRT“玷污了好材料。”，這些材料能讓你更好的理解自己的腦子和生活發(fā)生了什么。一位榮格派心理學家也認為，改變夢境奪走了做夢者“從夢中得到某些意義的機會。”

3. Address the potential root cause. Perhaps better considered as a continuation of not doing anything, figuring out what's happening in your life to trigger the dream could stop it from happening.

3.解決潛在的根本原因。也許一直什么都不做，找出生活中是什么事情觸發(fā)了夢，就能阻止夢的發(fā)生了吧。

Given that my dream occurs in the first job I ever had, I've always assumed that the dream was connected to some kind of professional stress, whether it be that I felt I wasn't doing a good enough job, or not taking enough breaks or something else along those lines. I'm keeping an eye on that idea, to see if there's a connection between a tense day at work and a recurrence of the dream. But unless the scanner gun really does turn into a piranha in one of my dreams, I think I will let this dream run its course.

鑒于我的夢老是和我第一份工作過不去，我一直都認為這個夢和某種職業(yè)壓力有關，是覺得自己沒有做一份足夠好的工作，還是在那期間沒休息好，又或是別的事情。我也一直想看看，一天緊張的工作和夢的反復是否有聯(lián)系。但只要掃碼器沒變成食人魚，我想我還是會繼續(xù)這個夢的。