Dreams and EMDR

This week’s theme is about dreams.  Lately, clients have been reporting dreams to be intense, vivid and disturbing at times. I don’t usually do dream work with clients unless there is a repeating theme that is uncomfortable or they are having repeated nightmares.  I think of dreams as purification, and often encourage clients to be easy with dreams, let them go, not put too much thought into them, and in a sense thank their system for releasing what they no longer need to hold.

I also find the connection between dreams and REM sleep very interesting. REM sleep stands for Rapid Eye Movement Sleep.  When someone is sleeping and in REM sleep their eyes are moving back and forth while closed. Many of you may have noticed this in someone sleeping before. For anyone who is aware of how EMDR works or has done EMDR, you will understand the similarity of this process, since we are also actively moving the eyes back and forth in the very same manner in order to reprocess. How interesting is it that we have this built-in, natural process that occurs when we sleep that is very similar to EMDR.  Sometimes, a trauma or difficult situation can’t move through on its own and a person will continue to have a repeating nightmare which is usually a symptom that something is stuck and needs a little assistance in processing through.  In this case I will often recommend using EMDR to support the trauma in processing and to stop the nightmares.  

Next time you have an intense or difficult dream, unless it continues to repeat and haunt you, just let it go when you wake up, don’t try to hold onto it or make sense of it, and thank your system for releasing for you..