Book Review: No More Nightmares
No More Nightmares: How to Use Planned Dream Intervention to End Nightmares by Beverly Ann Dexter, PhD
If you suffer from nightmares or trauma-related dreams, this book could help you resolve them, and in doing so, dramatically decrease your other trauma-related symptoms.
No More Nightmares details a new and effective way to manage nightmares and traumatic stress-related dreams. I have used Dr. Dexter’s book and dream interventions successfully with a number of my clients, and many other therapists have as well. Retired Commander Dexter developed this intervention while working as a U.S. Navy psychologist, and has used it successfully with hundred of veterans and many others.
The premise of the book is detailed in the title of its first chapter: There is No Such Thing as a Bad Dream. In this chapter, Dr. Dexter describes her own dream experiences and how she came upon this way of healing trauma. She describes and explains that REM dreams are a way of memory reprocessing and consolidation, if they are working correctly. She notes that nightmares occur when the trauma has gotten “stuck” and the reprocessing doesn’t happen. Dr. Dexter’s dream intervention offers a way for you to change the content of your dreams to help your brain resolve the memories they come from.
Dr. Dexter’s book teaches you not to be afraid of your nightmares, but to see them as messages about unresolved trauma and opportunities to change how your brain is processing trauma memories. She details exactly how to do this in chapter 2. Her planned dream intervention involves writing your dream down, especially what was happening when you woke up. She then describes how you can write an ending to the dream that can offer resolution to the trauma memory if you use it in a certain way.
It sounds simple, doesn’t it? It is, once you are able to incorporate some important considerations. The rest of the book details these, and offers many examples of dream interventions that her clients have successfully used. For example, in later chapters she describes “The Importance of NOT Censoring,” the significance of emotional volume, and other problems people come across in using the intervention (and how to get around them).
Though not everyone has the discipline to follow through with this intervention on their own, in my experience, those that do see a significant improvement in their nightmares and in their other trauma symptoms. I have found it incredibly useful and use it often with my clients.
I work with many individuals who are on the path of emotional healing and recovery. If you live in Colorado and would like to work with me, feel free to check out my website at www.arborcounseling.com and/or give me a call to set up a free consultation at 970-698-6488, or click the link below to message me.