Your evening routine most likely looks like this: Brush your teeth, face, put on your pajamas, lie down and watch videos on TikTok and Instagram until your eyes start to close. Then, naturally, you spend the next 8 hours with dreams that seem suspiciously influenced by the videos you saw before bed.

It is extremely difficult to understand the relationship between what happens in your waking hours and your dreams, but there is some evidence for this. The more you think or worry about something when you are awake for example, the more likely you are to think about it while you are asleep. For example, during the pandemic, one study found that nightmares and stress became commonplace, and dreams with illness and health problems were particularly common. 

TikTok affects dreams by confusing your sleep patterns

"TikTok was created to keep you scrolling through the app (scrolling) even when you are drowsy," neuropsychologist Sanam Hafeez tells Bustle, "and it can affect how much you rest." "We have an internal reward system, and when we get things we want, our brain releases dopamine, allowing us to feel pleasure. Every time you keep moving through TikTok, your brain releases a little dopamine, creating a feedback loop in the brain. "This whole process affects your dreams, depriving you of a good night's sleep."

In 2020, researchers observed that "when people sleep less, they tend to dream more and dreams are stronger." Hafeez says that if you stay awake at TikTok all night - and if you let the phone lights get in the way of your circadian rhythms of sleep (which tell your body when to sleep and when to wake up), you're more likely to have trouble sleeping. . Result? Extremely vivid dreams.

An emotional TikTok can affect your dreams

TikTok is not just about entertainment. If a certain video or profile offers you some kind of emotional support, it is more likely to affect your dreams. 

"One of the theories about the function of dreams is that dreaming allows the emotional content of experiences to be processed," says neurologist Guy Leschinzer. "Basically, if you experienced an event with very strong emotions associated with it, dreaming makes it easier to deposit the memory of that event."

If you see a story on TikTok that makes you rethink your entire relationship with your mother for example, you may dream about it as your brain processes the video to store in your memory. So if you cried with a video on TikTok or stayed up all night watching videos of the same challenge, it is no wonder the app will affect your dreams.

Source: Bustle