Amazingly, trauma recovery can actually occur when you are fast asleep. Research conducted in recent decades indicates that our dreams are key. In general, they are a source of mental and emotional processing and resolution.
Researchers at UC Berkeley have found that when dreams occur during the REM (rapid eye movement) stage of sleep, our stress responses shut down, and the neurochemicals responsible for stressful feelings stop being released. Not only this, but REM helps reduce the negative effects of difficult memories.
While sleep issues after a traumatic experience can be distressing, they may also be an important opportunity for treating and healing from trauma. Research suggests that getting adequate sleep after a traumatic event. View Source can reduce intrusive trauma-related memories and make them less distressing.
Despite the consideration of this case as exceptional, complex and sensitive in court's decision, the verdict affirms that repressed memories revealed by dreams represent true memories.
A nightmare usually involves replaying the traumatic event, feeling like they are right back there again. For veterans, this might mean re-witnessing horrific events or even deaths of people they witnessed while on combat missions.
For some people, the tremors are big movements in the muscles. For others, they are tiny contractions that feel like electrical frequencies moving through the body. TRE® is not painful—in fact, most people enjoy the sensations.
If you can recall times when you've overreacted, and perhaps have even been surprised at your own reactions, this may be a sign of trauma. It's not uncommon for people suffering from emotional trauma to have feelings of shame and self-blame.
Dreaming is like overnight therapy
REM-sleep dreaming appears to take the painful sting out of difficult, even traumatic, emotional episodes experienced during the day, offering emotional resolution when you awake the next morning.
When we're in these moments, as parents, how do we navigate them and how do we teach our children how to navigate them? Bruce Perry a world-renowned psychiatrist and head of the child trauma academy gives us a great thing called the “Three R's” he talks about first you regulate, then you relate, then you reason.
The effects of trauma may never completely go away, but we can help make them more manageable.
Other symptoms may include hypervigilance and an exaggerated startle response as well as feelings of guilt or shame. People with unresolved trauma may also feel irritable or easily angered, have difficulty concentrating and making decisions, or be prone to self-destructive behaviors such as substance abuse.
If you're asking why do I feel like my trauma isn't valid, you might be spending too much time comparing your trauma to other's. Some people can handle a single event better than a long-term situation.
Grief can be stored in various parts of the body, such as the heart, lungs, throat, and stomach. People may also experience physical sensations like heaviness in the chest or tightness in the throat when experiencing grief.
Trauma is not physically held in the muscles or bones — instead, the need to protect oneself from perceived threats is stored in the memory and emotional centers of the brain, such as the hippocampus and amygdala. This activates the body whenever a situation reminds the person of the traumatic event(s).
Women with PTSD may be more likely than men with PTSD to: Be easily startled. Have more trouble feeling emotions or feel numb. Avoid things that remind them of the trauma.
Some experts believe nightmares in PTSD are the sleeping version of “re-experiencing,” or reliving a traumatic event. When you're awake, reexperiencing may occur in the form of a flashback. These intrusive symptoms have to do with how PTSD changes brain regions involved in fear response and memory recall.
Not surprisingly, PTSD sufferers often wake from sleep with the covers torn off, or may even find themselves on the floor. Some remember in precise detail what they've dreamt; while others wake with no memory of a dream, but have intense emotions of fear, horror or anger, as though the trauma has just occurred.
Complex trauma:
Complex trauma often has a severe impact on the person's mind. It may be seen in individuals who have been victims of childhood abuse, neglect, domestic violence, family disputes, and other repetitive situations, such as civil unrest.