Introduction
If you google ‘how to stop nightmares’ or even use an AI generator like ChatGPT, you get a smorgesborg of solutions for nightmares. These include diet, relaxation, sleep hygiene, and usually Image Rehearsal Therapy or Nightmare Rescripting. Learn more about common nightmare treatments and their effectiveness.How do we determine what are the most effective nightmare treatments in light of this information? This article is going to examine the most well researched options, including Image Rehearsal Therapy (IRT) and nightmare rescripting, but crucially indicate the problems and shortcomings of these treatments. Indeed it is these shortcomings that led me to start my PhD back in 2013, and create The Dream Completion Technique (found at www.stopnightmares.org) to provide the most comprehensive and holistic approach to the problem of nightmares.
Old Nightmare Treatments
There are many variations on a theme, which is around providing sufferers with the command to ‘change their dream any way they want’, without providing much guidance, nor explantion for why they are having bad dreams or nightmares in the first place. This usually also includes exposure to existing nightmares through writing them down, which for people experiencing PTSD nightmares can be very triggering and unsafe. See medication alternatives for those who find these approaches difficult. These technique are also based on working ‘one nightmare at a time’ and can only be used with fixed, replicating nightmares. Whatever the new ‘ending’ for the dream is envisioned, the sufferer is required to write out a complete new script, and then read it several times per day.
These treatments are often used in 1:1 or group therapy contexts, and because of the exposure and lack of psycho-education perspectives, often result in high drop out. A more exhaustive analysis of these methods, and the many research papers and RCT’s that have been conducted can be found in my post-PhD research paper on my website www.justinhavens.com.
Common instructions for Nightmare Exposure and Rescripting
Exposure and rescripting are techniques that can help you to regain control over nightmares and bad dreams. Exposure – We can make situations less fearful by confronting our fears. Imagine your nightmare is a movie script, that it has a beginning, middle, and end. Write down the story of what happens in your nightmare and read it through often.
You can write it in words, or draw it out like a comic strip. Rescripting. We can’t change events that have happened in our lives, but we can change the stories we tell about them. Nightmares are just a story about something that has happened, and our minds ‘play’ that story at night as if it’s a video. If we change the story in important and memorable ways we can encourage our minds to play a different video. Follow these instructions for your nightmares. You may need do it multiple times if there are lots of important moments. Once you have rescripted your nightmare it is important to rehearse the new version so your mind will remember it while asleep.
The Dream Completion Technique and why it is different?
The Dream Completion Technique (DCT) has been developed, researched and refined by UK Psychotherapist and EMDR Consultant Dr Justin Havens.
Dr Havens’s original 2018 empirical research demonstrated that the technique is an acceptable, effective and safe intervention with Veterans of HM Armed Forces across the UK, with Veterans achieving positive changes in sleep quality, and reductions in nightmares and PTSD symptoms.
The research suggested that the DCT has great potential as a low-risk, light touch intervention that can be safely deployed with those experiencing trauma-related nightmares in both Veteran and civilian populations.
The DCT is becoming widely used across the UK in the NHS as well as in the private sector, aided by Dr Havens’s provision of easy-to-access materials online http://tiny.cc/stopnightmaresnow. An RCT within an NHS IAPT service in the North of England has received NHS ethical approval in 2022 and is planned to end in March 2026.
The fundamental differences between Dream Completion and other approaches are as follows:
Dream Completion provides a clear rationale for why we dream, have nightmares and how to get back to peaceful sleep.
Dream Completion doesnt require exposure to previous nightmare content.
Dream Completion provides clear guidance on the importance of the ‘good gut feel’ in creating dream ideas that will enable the dreaming process to continue without being woken up.
Dream Completion can be used on all types of nightmare: PTSD, ideopathic, fixed, changing, no dream recall, which makes it a comprehensive and holistic approach.
Dream Completion is a learned skill that can be applied to present and future nightmares and sleep disturbance – it is providing a skill for life so that nightmares should never be a problem again.
The goal of Dream Completion is peaceful sleep, and resetting the sleep cycle, rather than addressing a single nightmare.
Dream Completion does not require extensive or repetitive practice – once a new dream idea has been created and the nightmare sufferer has ‘connected’ with it, this is usually sufficient.
If initial use of Dream Completion is only partially or not effective at all, clear guidance on how to resolve the nightmares and get sleep back on track is provided.
