Has anyone tried EMDR?

First off, to any mods, if this is in the wrong forum, please feel free to move it. Also, what I'm going to talk about may be a little uncomfortable for some.

I had my first EMDR session with my therapist today and I'm having kind of an unusual reaction. Or maybe it's normal, I'm not sure. If anyone doesn't know what I'm talking about, you're not alone because I probably don't know what I'm talking about either. (HA I am SO funny!) Anyway, EMDR is this therapy where you just talk about things that make you anxious while holding on to two pads, one in each hand, that vibrate alternately. Apparently it's supposed to stimulate each side of the brain to get them working in tandem so you can connect things from both sides and understand what's really causing your anxiety. Or something.

What happened was this: I was talking about how when I was a boy I had an intense fear of severe weather, like strong thunderstorms, because I was afraid a tornado would come and wreck our house. After a while this got me to thinking about a female friend of mine who is really into severe weather. She's done training to be a storm spotter, and she can tell you if rain is coming by looking at the clouds and identifying which could develop into storms.

Now where is this leading you ask? Well it reminded me of a dream I had sometime last night or early this morning where this friend and I were showering together. I don't remember much more than that; I do have a fleeting memory of how I kept telling her we were just friends but I was still touching her every chance I got. I can't recall if this led to us doing anything *ahem* that consenting adults would do. Now this is a friend who while I could never be romantically involved with (actually, she's said on occasion she thinks she may be a lesbian, but she's never quite figured it out,) but I am definitely physically attracted to her. When I drive home I go past her place and more than once I've fantasized about being over there when her roommate isn't there, and we wind up doing you-know-what. Not that I would ever want to do that. I've never been the kind of guy to just sleep with someone I wasn't in a relationship with. I had a couple opportunities in college and I just couldn't do it. And I could certainly never do a "friends with benefits" thing.

So anyway, once I remembered that dream during the therapy session, it was like I had taken a Vivarin or something. I got excited, but not in a "va-va-voom!" way. I mean I wasn't aroused and filled with an urge to procreate as soon as possible.... but I did have a lot of energy as if I did feel that way. Do you know what I mean? I'm probably not explaining this very well. I guess I'll just say it: it was like I had all the energy of being "horny" except I wasn't. I just feel stimulated somehow. It's like that feeling I sometimes get where I feel hyper and dead tired at the same time. I'm not anxious or afraid, just energized. It's weird.

I hope this doesn't freak anyone out or anything, I just had to talk about it. I was going to try to write some sort of love scene for one of my stories to try to dispel the energy but I felt like it would be better to talk about it in a forum like this where I could just say what was happening. I feel a little more relaxed now so it must have helped.

I haven't had EMDR, but have heard of it for PTSD. I suppose you affected something deep in the session, not so freaky to my mind.
I hope you go on to get the progress from it that you need.

Max Payne, I had a course of it EMDR for PTSD.
I found my dreams changed a bit after... One of the images used in this therapy still haunts from time to time. Since some of my trauma is sexual in nature I can not relate to your experience other than to say my dreams did change.

Did they change for the better?

My dreams changed and went deeper into the problem I have... which may be good. As it seems they were blocked.

I think it would be useful for me to do another set of sessions. So I will discuss this with the therapist I did this with when I relocate.

It should be noted I used pulsing instead of lights.

I did, I don't remember it affecting my dreams though. Really just the therapist trying to get me to remember my past and create a different view on negative memories. At one point I was worried that the memories weren't real, kind of decided it didn't matter if I could create a different view of said memory. I thought it was working. My therapist moved to a different county that was to far away for me to continue seeing him, so I stopped. Didn't feel like going through the same memories with a new therapist so never tried again.

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Yes , I have EMDR and do well with it. I dream more now after EMDR , research suggests it might be linked to REM sleep I believe. My T always says there's no right or wrong with it. Nothing freaky about what you're experiencing at all and I'm glad you feel better for talking about it , hope you will tell your T too as it seems to be getting to stuff , which is difficult ( I know ! ) but good.

Thing is now whenever I talk to the woman who was in the dream I get a little "revved up" because my male ego remembers said dream... feel like I'm 18 again or something.