Other approaches can focus on routines or working on areas of your life that could be contributing to stress or fear.

Research shows that dreaming is not just a byproduct of sleep, but serves its own important functions in our well-being.

“It’s not a huge, dramatic effect but it certainly seems like paying attention to your dreams can have positive effects,” says Harvard University psychologist Deirdre Barrett, author of The Committee of Sleep.

We Learn When We Dream: Our Vivid Dreams Shape Our Memories

dream sleep actually provides at least two benefits for the brain.

The first is actually creativity, because it's during REM sleep and dreaming specifically when the brain starts to collide all of the information that you've recently learned together with all of this back catalog of autobiographical information that you've got stored up in the brain.

The second benefit of dream sleep is essentially a form of overnight therapy. It's during dream sleep where we start to actually take the sting out of difficult, even traumatic, emotional experiences that we've been having.

There are thousands of anecdotes of creative greats having eureka moments when they dream.

dream recall is thought to require some amount of wakefulness during the night for the vision to be encoded in longer-term memory.

The sleeping brain cannot store new information into long-term memory

Dream themselves exist first in working memory, or the memory we use to hold and manipulate thought fragments.

REM (rapid eye movement) is the stage of sleep in which dreaming usually occurs.

Dreams are potentially massive indicators of your overall sleep health, and, more specifically, your REM sleep health.

The process of hammering and forging our daily experiences into long-term memory through REM sleep is how we learn to master any sport, art, musical instrument, surgery, etc. through daily practice.

The more regularly you exercise, the better you will sleep, the more you will dream during REM sleep, and the more of a creative powerhouse you will become.

When you’re awake, your thoughts have a certain logic to them. When you sleep, your brain is still active, but your thoughts or dreams often make little or no sense. This may be because the emotional centers of the brain trigger dreams, rather than the logical regions.

The occasional nightmare is considered a dream that’s simply more frightening or upsetting. Nightmares tend to be caused by stress, anxiety, or sometimes as a reaction to certain medications.

if you have nightmares frequently, you could have a sleeping disorder.

Regularly occurring scary dreams can be labeled a sleeping disorder if the nightmares: -cause you to be anxious about going to sleep -lead to frequent disruptions of your sleep -bring about other sleeping or psychological problem

 Sleep hygiene involves ensuring both your habits and sleep environment are ideal for quality rest.

Dark and quiet room. Temperatures in the 60s to low 70s are considered best. Remove or turn off light sources like TVs, VCRs, and alarm clocks, and consider light blocking shades if you live in an urban area or sleep past sunrise. White noise machines or earplugs can be helpful for drowning out bothersome noise.

Some psychologists believe talking about dreams and getting social support to put them in perspective is key to reducing anxiety following nightmares.

The American Psychological Association’s 2013 Stress in America poll found that stress was associated with poorer sleep, and that poorer sleep was also associated with higher stress

When you’ve had a tough day, take a few minutes to de-stress before bed. Try a warm bath, relaxing music, yoga or other techniques to see what helps you most.

Knowing something about a dream or nightmare can significantly help a person identify any “real-life” stressors that they can easily modify to prevent restless night.

The dream-deprived nod off quickly, sleep soundly and emerge from sleep fully awake.

The processes that allow us to create long-term memories largely lie dormant while we sleep, which is why most dreams are forgotten shortly after waking.

The emotional content and logical consistency of a dream also affect how much of our dreams we remember.

before going to bed, drink three full glasses of water — not beer or wine, because they suppress R.E.M. sleep — which will force you to get up and go to the bathroom. “Middle-of-the-night awakenings are frequently accompanied by dream recall,” Stickgold says.

repeating the phrase “I’m going to remember my dreams” three times before you drift off to sleep. And keep a notebook and pen by your bed. Both preparations establish recall as a priority.

On waking up, don’t open your eyes, don’t move, don’t say a thing — any sensory perception or movement tends to wipe out memories of a dream.

As the brain awakens, it starts to turn on processes needed for long-term storage.

When in doubt use brute force.

I think it's better to be overly ambitious and fail than to be underambitious and succeed in a mundane way. I have been very fortunate. I failed upward in my life!

If you don't like or care about your job, what's the big deal? I am so over it.

If it's something that reaches out and grabs me, I want to do it. I have a lot of trouble doing things that don't grab me. So, I'm not a very good actor in that way. I can't fake it.

I'm a very basic dresser. I'm not interested in calling too much attention to myself. I like to look cool without being too noticeable.

I hate wars and violence but if they come then I don't see why we women should just wave our men a proud goodbye and then knit them balaclavas.

I have a good collection of cookery books. This is not so much because I like cooking, but because I like eating.

Obama might as well be president of Turkey or Brazil; it does not matter. It's the system that is absolutely flawed, where 25 or 35 or 50 people make multi, multi-billions on building Olympic structures while people live in Barbados and have no roads or clean drinking water. There's something pretty inequitable there.

My priority is the script. Get me a good script, and I will sign the movie. I think I should leave the casting up to the experts!

Being a secretary was considered a very good job in those days.

I'd go into the woods to look for the witches, the mythical beings.

Getting ready to wrestle is like getting ready for a car crash. Getting ready to work with Brock Lesnar is like knowing you're going to get hit by a bus and the bus is going to back over you. If I'm going to work 'WrestleMania,' 16 weeks out I have to start training like I'm Mayweather getting ready for a fight.

There is a hint of despair in the cry of 'I told you so,' an element of disappointment in the apparent satisfaction when idols turn out to have clay feet. The human race, when it thinks it has proved that no one is superior, is partly gratified and partly depressed.

Anything that I write comes from the soul.

Disco dancing is just the steady thump of a giant moron knocking in an endless nail.

In Shahjahanpur, there was not much of a political fight. It was my family constituency and I knew all the voters and their problems and needs.

I'm really exciting. I smile a lot, I win a lot, and I'm really sexy.