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In particular, if one is mad at a another person for something they did in a dream. For example, I woke up this morning from a dream where my girlfriend hurt me, to see her next to me. I know it was a dream but, but still feel angry or resentful.

Bonus points if the individual knows it's ridiculous or the emotion persists for only a certain amount of time after the brain realizes it wasn't real.

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  • Consider also whether she did it in your dream or her dream. ;-)
    – Drew
    Apr 7, 2016 at 15:12
  • look up transference, but this is a bit of a left-field example of it.
    – Phil Sweet
    Apr 7, 2016 at 21:52

3 Answers 3

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This could be a form of cognitive dissonance...

"cognitive dissonance is the mental stress or discomfort experienced by an individual who holds two or more contradictory beliefs, ideas, or values at the same time, performs an action that is contradictory to one or more beliefs, ideas or values, or is confronted by new information that conflicts with existing beliefs, ideas, or values"

Wikipedia.org

In this case, for a brief time, the individual would be acting or feeling as if the dreamed state were real whilst at the same time knowing it wasn't.

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You could say that you are angry despite yourself:

used to indicate that one did not intend or expect to do the thing mentioned.

"despite herself Fran felt a ripple of appreciation for his beauty"

Similarly, you could use in spite of yourself:

although one did not want or expect to do so.

"Oliver smiled in spite of himself"

"I know it was just a dream, but I am angry in spite of myself!"

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There’s a thing called displaced anger; this sounds like misplaced anger.

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