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What You Can Do After the Fact
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Image rehearsal therapy asks you to do something odd. You write down a recurring bad dream, then rewrite it while awake: a different ending, a different place, a different thing you do in it. Then you rehearse the new version in your mind for ten to twenty minutes a day.
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I am not sure something that simple should work. But the American Academy of Sleep Medicine gave it their highest mark, the only behavioral treatment for nightmares at that level. A review of sixty-nine studies found strong evidence that it cuts how often they come and how far they carry into the day.
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What sets it apart from the kind of work that takes years is that it does not try to explain the dream or find its cause. It changes the picture, and most of the time that is enough.
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When It Is More Than Ordinary
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Most of the time. But the Mayo Clinic says to see a doctor if nightmares happen often and persist, or if they make you afraid to go to sleep.
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Tonight, if there is one that keeps returning: put it on paper, then underneath, a second version where one thing is different. Not a happy ending, just a different one. Read the new version before you close your eyes, and let it sit where the old picture was.
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I opened the notebook this morning. Smaller than it seemed.
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| Sleep well, |
| Dream Signs |
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P.S. My neighbour told me she has had the same nightmare since she was twelve. If yours had someone else in it, tell me who else was in the room. She said, "Same house, same hallway, every time," and went back to her tea.
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