Dreams, feeling stronger emotions while dreaming.

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I just wondered whether others have noticed this, i seem to be able to percieve a depth while dreaming thats not apparent during my waking hours. I know there are different mechanisms at play while asleep but its interesting that there is a thought pattern that i could potentially tap in to.

Same. I feel things I haven't ever felt in reality in dreams, too. Like, ever had a wet dream involving "having sex with someone you're so in love with it moves you to tears"? in dreams, I have, in reality, I've been in love and still never felt it.

I once was so scared in one that afterwards I started to shed tears of relief - irl it NEVER happened to me and I even didn't believe it was physically possible to anyone.

Yes, that happens with me too. I rarely experience strong emotions except when dreaming. Anyone ever have those "waking dreams"? To me they are like a whole new level of intensity. Usually they are just scary, but I've had happy and sad ones too.

The only dreams in which I've had emotions that were stronger than reality were nightmares -- I shouldn't say "only" because I've had a couple of extreme sex dreams, but lots of nightmares that were stronger than any panic attack. I've always suspected that they might _be_ panic attacks that just happened to hit the right biochemistry when I was asleep, and my dreaming brain looked around for something to cause the fear, didn't find anything, so made something up. I don't believe I've ever had "waking dreams" that were any more real-seeming than "daydreams".

I have plenty of strong emotions when I'm awake.

I have some very vivid dreams as a side-effect of antidepressants -- I'm not sure they're really a "side effect", but maybe a product of my nervous system functioning better. They aren't a matter of stronger emotion, but more of brighter, more memorable colors, and more reasonably "plotted" -- they'll be a whole story, where ordinary dreams are just fleeting images in succession, that fade fast when I wake up. When one of the vivid ones also happens to be a nightmare, though, it's a dilly of a nightmare! A couple of times when I've had those, I've taken Xanax at bedtime for the next two or three nights, but I quit then, because even though it makes a very nice sleep, I don't want to get addicted to it, or get so accustomed to it that it doesn't work when I need it.