Most people are quite surprised when they find out that 4% of adults are affected by nightmare disorders.
There seems to be this assumption that nightmares are limited to little kids who think there’s a monster under the bed.
While it is rare in adults, lack of discourse around it can often be alienating for those who do experience it.
Nightmares in adults are diagnosed as a disorder when they occur a few times a week on average, take place during REM sleep and are bad enough to wake you up. Not all nightmares are a result of a nightmare disorder as they can often also be caused by PTSD, anxiety disorders, mood disorders, psychosis and grief.
While little is known about the neurobiology of the disorder, there is far more information available on the ways in which nightmares can impact your life. Nightmare disorders disrupt regular sleeping cycles, and can even impact hormones and your immune system, causing you to find it harder to deal with emotions as well.
While stats are always important, it’s also crucial to get a more personal perspective on the way such experiences impact the individuals who have to go through them.
I spoke to people who suffer from chronic nightmares about what they experience, how it impacts their life and how they deal with the after-effects.
“It is dependent on whether there has been something to trigger them beforehand – it could be 3 times in 2 weeks or none for a month.they are a direct relation to trauma experienced by my growing up in a cult/coercive control environment and my subsequent escape. The feeling is always one of drowning/suffocating/being trapped. It’s a feeling of trying to reach for freedom which is just beyond my grasp and being unable to. The scene is always a mixture of my past life and the restrictions it contained, and my new life featuring something I can now have that I could never have had before. So guilt and feeling of being torn, and having gone back on how far I’ve come. Usually it will be having had contact with someone from my past, such as my family or having had contact with someone else who escaped the same group and hearing their stories.” – Jessie Shedden, 34.
“I have been having nightmares since the age of 12. Whilst those earlier years are more of a blur, I have more active memories of my nightmares from being 18 upwards. The initial events which triggered my nightmares include Childhood traumas, bereavement and domestic abuse trauma in adulthood. On a more day-to-day basis, my nightmares are rooted in how these traumas continue to be triggered on a more regular basis. These could include insecurities in a relationship, a loved one with an illness, or separation from loved ones. I find my nightmares increased the more I am triggered in real life. I can usually tell how much a situation has troubled my subconscious by whether or not I have a nightmare about it” – Evie Muir, 26
“I experience nightmares sporadically, maybe once or twice a week, aside from that, they don’t occur in a specific pattern. My nightmares consist of death and myself or loved ones being critically ill. I have noticed a theme; despite whatever happens in my nightmares, there is one specific aspect. Loneliness. Feeling isolated. My nightmares stem from April 2018. On Sunday 4th March, that same year, I wasn’t feeling very well throughout the morning, and began vomiting bile. Around lunchtime I fell asleep and didn’t wake up.” Ami Hook-Ireland, 25,
Nightmares often stem from triggers around traumatic experiences, and one of the ways of treatment for nightmare disorder is Image reversal therapy. IRT is a cognitive behavioural therapy “that involves rehearsing a different, non-threatening ending to the nightmare, is recommended for the treatment of nightmare disorder.”
Ami also shared how she sought out medical help to counter her nightmares because they were impacting her everyday life.
“During my 6-months stay at a specialist neurological rehabilitation centre, I did receive counselling to help me process the trauma I experienced in ICU, and to hopefully learn ways of coping with the flashbacks and nightmares. However, the sessions ended as I was discharged.
Counselling did benefit me by starting to process and accept what had happened. Unfortunately, the nightmares were still intense and after speaking to the doctor, I was prescribed sleeping tablets to try and conquer the disrupted sleep.”
But there’s still a long way to go for such experiences to openly be talked about. The lack of discourse around the impact nightmares can have, and how damaging they can be leads to feeling alienated and not being able to seek out help.
“I think a big misconception, which then becomes translated into institutional practice within the workplace, is that nightmares are isolated incidents that don’t impact other aspects of your life. Nightmares not only are an indicator that my current mental well-being is dropping, but they then impact my mental well-being also in a cyclical way. If I’m having nightmares, it’s because my trauma has been triggered, when I wake up from a nightmare, I’m more emotionally fragile, anxious, miserable, fog brainy. I’m sleep deprived. My capacity to concentrate, motivate myself, meet deadlines, socialise and maintain responsibilities are hindered. There needs to be more understanding of what it means to have nightmares and the impacts it has on a person, so that reasonable adjustments can be made to accommodate this specific form of mental health need”, Evie shares.
However, despite how scary nightmares can seem and how exhausting they can be in the aftermath, it is important to know treatment is available.
If you are suffering from chronic nightmares, it’s important that you see your GP, especially if you are already on mental health medication, as nightmares can be a side effect of some medications. They may also be able to refer you to a sleep clinic and for further help.
Nightmares can be an indicator of stress and problems in your waking life, so talking to someone you love and trust — or a therapist, if that’s something that you can afford — could help you identify any issues you might be facing.
Samaritans is available 24/7 to talk confidentially and anonymously, on 116 123.
