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There is no hurry

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Speed is the enemy of depth

This January, I was in stormy Santa Barbara at a 3-day dream tending retreat at Pacifica Graduate Institute. Midday of the first class, we were informed of flood and landslide warnings right in our location! So we hastily gathered our things and dashed to our cars in the pouring rain, navigating deepening water on the roads and with a mild sense of panic. But despite all the commotion outside, the next couple of days ended up being more focused on our inner worlds. Holed up in Oxnard at a friend’s condo safely away from the flood zone, it turned out to be a perfect venue for turning our attention inward.

 

My grandmother’s wisdom

In dream tending, we are invited to use our dreams as starting points for imaginal journeys. In my inner travels, my grandma Danchuk came along with me into the land of imagination, as she often does. She is my mom’s mom, and I remember her for her warm chuckle and the endless activity of her hands, always crocheting, cooking, or tending the garden.

In the dreamscape, I am itching to get going, to set off on an adventure. But she stops me and says, ‘There is no hurry.’ She is, of course, tending a garden in this imaginal landscape. Through this, she illustrates for me the importance of patience. First we prepare the soil, and plant the seeds. And then we wait. When the plants sprout, we weed, water and tend. But again, we wait. There are bouts of activity, but mostly, gardening is an act of patience. This is not my strong suit, but I sit next to my grandma on a lounge chair and look out at the water. It is wonderful to simply slow down. My body likes it. In our sped-up and distracted culture, I believe we all need more of this.

 

Speed is the enemy of depth

Coincidentally, I have been reading a book called Stolen Focus – in which Johann Hari explores the multiple causes for our shrinking attention spans. He says it’s not our fault, and nor are social media and the internet the sole causes (although they do contribute greatly to the problem). Hari found that our collective attention span has been shrinking for more than 100 years because of the massive expansion of information we are bombarded with.

Quoting Danish math professor Sune Lehmann, Hari notes that this information explosion comes at a great cost. “What we are sacrificing is depth in all sorts of dimensions… Depth takes time. And depth takes reflection.” Speed is the enemy of depth. When we are exposed to more information than we can actually process, we experience a “rapid exhaustion of attenion resources.”

 

Mind-wandering is essential for creativity

A huge casualty of the information explosion is down-time for our minds. When we simply allow our minds to wander, we make creative new connections. Mind-wandering, day-dreaming and night dreaming are all on the opposite end of the continuum from focused, goal-oriented attention. This is not a waste of time, but actually improves our ability to think and focus.

Hari interviewed McGill neuroscientist Nathan Spreng to find out more. He found that “the more you let your mind wander, the better you are at having organized personal goals, being creative and making patient, long-term decisions.” Hardly the enemy of productivity, freeing your mind does three things: it enables you to make better sense of your life, make creative new connections, and engage in ‘mental time-travel’ that better prepares you for the future.

Interestingly, this imaginal travel is often what happens in dreaming. We are exploring a wide range of possibilities, and freeing ourselves from too narrow a focus. When I go back to the imaginal lounge chairs with my grandma Danchuk, I find another wonderful benefit. This relaxed approach feels better in my body, and I feel able to make warm and easy interpersonal connection that seems to translate from dream to waking life.

In the Oxnard condo, there were three of us thrown into close quarters with the assignment to engage in imaginal travels and to tend to each other’s dreams. This open, playful space brought us into deep connection, into matters of the heart and soul in ways that simply would not have happened if we had been in a task-oriented rush. I am taking my grandma’s words to heart: there is no hurry.

 

References

Stolen focus, Why you can’t pay attention and how to think deeply again (2022) by Johann Hari. New York, Penguin Random House

(Interestingly, Hari dedicates this book to his grandmothers.)

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Nightmares exacerbate mental illness, but treatment helps

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In clinical settings, nightmares are rarely inquired about, and even less often treated directly. Evidence that this needs to change is mounting. On a more positive note, nightmare treatment research continues to advance – and a new method shows that adding sensory triggers can strengthen treatment effects.

Review finds nightmares may contribute broadly to mental illness

A recent review by Sheaves (2022) found that nightmares may contribute to the development of psychiatric illness rather than being merely a symptom. The paper concludes that nightmare treatment may be an avenue for reducing threat-based disorders in particular.

Thirty-five studies were assessed overall. Although most were not designed to test the effectiveness of nightmare treatment, the researchers were able to note moderate reductions in PTSD and depression post treatment, plus some reduction in anxiety and paranoia following direct treatment of nightmares. As well, while nightmares are known to increase suicide risk, two studies suggest nightmare treatment mitigates this risk.

The study has an interesting focus on network approaches to psychopathology — an interest in symptoms that account for comorbid diagnoses. For example, sleep disruption can lead to a variety of mental illnesses and thus is identified as a clinical priority.

Three Ways Nightmares Worsen Mental Health

The authors suggest nightmares generate anxiety and subsequent hyperarousal that may lead to more nightmares, a feedback loop that warrants greater clinical attention. Nightmares can also exacerbate negative mood due to their distressing content. And via yet another avenue, sleep disruption, nightmares can contribute to a range of mental health issues. While nightmares are typically associated with PTSD, half of patients with psychosis or dissociative disorders and a third of those with mood disorders also experience problematic nightmares.

This research adds to the growing base of evidence for the need to treat nightmares. The authors are suggesting here that nightmares may not be an isolated symptom, but a more of a global one, and also a causal factor in the exacerbation of many forms of mental illness. While it is difficult to tease apart what is causal and what is symptomatic, it’s clear that once nightmares become chronic, they tend to make matters worse in at least three ways: by creating anxiety that generates more nightmares, by disrupting sleep and the myriad repercussions from that, and also by adversely affecting mood, especially if the dreamer dwells on the negative content.

Nightmare treatments: Education, rescripting and now, music!

Nightmare treatment can also work along several avenues. Most treatments include some relaxation and educational components that can help assuage anxiety generated by nightmares. Sometimes simple things like letting dreamers know dream content is not literal and is often an intensified image of a situation that needs attention can bring a helpful shift in perspective. For example, dreaming of killing a parent who is angry might signify an empowered response, reflecting a desire to effectively stop the aggression. It does not indicate murderous intent!

Understanding metaphoric nature of dreams brings perspective

In my extensive work with nightmares, I see two main avenues of intervention. The first is to address the activation – in terms of the nervous system, to dissipate the sympathetic charge. Working with the dream material and making sense of it in terms of metaphor often brings a new perspective. If needed, offering information about the nature of dreaming itself often helps those whose dreams are filled with gruesome or horrific content to see that this is not reflective of their character or personality, but truly just the nature of dreaming during turbulent emotional times.

Once the dream feels more approachable, I work with the dreamer to find ways to dream it forward, first by finding allies or resources to draw upon, ideally from within the dream itself. Bolstered, the dreamers typically imagine a different way forward, one that feels better in their bodies. Often, elements of these more empowered dream stories find their way into subsequent dreams, rendering them less nightmarish. Often even recurrent nightmares change, and sometimes they simply stop.

Sound added to nightmare treatment a promising new avenue

Technological advances suggest that it is quite possible to intervene in a bad dream and shift its trajectory – from the outside as well as the inside. For example, a recent study showed that pairing a revised dream sequence with a specific sound (a piano chord), and then playing the sound every 10 seconds during the dream-rich REM phase of sleep, would help them recall the new and improved version of the dream. This worked!

Perogamvros and colleagues (2022) tried it on half of a 36-person sample. All were treated for nightmares for two weeks using Imagery Rehearsal Therapy and half had the sound added. While all experienced a reduction in nightmares, those with the addition of the piano music reported fewer nightmares and more positive dreams than the control group, and these significant shifts were still apparent three months later.

The researchers noted that it was not the sound itself, but the memory trigger that accounts for the difference. Other sounds, or smells may also work to remind the dreamer of the positive shifts they created during dream treatment. This is called ‘targeted memory activation’ (TMR), a method that has been shown to enhance memory consolidation during sleep.

 

For more on how to treat nightmares, we have a full-length course and a lecture on nightmares and the nervous system. Or check out my web site for many other posts on this topic.

 

Schwartz, S., Clerget, A., & Perogamvros, L. (2022). Enhancing imagery rehearsal therapy for nightmares with targeted memory reactivation. Current Biology, 32(22), 4808-4816.

Sheaves, B., Rek, S., & Freeman, D. (2022). Nightmares and psychiatric symptoms: A systematic review of longitudinal, experimental, and clinical trial studies. Clinical Psychology Review, 102241.

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Dream changes help clinicians predict suicidal behaviors

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There is a well-established link between frequent nightmares and a greater risk of suicide, but until now, there has been no sense of specifically what to watch for in a client’s dream life to signal that their risk is escalating. However, a group of researchers has just published an article on how dreams change prior to suicide attempts.

I have long been suggesting that clinicians ask about nightmares and offer treatment if warranted. This recent study underscores the importance of asking about dreams – and offers some clarity about specific ways that nightmares escalate prior to a suicide attempt.

The naturalistic study collected dream information from 40 patients that were hospitalized for suicidal crisis, and found that 80 percent of them had experienced changes in their dream lives prior to this crisis. Two-thirds experienced bad dreams, half had nightmares and 22 percent had dreams about suicide.

The researchers also noted a progression in the way dreams changed prior to the suicidal crisis, with bad dreams appearing 4 months’ prior, nightmares 3 months’ prior and suicidal scenarios 1.5 months’ prior. They concluded: “Dream alterations and their progression can be readily assessed and may help to better identify prodromal signs of suicidal behaviors.”

The researchers studied the differences in those whose dream lives changes prior to their suicidal crisis versus those whose dreams stayed much the same, and found that those with altered dreaming had more of a family history of insomnia. Virtually all had symptoms of depression and altered sleep quality prior to their hospitalization.

The bottom line is that when you ask clients about their dream lives, you can also be alert to any changes. An increase in bad dreams that escalates to more frequent nightmares is an important change that may predict a suicidal crisis. Content of the dreams might provide some clues as well, though they are not going to dream about suicide specifically in most cases.

The other important consideration in your treatment of those who dream and sleep disturbance is escalating is that you can treat these as symptoms, not just as warning signs, and you may be able help them course-correct through direct attention to their nightmares. In other words, dream changes are not just diagnostic, but also avenues for treatment that may reduce suicide risk.

For more about what you can do to treat nightmares, I am offering a time-limited nightmare treatment course bundle, an in-depth online training for clinicians which includes a workshop on nightmares and the nervous system. You can check it out here.

References

Geoffroy, P., Borand, R., Ambar Akkaoui, M., Yung, S., Atoui, Y., Fontenoy, E., Maruani, J., & Lejoyeux, M. (2022). Bad Dreams and Nightmares Preceding Suicidal Behaviors.. The Journal of clinical psychiatry, 84(1), 1

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Focusing and Nature: Restoring connection within and without

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In focusing with dreams, I usually begin by facilitating a search for helpful elements. One of the most consistently supportive places comes from the natural world: trees, beautiful landscapes, animals, ocean… all of these images seem to call us back into a sense of connection we knew about instinctively as children, but may have lost along the way

“I deeply believe that we are all connected,” says dean diamond, a focusing coordinator-in-training who is offering a nature-based certification program beginning in March. Dean is a Nature Guided Focusing Oriented Therapist and Sandplay Therapy Intern who I have the privilege of mentoring as he develops his own focusing program. He said he has found that focusing allows both therapist and client to reconnect with our innate sense of connectedness to the natural world. When this happens, we become deeply resourced, he says, because we are re connecting with source.

I am reminded of the Mary Oliver poem, Wild Geese, which speaks to her deep connection with the natural world, and how universal this possibility is. Here is an excerpt:

You do not have to be good

You do not have to walk on your knees

for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.

You only have to let the soft animal of your body

love what it loves…

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,

The world offers itself to your imagination,

calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting –

over and over announcing your place

in the family of things.

Dean is offering his two-year program in person on his retreat property in the Cowichan Valley on Vancouver Island, British Columbia to a small group of students. He wants to dispel the sense that his way of working is as simple as a walk in the forest. “You don’t have to go outside, but can also go inside, to connect with Nature.” Going inside refers to sensing into the body in a focusing-oriented way – which invites open curiosity and acceptance, a process that opens us up to many avenues of experience, including a reminder of our lost connection to the web of life.

Children do not see the natural world as an object, says dean. Somewhere along the way, this subject-to-subject connection gets lost for many of us, creating a disconnect and a sense of dominion over animals and nature that interferes with our innate sense of belonging to it and with it. His program includes modules on dreams, focusing, nature, play, social justice and sexuality – all ways of restoring the sense of deep connection to ourselves and the natural world, both within and without.  For more information, go to hearthplace.ca

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Nightmare Distress: How we experience dreams is more impactful than what we dream

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‘Mary’, a client in my clinical practice, had frequent, bloody, violent dreams and came to love them. She once dreamt of being shot point-blank but did not find this disturbing. The feeling in the dream, and in processing it after, was peaceful, almost spiritual. Another dreamer dreamt of scenes of her family around the table simply eating dinner, yet these dreams struck terror into her heart and left her feeling upset for the entire day.

It is often the case that the emotions present in a dream are not congruent with the dream scenario. There are many reasons for this, and many implications for clinicians who ask about and work with dreams and nightmares. The main point is that emotion is a key element in the dream, possibly more important than the imagery itself.

Images in dreams can be highly dramatic, metaphorical and even fantastical. The key is what they evoke. So when asking your clients about their dreams, always inquire about the emotional landscape as well as the visual one. And also understand that dream responses are something we can work with and change.

The words of Victor Frankl (1985) come to mind here: ‘Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response.” We can’t change the fact that our dream forest, however beautiful, is steeped in terror (unless we become lucid, but that’s another topic). However, when we process such a dream with open curiosity, we can change how we feel about it after the fact, and over time, develop a better relationship to our dreams in general.

Mary, for example, had an intense and loving relationship to her dreams, though most of them depicted frightening or violent scenes. And as we worked with them, we discovered that these intense dreams were particularly powerful for engendering deep emotion and change. This is why, as a long-term dream therapist, I look at dream content from a not-knowing stance, never assuming a dream is as bad (or good) as it appears. Instead, I accompany the dreamer on a search for cues of safety and support, and from this place of relative comfort, the whole dream can look and feel very different from the first impression it may have made.

A recent study (Mathes et al., 2022) into nightmare distress confirms much of this clinical experience I describe. The researchers confirmed earlier findings that the level of distress a nightmare brings is significantly influenced by exposure to childhood trauma, and acutely stressful life events. However, violent dream content was less impactful for the 103 participants with frequent nightmares than the emotions they experienced in response to their dreams, a result they did not expect.

The study tracked 103 participants, 59 of whom experienced frequent nightmares, measuring dream recall, nightmare distress, levels of childhood trauma, dream emotions and violent content, and distress related to current life events. The notion that current stressors can bring nightmares, especially for those with a history of adversity, was supported and offers an explanation for the increase in nightmare frequency and distress during the worst of the global COVID pandemic, for example.

However, your response and your attitude towards such dreams can make a real difference to the level of distress they cause. A recent study by Schredl (2021) supports this idea. He found that attitudes toward nightmares and also levels of neuroticism impact how nightmares affect us. But while we can’t change our history of adversity or alter many of life’s stressors, we can change our attitudes and responses toward our dreams. The more we learn and understand about nightmares, and the more we can turn toward our dreams with calm curiosity, the less they are likely to cause distress.

The conclusion Mathes reached about nightmare distress is that “emotional appraisal has a substantial influence on nightmares. This suggests that dreamers can influence dream experiences due to their reappraisal during the dream and probably also in waking life.” My substantial clinical experience working with nightmares suggests that latter is true and may affect the former. In other words, if we befriend our dreams in waking life, we are also more likely to do so within the dreams themselves.

For example, in a few nightmare treatment sessions, I invited ‘Paula’, who experienced frequent recurring nightmares, to gather up any helpful elements she could find in her dreams. She then began to do this from within the dreams. Her nightmares were always harrowing chase scenes, but as she became more curious and comfortable with them, she developed superpowers within the dreams, such as the ability to fly away or disappear. More importantly her feelings around the dreams shifted from abject terror to a sense of adventure. And while the content of these recurring dreams still often begins in similar way, her response, both within and after the dream, has shifted to the point where she would no longer call these dreams nightmares.

 

References

Frankl, V. E. (1985). Man’s search for meaning. Simon and Schuster.

Mathes, J., Schuffelen, J., Gieselmann, A., & Pietrowsky, R. (2022). Nightmare distress is related to traumatic childhood experiences, critical life events and emotional appraisal of a dream rather than to its content. Journal of Sleep Research, e13779.

Schredl, M. (2021). Nightmare distress, beliefs about nightmares, and personality. Imagination, Cognition and Personality, 40, 177-188.

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Dreams as Doorways to Possibility

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Dreams as Doorways to Possibility:
Four ways to open up even the smallest of dreams

Have you ever been stumped by a dream? Likely all of us have experienced genuine puzzlement when we wake up with a dream image that seems utterly mysterious, too wispy to follow or simply nonsensical. We are apt to dismiss such dreams as nonsense, or as not profound enough to warrant our attention. However, if you consider dreams as openings for further exploration, every dream is worthy of our attention.

In my year-long experiential dreamwork program, I always spend a session exploring dream ‘snippets’ as a way to illustrate how much can come of mere wisps of dreams. It helps to consider a dream as a doorway to a much larger world of experience. Or like the thread from the Greek myth by which Ariadne left a trail enabling her lover to escape the maze of the Minotaur. The end of the thread, the snippet, does not give us the whole picture, but rather, a way forward. The destination is not yet known, but ultimately might lead to greater freedom.

In this article, I offer a few different ways that you can explore any dream, big or small, in a way that opens to new possibilities.

Dreams as picture-metaphors for emotion
My dreams often come as single images without much of a story. They can be a simple picture, and for the person guiding me in a dream process, it may feel like there isn’t enough to work with. For example, I dreamt of an old-fashioned pair of crossed wooden skis. Considering Ernest Hartmann’s idea that dreams are metaphors for salient feelings, already something opens up. There is a sense of motion that is stopped, possibly because of an outdated way of doing things, or maybe because I am ‘cross’. Yes, I can feel some old anger I hadn’t realized was present…

The other thing that occurs to me is that these skis can still work and have served someone very well. They have been well-used, and I sense, well-loved. In Hartmann’s way of working, this feeling might correspond to something current and salient in my life, so further inquiry could head in that direction.

Dreams as bringing a bodily felt sense
Another way to deepen understanding of any dream image is to try a focusing approach, as offered by Eugene Gendlin. This involves getting a bodily felt sense of the image, and letting it open up from the inside. Like Ariadne’s thread, such a process can lead to new territory entirely, with the image as the starting place.

A felt sense of the skis, for example, takes me to a crossed place in my chest, but also an awareness of potential movement. The skis, of their own accord, want to uncross and be placed on the snow. Their essence speaks of forward motion and speed. I begin to feel an expansive sense in my chest, and am infused with enlivening memories of my cross-country skiing exploits. Rather than get lost in those, I go back to the felt sense (which is what I would do if I were guiding a dreamer here). I’m getting a message that feels like an unblocking, an opening and a sense that the way forward is available, and both awkward (old skis) and exhilarating.

Dreams as doorways
Carrying this little image forward in another way, I might explore the environment of the dream, and then venture out into it. This is a Jungian approach, called active imagination. You can take any dream image as a place to begin and then open up the setting or dream landscape.

My skis seem to be in the wall of a rustic cabin, and there is a sense that it might be an earlier time. These skis are not obsolete, but in fact, more an essential means of getting somewhere. There are now some old-fashioned boots and poles are nearby, and I see a skier breaking trail through a foot of fresh snow. The trail is flat, wooded, and inviting. There is the sense of a journey, but one the skier is very prepared for. In exploring this dream image, we can follow this trail as far as we like, potentially meeting challenges and helpful characters along the way.

Associating to dream images
The last opening I will suggest here is that of association. This is a more traditional way of exploring dream images, and one that I tend to use lightly. This is because the process of asking what memories or stories from our life are brought to mind by a dream image can sometimes lead us away from the essence of the image and into webs of memory that limit rather than open what we experience from the dream.

Associations to the skis are of fancy cabins that hang such skis on the wall as decoration. I also recall a pair of leather ski boots my dad used to own, and a childhood memory of trying to ski on flat ground in huge old skis and not getting very far. I also associate to skiing in general, which I love. To me, these images feel less generative than the methods listed above that open up the image via experiencing and imagination. Such is my personal bias. Associations can also be powerful.

My suggestion is to try any of these methods that appeal to you. Next time you wake up with a puzzling dream image or snippet, one you are tempted to dismiss, play with these avenues. Or if a client brings a dream that feels too thin and unsubstantial, try these ways of helping them to use the image as a leaping off place to a world of possibility.

DREAM CIRCLE Dec. 4: Dreams as doorways to possibility
Our last Dream Circle of 2022 will focus on imaginative and experiential ways that even the smallest of dreams can open the dreamer up to possibility. See the article above for a fuller description of the avenues we will explore as a group. This group is open to all graduates of my experiential dreamwork and focusing programs. More info here.

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Dreams as a picture of the nervous system

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Dreams as a picture of the nervous system, and an avenue for state shifts

It’s beginning to dawn on me that not just nightmares, but all dreams can be seen as an expression of the nervous system. They are images direct from the body, far less filtered by our internal censor than waking thoughts — they are more image-based, more visceral and fluid. Spending time with our dream images in a calm and curious way can be inherently regulating, and I am beginning to suspect why this is so.

The late Ernest Hartmann, a celebrated dreamworker and researcher, said two things that I want to follow up on in this context. The first is, “The nightmare is the most useful dream.” This is not meant to dismiss the real distress and terror that our worst dreams can bring. It’s that nightmares represent an extreme state, and as such, one that we can learn the most from.

Linking nightmares and the nervous system

I’ve spent the last couple of years investigating the link between nightmares and the autonomic nervous system (ANS) through the lens of polyvagal theory. Although I think the implications of this for nightmare formation and treatment are still largely unexplored, I started this ball rolling with the recent publication of an article with the optimistic title, Solving the Nightmare Mystery in which I imply that the role of the nervous system is a missing link in our understanding of how to treat nightmares (Ellis, 2022).

I have been sitting with those who experience deeply disturbing dreams for many years now, one of the main things I do to help is facilitate the search for, and embodiment of, cues of safety that help alter their perception and experience of these dreams. They tell me this embodied process of dreaming their dreams forward (called ‘rescripting’ in modern nightmare treatment literature), changes how they hold the dream in their body. Typically, the memory remains, but the charge dissipates, after a successful session.

Nightmares are dramatic, and there is clear autonomic activation during sleep state shifts for those who experience them frequently. Nightmares are easily recalled and their impact is tangibly felt, as is the relief one experiences when they begin to fade or shift into a more benign form. This is useful because when a phenomenon is loud and colorful, we can more easily see it.

Dream images as nervous system state and shifts

However, in a recent class I teach on the clinical use of dreams, a dreamer brought an image of a dark, still woman in a tub that had sat so long the water had gone cold. Her impulse, in dreaming this forward, was to turn on the hot water faucet, to bring some warmth to the bath and to the woman’s body. Entering the dream further, she noticed the tub itself, and it was older, more ornate and beautiful than the one is her current bathroom, where the dream was set. Her own demeanor changed in this process or warming the bath, her face coloring and smiling as she described making the bath a sanctuary, adding scent and oil and dipping into the enjoyment of it. Later, she told me the shifts continued in the coming days: “I continued to experience “mini shifts” in the following days and was able to access and carry the felt sense of the warmth and beauty of the bath into many areas of my daily life. I noticed I feel more present when I bring a sense of aesthetics, in the form of a little beautifying and warming detail, when I have to tackle some of the mundane daily tasks and responsibilities, which were weighing me down lately.”

This entire dream process could be seen as an image of the nervous system as it shifted from a cold, immobilized (dorsal vagal) state, into one of connection and animation that was clearly visible on her face. Her fellow classmates remarked on the change, as her physiology demonstrated a clear shift into a state of social engagement and warmth (ventral vagal). This kind of shift is typical in working with dreams. The images from nightmares are clear representations of autonomic states. Activation or fight/flight – being chased or engaged in a battle – are some of the most prevalent nightmare themes. The leap I have made is simply that nightmares are the most obvious expression of what happens in all dreams. They are our bodies expressing in image and sensation our fluctuating internal state. They are doorway into its expression, particularly valuable for those who have trouble hearing what’s going inside.

Dreamwork as a way to metabolize and regulate emotion

This brings me to another of Hartmann’s famous statements: that dreams are a ‘picture-metaphors’ for our most salient emotional concerns. Sometimes our most pressing feelings are repressed, historic or fleeting enough that we don’t think about them during the day. But our dreams have an uncanny way of picturing what matters most, even if we have repressed it. Our bodies carry the charge of feelings and memories that are unmetabolized, and these find expression in our dreams.

My sense, which is shared with many dreamworkers and researchers, is that a purpose of dreaming about emotion is not to upset us but to help us process and shift such feelings. Sometimes, the dreams do this all on their own, like a nocturnal therapist, and sometimes it really helps to have another person process the dreams with us. One idea that attention to the nervous system and polyvagal theory has taught us is that we humans (and all mammals) function better together than alone. Sharing our dreams and bringing them into company and the light of day helps them do their job better. And more and more, I’m beginning to think that a large part of their job is expressing and regulating the state of our nervous system.

 

References

Ellis, L. A. (2022). Solving the nightmare mystery: The autonomic nervous system as missing link in the aetiology and treatment of nightmares. Dreaming.

Hartmann, E. (1999). The nightmare is the most useful dream. Sleep and Hypnosis, 1(4), 199-203.

Hartmann, E. (2010). The dream always makes new connections: the dream is a creation, not a replay. Sleep Medicine Clinics, 5(2), 241-248.

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Terror and excitement are not so far apart

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Nervous system hybrid states and how they show up in dreams 

Not all dreams are pure fight/flight, but much like our complex nervous systems they can express hybrid states. We are all familiar with the nightmares of being chased (flight response) or weighed down with helpless immobility (dorsal vagal response). These are fear-based dreams, but they take on a very different tone when imbued with a sense of safety.

At its most basic level safety allows for social engagement, a sense of being at home in the company of those we love and trust. There are also hybrid states, where how safe we feel can mediate how our nervous system responds. When we are immobilized with safety, this allows for stillness, intimacy and bonding. When we are activated with safety, this allows for excitement, sport and play.

The genius of the polyvagal theory developed by Dr. Stephen Porges is that it takes us beyond the simple categorization everyone rattles off without much thought – the well-known fight/flight/freeze paradigm. When naming and understanding our autonomic state, Porges puts safety first.

A neuroception of safety is automatic, not intellectual

What does Porges mean by safety? His polyvagal theory is referring not to literal safety, but rather, bodily-sensed safety. Many who experience activated nervous systems, fear responses and nightmares are not in any real, physical danger, but there is no way to convince them of this, at least not by simply saying so.  Porges’ model stresses the neuroception of safety, that full-body sense which happens automatically, beyond conscious control, that allows our system to relax and repair.

When we are not experiencing rejuvenating embodied safety (a ventral vagal state), our dreams come as nightmares, as being chased or in aggressive encounters (fight/flight) or as helplessness immobility (often called freeze, those this word is not quite accurate). When our bodies feel safe, we dream of social encounters, of intimacy, adventures and play. Our dreams depict how safe or endangered we feel. As such, they can be a doorway to shifting these states at a deep level.

Autonomic state shifts are common — our nervous systems are always working to balance the need for safety and self-protection with those of social engagement, healing, digestion and the achievement of homeostatic balance. When our system perceives threat, things like digesting food or making love are luxuries our bodies senses we can’t afford… whether or not this is actually true.

Our sense of safety or danger is not always accurate

How do our bodies get this wrong? Much of the mismatch comes from early programming, from chronic exposure to neglect or trauma that creates nervous system responses that are either too sharp, too dull or a mixture of both. Those with complex trauma histories, for example, can perceive danger where none exists, or be blithely unaware of actual threatening situations and walk into danger without knowing it. Our dreams can provide both clues and solutions as they reflect our unconscious ANS responses.

During typical sleep, we shift states many times, alternating periods of deep restorative sleep with progressively longer period of dream-rich rapid-eye movement (REM) sleep. In these state shifts, we are most likely to become aware of our dreams and to be awakened by those that are particularly intense. Nightmares can disrupt sleep and affect mood, but they can also open the door to autonomic state shifts that can be lasting.

If we approach our dreams with curiosity, and begin to cultivate mastery and degrees of lucidity, we may be able to shift our dreamscape from a pervasive sense of threat to one of safety, changing our whole experience of the dreaming. This is easier to do that one might think. One chronic nightmare sufferer I worked with was able to turn a face her pursuers and discovered they were far less threatening than expected, and this changed the nature of her dreams. The chase dreams still visit at times, but now they have taken on more of an adventurous feel, one of excitement rather than terror – a similar activated state, but with more of a sense of safety.

Hybrid states show us that the programming our nervous systems received early in life may be tenacious, but it is also malleable. Change is possible, and dreams are one pathway to understanding and altering our habitual responses.

For more on this topic, join Dr. Leslie Ellis for a workshop on Nightmares and The Nervous System October 13, from 9:30-noon (Pacific)

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Slippery Fish: How to remember your dreams

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When I tell people I work with and write about dreams, often the first thing they say is, “I don’t dream.” Or sometimes, more accurately, “I don’t remember my dreams.”

We all dream what is in essence a feature film worth of dreams every night, but the vast majority of these nocturnal movies are not merely forgotten, but not laid down in accessible memory in the first place. Dreams are like slippery fish: at night they rise from the depths of implicit memory and most of them slip back into this subconscious realm before we have a chance to catch them. But there are some reliable ways to improve your dream recall.

Have you ever noticed that the vast majority of your dreams are not finished? They tend to end right in the middle of something that is striking or scary enough to wake you up. I think this is why dreams tend generally to have such a flamboyant way of expressing themselves – it often takes something quite dramatic for a dream to break through to consciousness. Some dreams are so vivid and engaging, we wake up with their images still resonating in our minds and bodies.

Still, it takes a deliberate effort to recall even some of the most fascinating dreams. Many dreamers have the experience of a stunning dream that wakes them up. They think, “Wow, this is something I will not forget,” only to find that by morning all they remember was the experience of having a big dream but not the dream itself.

Our most vivid, emotionally-toned and complex dreams happen later in the sleep cycle, toward morning. I find that if you are able to wake up naturally and have some time to linger in the dream world before you leap out of bed and start your day, you have a better chance of catching hold of your dream before it slips away. If you lie very still when you first wake up, the dream is more likely to stay with you. And if you rehearse it in your mind a few times and then write it down before you get on with the business of your day, you will find that you have not only captured this dream, but others will come.

The more we pay attention to our dreams, the more they are likely to respond back to us. I have worked with psychotherapy clients’ dreams for about 20 years and found that even those who profess not to dream were able to recall dreams once I started asking about them and talking in depth about the dreams they did bring. At first people who don’t profess to dream much might capture only a snippet or two and not think much of it. But even little scraps of image can reveal themselves to be significant if they are inquired into with deep curiosity and respect.

To sum up, to remember your dreams, begin by taking an interest in them and going to bed with the intention of recalling them. Keep a dream journal by your bedside. When you first wake up, don’t move, but linger in the space in between waking and dreaming and see if you can recall anything at all from the night, even images or fragments that seem tiny. Rehearse what you can recall in your mind a few times – dreams are like slippery fish wanting to escape back into the deep waters of our unconscious. Once you have the dream clear in your mind, write it down, ideally before you do anything else.

If you tell your dreams to someone else, work with them in a group, draw the images they bring you, reflect on them and enjoy them, more will come. You will start to see patterns and appreciate their startling creativity and complexity. They are like an honest friend who is not afraid to tell you the truth, even if it’s painful. They can become your great ally.

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Nightmares and the nervous system: How the content of your nightmares can guide recovery from disturbed dreaming

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The content of our dreams offers clues about the state of our nervous system. As we know from current research on recurrent dreams, these often depict being chased, feeling helpless or, if positive, represent ways of being socially engaged. Anyone familiar with the polyvagal theory will recognize these states as the some of the main expressions of different states of autonomic nervous system (ANS): being chased is fight/flight, helplessness is immobility and social engagement corresponds with the ventral vagal state the body enters when feeling safe.

A new wave of somatically-oriented trauma therapies has swept through the field of trauma treatment as a result of what we now know about the nervous system. I love that these new approaches view ANS responses as adaptive rather than pathological. I am also impressed at how neatly such constructs map onto dream content. Clinicians can use this information from dreams to inform diagnosis and treatment, and to map clinical progress. For example, when recurrent dreams change, this is can indicate clinical progress as it coincides with increased well-being.

My upcoming journal article, Solving the Nightmare Mystery: How Polyvagal Theory Updates Our Understanding of the Aetiology and Treatment of Nightmares, takes Porges’ polyvagal theory and the nervous system into account when considering the causes and treatment of nightmares; it is in the final stages of production for APA journal Dreaming. The article articulates both a theory and treatment approach that I will cover in more detail in my upcoming workshop on October 13 (participants will receive an advance copy). One of the practical take-aways is the matching of dream content with autonomic states. Here is an excerpt from my article:

“It is possible to map the hierarchy of threat responses onto the content of nightmares. Virtually all fear-based nightmares contain material that represents either an activated fight/flight response or a helpless immobilized response in the face of threat. A recent study to determine the main themes in nightmare content (n = 1216) points to a strong, though not perfect, correlation between most common nightmare themes and the polyvagal response hierarchy. In order, the most frequent nightmare themes identified by Schredl and Goritz (2018) were failure or helplessness (immobility), physical aggression (fight), accidents, being chased (flight), illness or death (immobility), and interpersonal conflict (fight).”

In my doctoral research, I conducted a related qualitative study (Ellis, 2016), looking at changes in recurrent nightmare content after treatment using a protocol that is a precursor to the Nightmare Relief protocol I now use and teach.  The recurrent nightmares of study participants changed after treatment toward more empowered responses, moving up the polyvagal hierarchy of threat responses — from immobility to flight to fight. Also, the dreams that came after treatment began to weave in current settings and characters from the dreamer’s life shifting away from a focus in past trauma. The progression of dream content from replicative and recurrent toward dreams with strange twists and temporal anomalies (ie more normal dreaming) often coincides with trauma recovery.

Relevant to polyvagal theory, I also noticed that the dreams post-treatment tended to move toward greater social engagement: “When dreamers were asked to rescript their dream endings, they almost invariably imagined ‘home.’ The quality of home is similar to Porges’ ventral vagal state: not necessarily a literal place (especially for those whose actual homes were unsafe), but rather a sense of safety in the company of trusted others.” This is a clue about how to help with nightmares – assisting dreamers to reimagine their dreams in ways that feel safer can shift them, and reduce the aversion nightmare sufferers tend to have toward sleep and dreams.

In my upcoming seminar, I will present the most salient aspects of this material and focus mainly on introducing the Nightmare Relief protocol. I will be able to offer more detail, clinical examples, demos and experiential practices than are covered in the academic paper. I would like those who take this workshop to be able to put these ideas into practice right away with clients who suffer from nightmares and disturbing dreams.

To sum up, I have arrived at the idea that the nervous system is deeply implicated in nightmare suffering, and that using newer embodied trauma treatment methods that instill a sense of safety and connection are the starting points for treatment. I have incorporated what I learned in my doctoral research, and also what I have learned from existing evidence-based treatment to develop an individualized, embodied approach to treatment. This is described in my paper and upcoming workshop. I do hope you’ll join me.

 

Workshop: Nightmares and the Nervous System: How to treat disturbed dreaming
October 13, 9:30 to noon Pacific
LIVE online via Zoom, recording available to registrants
Cost: 140 (plus GST) = $147 USD