Re:Dreams post EMDR

Well, as usual, since we don't do case consultations here, I'll respond by framing my answer about dreams in general. You'll need to talk to your therapist to determine whether or how these answers apply in your case.

There is a lot we don't know about dreams, but EMDR therapists have found several things in clinical experience:

1) recurrent bad dreams may indicate unresolved material, whether traumatic or otherwise, and EMDR can often resolve them.

2) EMDR's targeting traumatic events in waking life often mark the resolution not only of the conscious struggle with the trauma but of any disturbed dreams about the trauma as well.

3) EMDR's can target the dream itself, whether or not we understand it, whether or not we know what is being processed. The dreams shift and often resolve when we target them directly with EMDR.

4) Since Sept 11, many individuals have found there previous state of functioning disturbed or set back, sometimes to states of functioning or disturbance from earlier phases of life. Dreams may reflect this "set back", and point to the theme and material that remains to be targeted. So, though we are all disturbed by events of Sept 11, those who, for example, struggled especially with fear or anger or shame in early life may experience those themes especially intensely in the days following Sept 11. Our experience of these present days is filtered through the unresolved material from times past. EMDR enables us to work through the new and the old, especially, and dreams are an avenue to access the work.

Sandra Paulsen Inobe, PhD
Fair Oaks, CA

Replies:

Re:Dreams post EMDR, by Cath, 10/10/01

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