Unresolved Feelings Find Their Way

Sometimes I feel like my brain is a really messy room—the kind where you shove things under the rug just to clear a path. It works, for a while. You can walk through, pretending everything’s fine, but eventually, you trip over something sharp and unexpected. Lately, that’s been happening more often, not in waking life exactly, but… afterward. In my dreams.

I read this study recently about how actively trying to hide your feelings during the day might actually mess with your sleep. It wasn't presented as a dramatic "this will haunt you!" kind of thing, more like, our brains are complicated and don’t always do what we expect. But it did resonate, because I think I've been doing that “hiding” thing for a long time. Not in a deliberate, calculated way – just… avoiding. Avoiding acknowledging things I didn't want to deal with.

It started, I suppose, sometime after my parents started expecting more of me academically. The pressure felt less like encouragement and more like an obligation; a performance review on my potential rather than actual growth. It wasn’t that they *meant* for it to feel that way, but the message was clear. Disappointment, even gentle disappointment, was something to be avoided at all costs. So I started smoothing things over. Saying “yes” when I wanted to say no. Laughing a little too brightly when I felt like crying.

The dreams have gotten… heavier. They aren't nightmares in the classic sense—no monsters or chases—but they’re saturated with this pervasive anxiety, a sort of low-hum dread that clings to everything. I had one last week where I was wandering through Jacobs Pavilion at night, but all the lights were off and I couldn't find my way out. The air felt thick and humid, like before a thunderstorm. It wasn’t explicitly *about* anything, just… oppressive.

The study mentioned something about dreams being a way for our brains to process emotions we haven’t fully dealt with while awake. Like a secondary sorting system. Makes sense, right? If you're constantly filing away feelings instead of confronting them, they need somewhere to go. And the subconscious, apparently, isn't very good at playing host to unresolved emotional baggage.

I think about that blog I started, almost out of boredom sophomore year. It felt ridiculous at first—writing down my random thoughts and observations for… who? Probably nobody. But there was a moment after Jacobs Pavilion last weekend when something shifted. The words just *came*, it felt like I’d been trying to say them forever. Twenty-seven people read that post. That number hasn't changed in days, and I still check it sometimes. It's silly, but it feels significant.

Maybe the point isn't about eliminating uncomfortable feelings altogether – because honestly, who can do that? Maybe it’s about creating space for them, letting yourself *feel* them, even if just for a little while. Not to wallow, not to obsess, but simply to acknowledge their existence. It sounds simple when I write it out like that, and the execution is undoubtedly harder.

It's a strange thought – that the attempts at control, at maintaining a surface-level calm, might be the very thing undermining my peace. Maybe cleaning up that messy mental room isn’t about shoving things under the rug, but about taking inventory of what's there and figuring out where it belongs. It feels like a daunting project, to be sure. But I think finding a little more space for everything - even the parts I’d rather avoid – might lead to dreams that aren’t quite so heavy.