Tag: stress | In your dreams …

Post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) nightmares: a cure?

Posted on October 31, 2012 by Jane Teresa Anderson • 2 Comments

Are dreams always symbolic? What about recurring nightmares in which the dreamer relives an actual traumatic experience, over and over again, sometimes several times a week, often for decades? This can be the case for people with PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder, a type of anxiety disorder following a traumatic experience). How can these replay nightmares be stopped? Can dream alchemy be applied to transform these kinds of nightmares and their underlying issues?

Nightmares following traumas are generally symbolic, seemingly unconnected to the actual event, but exact replays are more common for people with PTSD.

Nightmares disrupt sleep, leaving you tired the next day, as well as stressed about the scary nightmare and what it might mean about you and your life. Magnify that to exhaustion when you have the nightmares several times a week, compounded with daily anxiety about going to sleep and facing yet another replay of the long-ago trauma, and a sense of hopelessness about not being able to stop the nightmares: that’s what many people with PTSD suffer year after year.

On top of that, many suffering these types of nightmares can punch, kick, and hit their bed partners, adding to bedtime anxiety. When dreams occur in the REM stage of sleep, ‘sleep paralysis’ stops our muscles from acting out our dreams, but the kinds of nightmares associated with PTSD sometimes occur in other stages of the sleep cycle when legs and arms are free to move.

Nightmares following traumas are generally symbolic, seemingly unconnected to the actual event, but exact replays are more common for people with PTSD. So what is PTSD?

Diagnosis of PTSD references three main symptoms enduring more than 30 days after the event: reliving a traumatic event in a way that disturbs your daily life; feeling emotionally numb or detached from the trauma; and increased arousal in everyday situations.

Reliving may mean having flashbacks where the trauma seems to be happening again, recurring nightmares about the event, repeating memories, and strong reactions to things that remind you of the experience.

Feeling emotionally numb or detached from the trauma can manifest as not caring about anything, a lack of interest in everyday life, and avoiding anything connected with the event, as well as not being able to remember key details of the trauma.

Increased arousal due to PTSD can include being startled easily and having exaggerated responses, being hypervigilant, having difficulty concentrating, outbursts of anger or irritability, and difficulties sleeping.

Each sensory reliving embeds the trauma.

The danger of experiencing replays of the trauma, whether by nightmares, flashbacks, or repeating memories, is that these tend to be overwhelmingly sensory in nature, as if they are happening in the present tense. They are not so much thoughts about the event, or feelings that can be eased by considering context. Each sensory reliving embeds the trauma.

The standard treatment for PTSD usually involves cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT), which helps the sufferer to identify thoughts stemming from the trauma and replace them with less upsetting thoughts. CBT retrains the conscious brain to change perspective and response to situations that would otherwise trigger negative reactions. When CBT is effective with PTSD sufferers, nightmares featuring actual replay tend to stop, soften, or recur less often.

So CBT works with the conscious mind to reframe thoughts about the event.

The unconscious mind may persist with unconscious beliefs, feelings, and responses associated with the traumatic event.

The unconscious mind may persist with unconscious beliefs, feelings, and responses associated with the traumatic event. In this case, the nightmares – or other, more symbolic nightmares – will continue, and underlying issues stemming from the trauma may remain unresolved.

So can PTSD related nightmares be stopped when standard CBT fails to achieve this?

One treatment that is receiving a lot of attention at the moment is Imagery Rehearsal Therapy (IRT). Now, if you’re acquainted with dream alchemy, IRT is going to look familiar to you.

IRT involves rewriting the trauma-replay dream to change the trauma story, and repeatedly visualising the new, positive version, while awake.

In IRT, the sufferer thinks up ways to change the storyline of their nightmare so it’s no longer scary. With help from the therapist, they decide on the best rewrite of the dream and then replay the new version of the dream as a visualisation – while awake – a set number of times. This therapy stops the nightmare in many cases, or reduces how often it occurs.

What’s the difference between dream alchemy and IRT?

IRT involves rewriting the trauma-replay dream to change the trauma story, and repeatedly visualising the new, positive version, while awake.

Dream alchemy involves understanding the dream (interpreting it when it is symbolic), identifying the unconscious beliefs (sometimes based on traumatic experiences) that underlie the key issue, and rewriting either the whole dream or an aspect of it in a way that reprograms those unconscious beliefs into positive beliefs that automatically drive positive responses. The new version is repeatedly visualised*, while awake.

IRT reprograms the conscious mind and the dream storyline. The dreamer either dreams the new storyline or the replay dream stops. Deeper unconscious issues related to the trauma may be reflected in more symbolic ongoing nightmares and dreams, and remain unaddressed.

Dream alchemy addresses and resolves issues by transforming the underlying unconscious beliefs.

Dream alchemy reprograms both the conscious and unconscious mind and these changes are reflected in new, positive dreams. Dream alchemy addresses and resolves issues by transforming the underlying unconscious beliefs.

When therapies such as CBT or IRT assist sufferers to overcome PTSD and stop the trauma-replay nightmares, grief associated with the trauma may naturally resolve. When grief remains, or when unconscious beliefs related to the grief have taken hold (beliefs around perceived guilt, for example), these will be reflected in subsequent symbolic dreams. For those who remember their dreams, dream alchemy is a route to resolution and healing.

* Dream alchemy may be prescribed as a visualisation, affirmation, artwork, writing, bodywork, or other modality, depending on the dream and the dreamer.

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Episode 128 The Dream Show: When redundancy threatens and nightmares begin

Posted on July 25, 2012 by Jane Teresa Anderson • 2 Comments

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Around 20,000 public servants with permanent or long term contracts in Brisbane are expected to lose their jobs over the coming weeks. Some already know their fate, while others turn up to work each day not knowing whether their job will be axed or retained. What kind of dreams are they experiencing as they go through the mix of fear, despair, and perhaps even, for some, a little excitement as they contemplate new opportunities ahead?

My guest this episode is Belinda Reed, founder of The Day Brightener and Servant Hearts. As a Brisbane public servant going through this experience herself, Belinda created a new blog, www.servanthearts.wordpress.com and an associated Facebook page to help provide support, advice, inspiration, hope and heart for her colleagues and co-workers, many of whom are sleeping badly and experiencing nightmares and unsettling dreams.

Belinda Reed established the Servant Hearts blog to help Brisbane public servants facing around 20,000 job losses.

I invited Belinda onto The Dream Show to discuss the kinds of dreams her colleagues are experiencing, to help people worldwide who feel anxious about the security of their jobs, or who are in the process of being let go.

Belinda brings specific dreams to the show. There’s one from a woman who dreamed of chopping off her hair, and one from a man who dreamed of being on a bus of unsure destination. Other dreams included one about a hotel eviction and one about a rainy, flood-threatening day. And while you may read these short summaries and feel that their interpretations are obvious, the value in understanding these dreams at a deep level is that each dreamer gains specific insight into the aspects of their mindset that determine the way they view, experience, and respond to their situation. This leads to new awareness and the choice – aided by dream alchemy exercises – to experience the same situation in a less stressful, more constructive, and potentially richly rewarding way.

Whether you have job worries or not, there’s plenty to learn in this episode about dreams, why we have them, how they relate to waking life, and how we can use them to transform our waking life experiences for the better.

Listen, enjoy, and please share.

Navigating changing times

Posted on March 29, 2011 by Jane Teresa Anderson • 0 Comments

If the GFC has impacted on your life, what kind of dreams might you be having, and how can understanding these be helpful to you?

“Global tidal wave of 70,000 job cuts,” announced the online news. “The tsunami of layoffs started in Europe …”

Instantly I got the picture. It’s a metaphor that works. It describes a giant ripple effect of job loss caused by a seismic tremor in the global economy.

It also describes the emotional impact felt or feared by many. Whether you’ve lost your job, know someone who has, fear losing yours, or fear the consequences of widespread job loss and economic challenge, the word tsunami pretty much sums up the feeling of being emotionally overwhelmed, knocked off your feet and potentially dead to the world.

If you’ve ever had a tsunami dream you’ll know the emotional impact these walls of water can produce. After all, in a dream, you think the tsunami is real, don’t you?

Dreams, like some journalists, frequently express themselves in metaphors.

Dreams, like some journalists, frequently express themselves in metaphors. They may be clichéd, they may lose subtlety, they may be oversimplified, but they can help you to get a quick picture of a complex situation. That picture may be accurate or way off the mark, but it’s a picture, a starting point, one of perhaps many possible perspectives on a situation.

If the global economic situation has impacted on your life – in hard financial terms or worries about the future – what kind of dreams might you be having, and how can understanding these be helpful to you? I’ll outline these. But what if you’re having sleepless nights and lost dream recall? How can you too gain personal insight to help you navigate the tidal waves of changing times?

The classic tsunami dream, common to many dreamers worldwide, paints a picture of the dreamer’s feelings of being overwhelmed, emotionally and, sometimes, on other levels too. The overwhelm is often still unconscious at the time of the dream, as the dreamer still struggles, in waking life, to hold emotions at bay and stay in control. Of course, there are many variations of this dream theme, and the interpretation depends on the dream details, but ‘overwhelm’ is the key emotion the dreamer is processing.

How can we shift perspective and see something positively empowering in a tsunami of global job loss?

The question to ask – when interpreting a tsunami dream or a tsunami of global job loss – is how to lessen its impact by processing the overwhelm in a different way, or, better still, how to shift perspective and transform the sense of overwhelm or helplessness into something positively empowering.

Not convinced? If a waterfall can be harnessed to produce electricity, a tsunami can be harnessed to, what? Not a lot, at short notice, practically speaking, but metaphorically speaking a tsunami can move mountains. And, in today’s world, many mountains (huge obstacles) could do with shifting!

People say metaphors can be misleading, and, of course, they can. But even when they’re misleading, practically speaking, they can help us to break through conditioned ways of looking at the world. How can we shift perspective and see something positively empowering in a tsunami of global job loss? It’s a challenge, at personal and global levels. Which obstacles to positive global change need shifting or transforming? Which obstacles to personal change need shifting or transforming?

The Compass helps you to see your life, issues and situations from different perspectives, and enables you to see your way forward to your best future.

If your anxiety is preventing you from being sufficiently relaxed to recall your dreams, you can work with the kinds of metaphors that dreams – and journalists – use, to help shift your perspective, gain insight and see your way forward. (My book, The Compass, has been created for exactly this purpose. It helps you to see your life, issues and situations from different perspectives, and enables you to see your way forward to your best future.)

Whether or not you recall your dreams, you are dreaming! Around five dreams every night. So what kind of dreams might you be experiencing if your life has been touched by the global economic tsunami of job loss or fear?

Your dreams will probably include one or more of the following:

Dreams of water, such as overwhelming tsunamis, drowning, being sucked under water or mud, inundated or washed away – water tends to represent your emotions, so these dreams reflect your deep and often unconscious emotional responses to your situation or fear.

Dreams of death and birth, but most probably focussed, at first, on death – death tends to represent what is ending (dying off) in your life. Losing a job might be pictured, in a dream metaphor, as a death. All changes, actual or feared, might be seen as deaths in your dreams. Some of those deaths might be unnecessary, as some things might be able to be salvaged with the help of dream interpretation as this reveals how your unconscious beliefs are affecting your responses to your situation or fear. Other dream deaths might be necessary – how else can we move on to new perspectives (and new jobs or new ways of earning money) if we don’t first let go of the old? Dreams of birth are metaphors for how you are progressing with new approaches in your life.

Dreams of loss and not being able to find your way are metaphors for what you feel or fear you are losing (job, security, status) and feelings or fears about your direction.

Look into your dreams for metaphors that seem to match your current situation, then question those metaphors until your current perspective shifts and you begin to see a new way forward.

Dreams of animals may occur during these times, since animals provide apt metaphors for your survival instincts in times of change. Remember that some instincts, established in childhood, may not be appropriate for handling your adult world. These dreams reflect your survival instincts by comparing them to the instincts of various animals.

Finally, look out for dreams that reference your childhood – perhaps the house you lived in as a child, your school, your parents – or that reference past jobs and relationships. These may be referring to your unconscious beliefs about security or finances, triggered by your current situations. Interpreting these provides invaluable insight into how your unconscious beliefs are affecting your responses to your current situation, and provides you with the opportunity to change these.

In each case, look into your dreams for metaphors that seem, to you, to match your current situation, then question those metaphors until your current perspective shifts and you begin to see a new way forward.

[Copyright Jane Teresa Anderson, February 2009. First published as a Dream Sight article.]

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How much does worry weigh?

Posted on March 15, 2011 by Jane Teresa Anderson • 0 Comments

“Never worry worry, til worry worries you,” my granny used to say. There’s a grain of truth in there, and an even better tongue twister, but the day I really got the measure of worry started as a simple coffee morning with two friends twenty four years ago.

The three of us met once a week so our young children could play together while we caught up over a coffee.

That morning I had opened my cheque book to pay an electricity bill and realized that I was about $100 short in our bill paying account. I had miscalculated when setting our household budget, and I was disappointed in myself.

My worry over that bill weighed heavily.

We had money in other accounts, but I would have to go to the bank (those pre-internet banking days!), organize transfers, and, by the time I made my payment, it would be overdue. (I laugh as I type, because I have since handled much bigger budgets and much greater shortfalls, and I’m still here to tell the tale.)

My worry over that bill weighed heavily on me as I walked into my friend’s kitchen for our morning coffee. I was last to arrive.

She was worried. Which diamond should she buy?

“I’ve got to make a decision this afternoon,” one friend was saying to the other, “what do you think, the champagne or the pink?” She was talking about a new ring, not to wear – though she would – but as an investment. Champagne diamond, or pink diamond, which should it be?

She was worried. She wanted to make the best choice. We were her friends. We talked it through.

“We may have to sell our house,” began the other friend, once we’d covered every facet of the diamond question, “and rent a home instead. Our business is moving into more debt than we can handle.”

She was worried. Was there an alternative she was overlooking? We were her friends. We talked it through.

What I noticed that morning from the emotional energy we each carried, was that our worries weighed the same, even though a bystander would notice that each worry was based on money. A shortfall of about $100 weighed the same as a shortfall of about a quarter of a million dollars which weighed the same as an abundance of disposable income.

A shortfall of about $100 weighed the same as a shortfall of about a quarter of a million dollars which weighed the same as an abundance of disposable income.

Worry, I noticed, expands to fill the available space, so the trick is not to allow it any. Or, as I often express it these days whenever it is appropriate, “There are two ways to do this. One is to worry, the other is to not worry.”

Not worrying does not mean not caring, of course. It means not wasting energy worrying when you could be putting that energy to constructive use.

That coffee morning, I gained a new perspective on worry that worked for me, but what about those times when, as my granny’s saying put it, “worry worries you”? What about those times when something is niggling and worrying you and making you anxious and you can’t escape it? That’s where dream work comes in. Your dreams – particularly your recurring, unresolved dreams – can help you to understand unconscious beliefs that throw dark clouds where there should be light, that distract you with worry rather than inspire you towards great outcomes.

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Do nightmares affect health?

Posted on June 29, 2010 by Jane Teresa Anderson • 0 Comments

Do frequent bad dreams have a negative impact on your health?

Do frequent bad dreams have a negative impact on your health? Michael Lund, writing for the Courier Mail, reports today that recent studies suggest a link between frequent nightmares and insomnia, fatigue, depression and anxiety.

Research in China suggests that 5.1% of people have frequent nightmares, defined as at least one a week, while other studies link the frequency of nightmares to income.

What are my thoughts about this research? I’m quoted in the article, so have a look.

The article also quotes Dr Michael Schredl, of Germany’s Central Institute of Mental Health’s sleep laboratory in Mannheim, who said “The high correlation between nightmare frequency and sleep-related daytime consequences underlines the fact that nightmares might have a strong effect on the wellbeing of the patient, and should be treated.”

I totally agree. And that treatment ideally would include professional interpretation of the nightmares and getting sufferers to apply dream alchemy techniques (specific to their dreams and situations) to address the issues the nightmares reflect. The result? The issues are addressed, the nightmares stop, the people begin to sleep properly again, and health and wellbeing returns.

Read the full article.

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Dream interpretation results: Jennifer’s news, episode 47

Posted on April 8, 2010 by Jane Teresa Anderson • 0 Comments

Samantha, from Sex and the City, helped deliver the message.

Here’s an update from Jennifer, my guest in podcast episode 47, The Dream Show.

Jennifer, a naturopathic physician, dreamed she was a contestant in a TV Top Model reality show, wondering whether she’d be eliminated in the final round. If you’ve listened to episode 47 (listen here), you’ll remember that Jennifer’s degree is in a new field, and she was experiencing difficulty in establishing recognition for her many years of academic training and medical expertise.

In her dream, Samantha, from Sex and the City, helped deliver the message that it’s good to get out there in public and do your thing, regardless of what other people think. No need for recognition permission first!

Once we uncovered Jennifer’s limiting beliefs, we created a dream alchemy practice to transform these so that she could move forward, beyond the need for recognition, to establish her unique career and thrive in wonderful ways.

Here’s Jennifer, reporting 3 weeks after the podcast:

“In my waking life I feel MUCH less stressed about my work viability. I’ve been open to, and coming up with, some creative ideas about how I can put myself out there that are also philanthropic and feel really good at the same time.”

In new dreams, Jennifer discovered extra rooms in her house, and realised their potential.

“First off, my dreams started responding one or two days later. I’ve had a couple of dreams of being loved and accepted by people who’ve rejected me in the past, and whose rejection brought up feelings of insecurity. I’ve also dreamt of finding extra rooms in my house and being so happy that I didn’t have to move out after all; that all I needed was to dust off and freshen up these gems of extra space to make them beautiful and usable again.”

Before the alchemy, shops in dreams were closed. Now they’re open.

“The last dream was a resolution to a dream I’ve had a few times in the last couple of months of going to buy clothes and being so excited but the store is closed or moved. I’ve had a similar dream since our podcast session of finally finding a store that had many dresses that I liked and could wear to the wedding event I was shopping for.

The visualization has been great but also more challenging than I’d anticipated. Thus I’ve started creating a poster board to hang next to my bed and to create a piece of jewellery representing my alchemy, hopefully to enrich the practice as well as reminding me to continue with the visualization.

Thank you so much for the fabulous interpretation and alchemy. I’m looking forward to sharing more good news as this positive change continues to unfold.”

When you do dream alchemy, your dreams reflect your progress: Jennifer’s dreams confirm the transformation of her old limiting beliefs about recognition, self acceptance, security, inner wealth and potential, entitlement and image. Powerful stuff: and all in three weeks. I too look forward to Jennifer’s next update, and to seeing the results of those creative, philanthropic ideas she’s developing about how to put herself out there.

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Can dreams help heal disease?

Posted on December 17, 2009 by Jane Teresa Anderson • 0 Comments

When dreams offer healing hands

Can dreams help you to heal from disease?

Most, if not all, diseases begin with the mind. Stress, emotional issues, fears, and beliefs can and do manifest in the physical body if not addressed. When your mind is not at ease, when it is at dis-ease, bodily disease may follow. Since dreams reveal your emotional and mental make-up, they offer an opportunity to understand a disease or illness from an emotional-mental perspective.

If you are prone to sickness, or suffering a disease, look through your dreams for symbolic representations of your physical condition. For example, you might see a balloon about to burst under pressure when you’re suffering a headache, a stack of bricks out of alignment when your spine is out of line, a cloudy or murky pond when you’ve got a bladder infection, an off-key or raspy musical instrument when you’ve got a throat infection, a blocked road or pipe when you’ve got a blockage such as a blocked artery or constipation, a toxic waste factory polluting a system when you’ve got a liver or kidney problem, or an invasion or war dream when you’ve been invaded by a virus, or when your immune system is fighting an infection.

These are NOT definite symbols with strict meanings, as any of these symbols can come up in dreams that have nothing to do with physical disease, so don’t use these to diagnose your physical condition. Instead, use these examples as guidelines to help you identify parts of your dream that seem to mirror your physical condition. Once you have found your personal symbol of your disease in a dream, the healing magic begins with a dream alchemy practice. This is what to do.

Visualise the dream situation healing, adding an uplifting emotion. For example, visualise a blocked pipe unblocking, and its contents flowing smoothly, feeling the elation of the release. Or visualise the high-pressure balloon that was about to burst breathing out gently, just enough to relieve the pressure and feel the light-hearted, happy balloon lift and fly. Or visualise the stack of bricks being gently stretched and reset into alignment, feeling the joyous freedom of a new flexibility.

Keep up your visualisation for several weeks, always making sure to add and feel that uplifting emotion. What you are doing is communicating with your unconscious mind using its own language, the language of your dreams. Your unconscious mind then takes your healing cue, and helps heal the emotional or mental cause of your dis-ease by changing the disease-causing beliefs and feelings. Watch your dreams for feedback on your healing progress.

[Extract from 101 Dream Interpretation Tips, (paperback and ebook), Jane Teresa Anderson]

Have you noticed symbolic parallels in your dreams to diseases, illnesses, aches or pains you’ve experienced?

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Tag Archives: stress

Post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) nightmares: a cure?

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Episode 128 The Dream Show: When redundancy threatens and nightmares begin

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Navigating changing times

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How much does worry weigh?

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