Treating Nightmares, and Working with the Unconscious
Treating Nightmares, and Working with the Unconscious I don’t interpret the symbols of dreams for therapeutic purposes. However, the emotions of dreams can be very useful for significant healing. There is a lot we don’t know about dreams in the scientific community, but the general theory is that dream content is synthesized from material already within the brain. This happens most during rapid eye movement (REM) sleep, where it is thought that information is integrated into long-term memory. The material might be new, or it might be very old, and can include cognitive content (details) and emotional content. The various images thrown together on the dream stage can be pleasurable, boring, frustrating, embarrassing, or terrifying. They might be random, or the brain may create images to help integrate an emotional memory without attached cognitive details. Some nightmares happen sporadically, and the fear fades quickly after you wake up. These dreams do not necessarily implicate unpro