Sounds like you make it a contest for yourself. The funny thing is that is exactly what I did this past session. I made comments on one of the things I wrote and dared myself to actually raise them. I've learned how to play the challenge game well.

You just made me think of something I wrote about in my journal a few weeks ago. I had just reconnect with a childhood friend and I had a lot of memories floating around in my head and my husband not meaning to but just wanting attentions was making things a lot worse. So I had a lot going on in my brain.

I don't usually remember my dreams/nightmares, I just on occasion, I physically feel the residual effects of them.There were a few days in a row where I was waking up in the middle of the night very keyed up, hair on the back of the neck standing up, and anxious to the point that I actually had to get up in order to shake the feeling and settle back down. It was really weird because like I said I don't dream much so to feel this way on consecutive days was strange. On the 3 or 4th morning as I was starting to awaken (maybe I was still dreaming), As I opened my eyes and realized that I was actually practicing repeatedly triggering myself and then calming myself. It was so wild, it was like I was practicing increasing my tolerance to a particular trigger. What ever my subconscious was doing kind of worked because after that the episodes stopped.