Sleep Dynamic Therapy

Nightmares have long terrified and mystified us, and historically they have been interpreted as omens, the work of demons, or sources of self-knowledge. In recent years, more therapists are using what is known as “scripting or dream mastery,” a technique that a doctor at the P.T.S.D. Sleep Clinic at the Maimonides Sleep Arts and Sciences center helped develop. Patients with severe sleeping problems can learn to control their dreams and replace unwelcome or terrifying images with ones that are pleasant or harmless.

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ALBUQUERQUE — Her car is racing at a terrifying speed through the streets of a large city, and something gruesome, something with giant eyeballs, is chasing her, closing in fast. It was a dream, of course, and after Emily Gurule, a 50-year-old high school teacher, related it to Dr. Barry Krakow, he did not ask her to unpack its symbolism. He simply told her to think of a new one. “In your mind, with thinking and picturing, take a few minutes, close your eyes, and I want you to change the dream any way you wish,” said Dr. Krakow, founder of the P.T.S.D. Sleep Clinic at the Maimonides Sleep Arts and Sciences center here and a leading researcher of nightmares.

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Forty-eight comments were posted on the recent New York Times article on treatment of chronic nightmares. Reading them was illuminating and encouraging, because the overwhelming majority of writers showed a great deal of common sense in their appreciation for the use of imagery rehearsal therapy (IRT). Among this group, there were numerous stories of those who had received similar instructions from a parent or friend who advised them to “change” something about their nightmare scenarios. In other words, these people or their children had lived through a process of suffering from nightmares and then successfully eradicated them through an instruction that afforded them a measure of influence over the problem. Read the rest of this entry »

This article is most interesting for linking economic tendencies and prosperity to morning people over evening people. But, what it misses, as almost every other article on this subject misses, is that genetics are not the only reason people develop morning “lark” or night “owl” tendencies. Two prime influences are sleep disorders and psychiatric illness that steer people away from the morning mode. Sleep apnea patients are exhausted much of the time, so it’s more difficult to get out of bed and to rev up their motors. PTSD patients, particularly someone who might have been traumatized at night, may fear the bedroom or sleep and prolong their bedtime to the point of becoming a regular night owl. Treat these patients’ sleep apnea or posttraumatic stress, and it would not be surprising for many to revert back to morning status.

Heather Hauswirth KUAM
Guam – In 1969 former U.S. Army sergeant Frances H. Wolford received a Purple Heart for his bravery. He was wounded in combat in Vietnam, and to this day he has flashbacks. “I was wounded in the forehead. That’s why I don’t feel like enjoying Christmas,” he described.

The holidays are especially hard for Wolford, who has yet to be treated for his condition, but about 2,500 veterans receive treatment at the Guam Vets Center annually. 65% of them have undergone treatment specifically for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Local Guam yoga therapist Debbie Purcell says she uses yoga as a form of therapy to treat patients with PTSD, and that she’s had great success with vets by getting them to focus on the breath.

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