It’s well-known that pregnancy can have a significant effect on your quality of sleep. Your body is undergoing a period of rapid change, and you wake up regularly for a whole variety of reasons, including bathroom breaks, stress, and fetal movements. And although it’s immensely frustrating, at least you saw it coming.

But recently, you have been waking up for a completely different and unexpected reason - you have been having frequent vivid nightmares! You begin to wonder - Is this also related to my pregnancy? Does being pregnant affect my dreams as well as my sleep quality?

Firstly, don’t panic - experiencing dream changes is commonly reported among pregnant women! Not only may your dreams become more vivid, but they may be scarier too.

While this is nothing to be concerned about, we know that these changes can be unsettling, and so we thought it would be helpful to inform you of why your dreams are changing during pregnancy. But before that, let’s take a more detailed look at how pregnancy can affect your dreams.

How does pregnancy affect my dreams?

Being pregnant can make your dreams more vivid. This means that they may be unusually realistic and convincing. One consequence of this is that you will be able to recall your dreams better, even if you usually don’t remember your dreams well at all!

As well as this, your dreams during pregnancy may be more frightening. This means that you may experience a higher frequency of nightmares, and therefore that dream-related nighttime waking is more common.

You may have noticed that your dreams during pregnancy are often related to thoughts about your baby. Perhaps you dream about giving birth, or meeting your baby for the first time. Indeed, perhaps predictably, your dreams during this time will often be related to pregnancy. While these dreams can be positive ones, they can also be disconcerting and troubling.

So, we’ve seen the ways in which pregnancy typically affects one’s dreams. But why do these changes occur?

Why does pregnancy affect my dreams?

Pregnancy is a period of heightened emotional change. Women will typically experience a wide range of strong emotions during pregnancy. While this may include positive feelings such as excitement, it also commonly includes emotions like anxiety and stress.

These strong emotions can have a significant impact on your dreams. As we all know, our dreams often reflect the way we are feeling - this is why we are all more likely to have a scary dream the night before a job interview! So, if you are experiencing nervousness or anxiety about being a parent or giving birth (which is absolutely normal!), then these emotions may be represented in your dreams. This can result in vivid and scary pregnancy-related dreams.

There are also physical reasons that may explain the changes to your dreams during pregnancy. As you may have found out the hard way, discomfort during pregnancy can result in frequent nighttime awakenings. One consequence of this is that you often wake up in the middle of a dream cycle. This means that you are more likely to remember your dreams and that they will seem particularly intense.

Finally, hormonal changes may be affecting your dreams during pregnancy. Hormones have the effect of heightening your emotions, which can lead indirectly to more vivid dreams. As well as this, researchers have suggested that in the latter stages of pregnancy, higher levels of progesterone can increase the intensity of your dreams.

How does pregnancy affect my dreams?

Having vivid pregnancy dreams? Unii explains why.