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NIGHTMARE REMEDIES:
RESCRIPTING BAD DREAMS
Alan Siegel, Ph.D.
Copyrighted Excerpt from
Dream Wisdom: Uncovering Life’s Answers in
your Dreams
by Alan Siegel, Ph.D. (Berkeley: Celestial Arts, 2003)
During a crisis or after a traumatic event, it is important to know
nightmares are more common and upsetting. We experience each nightmare as a
traumatic event and for those who have experienced violence, a natural
disaster, accident or other trauma, posttraumatic nightmares rub salt on our
emotional wounds. Keep in mind that moderately upsetting nightmares may
actually be a positive sign of normal coping but very graphic nightmares
that are repetitive and unchanging may signal an emotional impasse.
Nightmare remedies are self-help techniques that can help adults and
children break the spell of their bad dreams and use them for personal
growth and creative inspiration. A simple method for transforming nightmares
is to use the 4 R’s of nightmare relief. Reassurance, Rescripting,
Rehearsal, and Resolution.
Reassurance is the first and most important step. This breaks the spell of
the nightmare by giving emotional reassurance and for family members or
children, physical comforting may help as well. Once you feel reassured and
the nightmare’s reign of terror has been overthrown, you can relax, become
curious about the nightmares meaning and message and begin to approach the
dream in a more playful manner.
Knowing that occasional nightmares are normal and their frequency and
intensity may increase during crises may also be reassuring. A key factor,
especially for children, is not to dismiss or ignore the nightmare with a
message that “it’s just a dream” or you should just ignore it. Nightmares,
especially during a life crisis are very hard to ignore.
Reassurance paves the way for Rescripting the dream. Rescripting uses
discussion, fantasy, writing, art, or drama to re-experience and revise
different parts of the dream narrative with the goal of opening up new
endings and directions. You can use techniques from the Experiential Dream
Menu in Chapter 11 of Dream Wisdom, to transform and tame the most
threatening interactions and moments in the nightmare. This can be as simple
as experimenting with rewriting one or more new endings for the dream or may
involve more elaborate free associations to link the conflicts in the
nightmare to unresolved life issues.
The third R needed to implement a nightmare remedy is Rehearsal. This
involves multiple forays and trials of rewriting and re-enacting the dream.
If you are having nightmares about an auto accident or serious physical
injury, imagining one new ending may only be the beginning. Depending on
your creative inclinations, you may need to write out one or more new
endings, sketch or paint the threatening elements in the dream or role play
with a friend or with a psychotherapist or dream group. Creating new endings
does not have to involve killing your dream adversary. The terrorist or
robber or wild animal can be frozen or shackled. Walls, cages, force fields,
or even magic wands can be made available as you rehearse dream solutions.
Adults may need to loosen up their imagination but children take to this
easily especially with adult guidance. And for children, non-violent
strategies for subduing dream villains can model creative problem-solving
strategies that do not necessarily emphasize violence.
Rehearsal is somewhat parallel to the phase of psychotherapy, called
“working-through” which involves taking breakthrough insights and testing
them out in a variety of ways with people and situations. When nightmares
are extremely painful or repetitive or related to a profound trauma,
rescripting and rehearsing dream solutions may need to be repeated before
the nightmares subside. It is important to keep in mind that conjuring up
one new fantasy ending for a dream is not going to solve a deep problem that
may be causing the nightmares. However, even if dream rehearsals must be
repeated for people who are suffering more severe trauma, even initial
efforts at rescripting may in some cases, dramatically reduce the incidence
of posttraumatic nightmares.
The final Nightmare Remedy “R” is Resolution. Discussion and various trials
of rescripting and rehearsing solutions usually trigger insights about what
life issues are causing the nightmares. At this point, the dreamer on her
own or with the help of a friend or psychotherapist is ready to resolve the
nightmare. Resolution occurs when the dreamer brainstorms and identifies
behaviors they can further examine or try to change. Examples of resolution
would be Lisa’s work-related nightmares series in Chapter 6, of Dream
Wisdom, which included the dream, ‘Too Many Chefs Spoil the Stew”. After
rescripting the dream, she realized, she had denied her assertive side and
was being taken advantage of by the employees in her restaurant. After
rehearsing various dream assertiveness strategies for rescripting the
attacks of her wayward employees, she made a series of changes that led to
exerting more clear authority at work and being more aware of her tendency
to deny her assertive side.
We do not have to suffer nightmares in silence. Using the menu of techniques
in this section and chapter 11 of Dream Wisdom, you can detoxify your
nightmares, and use them as a source of insight and personal growth. In more
acute situations, resolving nightmares can create breakthrough in dealing
with the aftermath of a traumatic situation.
WHEN TO SEEK HELP FOR CHILDREN’S
NIGHTMARES
Whereas moderate nightmare activity may be a potentially healthy sign that
the unconscious mind is actively coping with stress and change, frequent
nightmares indicate unresolved conflicts that are overwhelming your child.
When children’s nightmares persist, when their content is consistently
violent or disturbing, and when the upsetting conflicts in the dreams never
seem to change or even achieve partial resolution, it may be time to seek
further help from a mental health specialist or pediatrician. Especially if
there is no obvious stress in your child’s life, repetitive nightmares could
also be caused by a reaction to drugs or a physical condition, so it is
advisable to consult a physician to rule out medical causes when nightmares
do not appear to have a psychological origin.
A further issue to consider is whether your child may be suffering from a
sleep disorder. Many parents may confuse sleep disorders like sleepwalking
and talking with nightmares which are more psychological in origin. Sleep
disorders may or may not be accompanied by nightmares and are generally
organic in origin. They are surprisingly common affecting over 15% of the
United States population with 95% of all cases going undiagnosed. The
International Classification of Sleep Disorders published in 199010,
lists 84 conditions that interfere with sleep including Primary Snoring, Jet
Lag, Restless Leg Syndrome, Narcolepsy and Sleep Apnea. Many sleep disorders
such as Jet Lag will go away on their own. Others such as various forms of
insomnia may reduce children’s ability to learn, lower their resistance to
disease, and increase accident-proneness. Some sleep disorders may even be
life-threatening such as sleep apnea. If you suspect that your child is
having a sleep disorder11,
speak to your pediatrician to determine if he or she needs to consult a
board certified sleep specialist or to be evaluated in a sleep center12
13.
The current diagnostic manual of the American Psychiatric Association
(DSM-IV) includes Nightmare Disorder as an officially recognized affliction
of both children and adults. Those who suffer from this disorder have
“extremely frightening dreams, usually involving threats to survival,
security, or self-esteem” that “generally occur during the second half of
the sleep period,” and may cause “significant distress or impairment in
social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning.”
Repetitive nightmares are often accompanied by other symptoms especially
fears of going to sleep, anxieties or phobias. Increased nightmares can
usually be linked to a recognizable stress in the child’s life such as
absence or loss of a parent, suffering abuse or violence, marital or custody
disputes in the family, social or academic difficulties at school, such as
being teased or having an undiagnosed learning or attention problem.
Nightmares are more often like a vaccine than a poison. A vaccination
infects us with a minute dose of a disease that mobilizes our antibodies and
makes us more resistant to the virulence of smallpox or polio. As
distressing as nightmares can be, they offer powerful information about
issues that are distressing your child. When children share their nightmares
and receive reassurance from their parents, they feel the emotional sting of
the dream, but also begin the process of strengthening their psychological
defenses and facing their fears with more resilience.
Gradually, a parent’s empathic
response to their child’s nightmares can break the cycle of bad dreams and
transform intensely negative experiences into triumphs of assertiveness and
collaborative family problem-solving.
10.Diagnostic Classification Steering Committee,
International Classification of Sleep Disorders: Diagnostic and Coding
Manual (Rochester, MN: American Sleep Disorders Association, 1990).
11. Richard Ferber, Solve Your Child’s Sleep Problems (New
York: Simon and Shuster , 1985).
12. Christian Guilleminault, Sleep and its Disorders in
Children (New York: Raven, 1987).
13. Charles Schaeffer, (editor), Clinical Handbook of
Sleep Disorders in Children (New York: Jason Aronson, 1995).
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