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What are Fever Dreams: Symptoms, Causes and Prevention

A dream is known to be a series of thoughts, images as well as sensations that you have while sleeping. It is believed by scientists that we have our strongest dreams during the REM or the rapid eye movement stage of sleep. Now let us come to fever dreams. So, what exactly are the fever dreams? If you want to know about symptoms, causes and prevention of fever dreams you definitely need to read this!

What are Fever Dreams?

What are Fever Dreams?

Though the exact reason behind dreams is not known, it is believed that some factors, such as daily activities, health conditions, and our food might influence our sleep visions. Now let’s talk about fever dreams. These are the dreams which occur when the body temperature of a person is higher than normal or when a person has fever.

Symptoms Of Fever Dreams:

For most individuals fever dreams feels like real nightmares that occur due to high fever or body temperature.

According to a study conducted in the year 2016 it is found that about 94% of participants have described that their fever dreams are negative.(1)

Though scientific studies on this phenomenon are quite limited, yet fever dreams are known in medical literature.

In a small study during 2013, scientists surveyed the symptoms of fever in participants with fever. Results showed 11% of these participants reported fever dreams.(2)

As per many people fever dreams are described emotionally intense, strange, troubling, or scary. These dreams might even include less social interaction scenarios as compared with the normal dreams.

Since high temperature of the body in fever makes it difficult to sleep, the disturbing nature of these fever dreams usually increases sleep disruptions. Some of the common themes or visuals that are seen in fever dreams are described as following.

  • Repetitive actions or events of the dreams.
  • As fever is associated with high temperature or heat, the dreams are also associated with heat and fire and patients might see visuals like wax statues melting down, or skin on fire and so on.
  • Strange dreams having a high recall value of every minute detail.
  • Fever dreams are usually associated with something stress-inducing.
  • Sometimes fever dreams end up leaving the patient with vertigo or claustrophobia.

Causes Of Fever Dreams:

Scientists are unaware of the exact cause of fever dreams. However, there are some theories.

One of the theories is that high temperature might actually disrupt the normal cognitive processes of the brain.

During the REM stage of our sleep, most vivid dreams occur and during this time our body tends to have a harder time in controlling our internal body temperature. Here, a fever might add to this already strained process, which can result in unpleasant fever dreams.

We would mention that fever has got an effect on our brain’s cognitive processing during sleep. Since our brain is not able to normally function during a high fever, it generally tends to produce unusual and unpleasant dreams or the fever dreams.

Fever might even trigger waking hallucinations, confusion and irritability.

Prevention For Fever Dreams:

It will be not right to say that we can prevent fever dreams, but we can try by controlling our body temperature when we have fever. This can be done by taking lot of rest, drinking plenty of fluids, taking medicines to reduce fever, eating health foods and foods that are easy to digest, abd by bathin in lukewarm water.

Take Away:

So, fever dreams are quiet mysterious and they can happen when you have fever or when your body temperature increases. Though there is no guarantee in preventing fever dreams, you can however limit these dreams by controlling your fever.

References:

Also Read:

Team PainAssist
Team PainAssist
Written, Edited or Reviewed By: Team PainAssist, Pain Assist Inc. This article does not provide medical advice. See disclaimer
Last Modified On:December 20, 2021

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