Catastrophization at night

    Night before last I had an odd dream. Or rather an ordinary dream that it was odd that I should have. Lately, my big toes have been slightly sore. Nothing that even I, a committed hypochondriac, got the least bit worried about. Nothing to have nightmares about. And by the time I had the dream it had been maybe a week since I even had the problem, minor as it was.
    So in the dream, I'm walking around with both big toes hurting and bleeding. A very Valley Forge scene on the whole. While it wasn't quite at nightmare level, it definitely wasn't a good, happy dream. One could guess that the kitty had bit me or pounced on my feet, but she hasn't done the former ever and she hasn't done the latter in years, so I think I can rule those out. My toes weren't hurting when I went to sleep and they weren't when I woke up, so it's probably reasonable to infer that they weren't hurting in my sleep, either.
    I think back to my days of deeper depression and dipping into self-help books and I think of one that actually almost helped, "Learned Optimism" by Martin E.P. Seligman. Dr. Seligman wrote at length about learned helplessness and the misery it engenders. A contributing factor that he mentions is a tendency to catastrophization, i.e. imagining the worst possible outcome to any given event. While goodness knows I still do this oftener than not when I'm awake, at least I skip the misery making part ("...and so I'll never be happy again.") these days. I wonder if the dreaming mind doesn't have these filters and controls, so catastrophization is given full rein. Or I guess I might be tuning into the collective unconsciousness to pick up the whole Valley Forge experience. Could be.