Imagery Rehearsal Therapy To Treat Nightmares

Nightmares cause fear and anguish, and people often wake up completely terrified of them. However, when they become chronic, they can significantly affect a person’s sleep quality. They can even affect their performance during the day. In this connection, Imagery Rehearsal Therapy (IRT), which can be translated directly into imaging therapy in Norwegian, is one of the most effective techniques for treating this condition.

Who has not had a nightmare at some point in life? As you can see, this is a well known phenomenon. It is in fact a non-pathological phenomenon that does not lead to any problems beyond the experience of dreams. However, when these unpleasant dreams recur, they qualify as a sleep disorder.

In the most important diagnostic classification manuals, nightmares are a parasomnia which means that dreams that cause intense fear appear repeatedly. They usually appear during the REM phase and the content threatens the person in some way.

Chronic nightmares affect a person’s sleep quality significantly. They cause fear of the dark and insomnia in those who experience them. It is also likely that the person will develop behaviors that prevent sleep, such as leaving the light on or sleeping at irregular times.

What causes nightmares?

There is not enough scientific knowledge to determine what is the cause and origin of nightmares. However, researchers have discovered some factors that influence the repeated occurrence of the.

• Nightmares are more common in children and to a lesser extent in teenagers. They are part of their growth process and tend to disappear over time.

• They also appear more often in periods when someone suffers from high psychosocial stress. In this situation, nightmares are a way of dealing with the situation. By presenting the cause of the stress in the dreams, the person can explore different ways to take care of it.
• In some cases, they are linked to other disorders such as anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
• Finally, people who have trouble controlling their emotions properly will experience nightmares more often.

What is Imagery Rehearsal Therapy ?

Imagery Rehearsal Therapy is one of the most researched procedures. It offers the best results when it comes to treating nightmares. This is because it is a cognitive technique that is based on modifying the content of our dreams.

Thus, the goal here is to prove change some details about the nightmare. This is because the goal is to turn them into nice stories. In this way, one can take control of and change what is happening in a dream.

Imagery Rehearsal Therapy  step by step

1. Modify the faith

First, change any beliefs you may have about nightmares. You must also embrace the idea that nightmares are not out of your control, but rather an acquired habit you can change.

Thus, you must understand that as soon as nightmares have occurred, they are no longer useful and have no purpose. Thus, it is time to go face to face with them and change them so that they become more enjoyable.

2. Visualization

The next step is to evaluate a person’s ability to imagine vivid scenarios. To do this, the therapist can ask them to practice visualizing pleasant images in their head. Thus, these techniques are useful for controlling unpleasant images that appear during this practice.

Address a nightmare

At this point, the therapist asks the person to choose the nightmare they want to work on. They have to write a story about it. Then they encourage their patient to change all the content they want, and then rewrite it. They need to describe this new sequence of images in detail.

Finally, the patient is asked to spend between 5 and 20 minutes a day mentally reviewing their changed history. The goal here is to transfer this version while they are awake so that it continues inside their dreams.

Successful Imagery Rehearsal Therapy

The nightmares improve quickly with results that you can maintain over time if you practice the exercises enough and stay consistent. Your sleep quality will also improve, in addition to which the discomfort associated with the nightmares you experience will be reduced.