THE OTHER SIDE OF SLEEP: NIGHTMARE TRIGGERS

Nightmares are often triggered by stress and trauma. For example, studies focusing on combat veterans, victims of accidents or disasters, and Holocaust survivors find a high incidence of disturbed dreams, which are directly linked to the subjects’ past experiences. Such dreams can persist for decades after the actual event; the severity of their impact is directly related to the time that has passed since the trauma occurred. In one such study victims of a disaster at sea were found to relive the crisis on an almost nightly basis. Their REM periods were fragmented and interrupted; during their dreams of the disaster, they would cry out in fear and move about so violently that they sometimes fell out of bed. A man who had survived the Holocaust at the age of six continued to experience the same nightmare of persecution several times a night, during both REM and NREM sleep, nearly forty years after the event. When monitored by the EEG, long-term sufferers of nightmares are found to have shorter REM sleeps and longer REM latency than other people. Interestingly, the ability to recall our nightmares diminishes with the passage of time; perhaps such amnesia is the brain’s way of trying to minimize the damage or to compensate in some way for causing disturbed sleep.

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THE OTHER SIDE OF SLEEP: NIGHTMARE TRIGGERSNightmares are often triggered by stress and trauma. For example, studies focusing on combat veterans, victims of accidents or disasters, and Holocaust survivors find a high incidence of disturbed dreams, which are directly linked to the subjects’ past experiences. Such dreams can persist for decades after the actual event; the severity of their impact is directly related to the time that has passed since the trauma occurred. In one such study victims of a disaster at sea were found to relive the crisis on an almost nightly basis. Their REM periods were fragmented and interrupted; during their dreams of the disaster, they would cry out in fear and move about so violently that they sometimes fell out of bed. A man who had survived the Holocaust at the age of six continued to experience the same nightmare of persecution several times a night, during both REM and NREM sleep, nearly forty years after the event. When monitored by the EEG, long-term sufferers of nightmares are found to have shorter REM sleeps and longer REM latency than other people. Interestingly, the ability to recall our nightmares diminishes with the passage of time; perhaps such amnesia is the brain’s way of trying to minimize the damage or to compensate in some way for causing disturbed sleep.*301\226\8*

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