Stress and its effects on the mind and body

Stress affects people in different ways. There are some standard symptoms, but there are a few things which are a bit more specific to certain people. For instance, stress can affect sleep. It can result in insomnia and general tiredness. For me, it affects my dreams.

I first noticed a link between the two when I repeated first year engineering. I was very stressed about the situation and started having nightmares a few times per week. This stopped almost miraculously when I received my offer for the teaching degree that I had applied for transfer to.

But it's not just nightmares which happen when I'm under stress: I also act out dreams. To date, I have:

• Texted in my sleep
• Used tissues when dreaming about crying
• Performed martial arts moves on my furniture
• Jumped out of bed
• Removed my clothes 

The most interesting one was the last on that list, but specifically an incident where I went to bed wearing two layers and woke up wearing only the outer layer.


My brain is a strange and fascinating thing.