[Tbtg1510]

Has anyone had bad dreams after their sessions? I'm waking up with nightmares and not sure why.

[brillskep]

I'm sorry you're dealing with nightmares - that can be very tough sometimes. I hope you can figure it out soon!

Yes, it happened to me maybe a couple of months ago, after an intense and very honest session. I dreamed about being in danger / almost dying in different ways for three nights in a row. I remember the dreams, but not the exact session, because I've had many intense sessions in the last few months, but my dreams did have to do with how I felt about some things after the session. Actually I believe it was right after the session when I started talking more about some very sensitive topics.

What I did was bring them up during the following session (luckily they stopped even before that - I played some relaxation music to help with it) and while telling my therapist about my dreams, I realized more positive things that changed from one night to another, so it was a sort of reframing the nightmares and finding the resources hidden inside of them.

So my experience is that bringing the nightmares to sessions can help make more sense of them. It may also be empowering, which can hopefully help to stop them or at least reduce/diminish them.

Sorry you're having nightmares! My t always says nightmares are just our psyche trying to get our attention.

[CantExplain]

Originally Posted by Tbtg1510

Has anyone had bad dreams after their sessions? I'm waking up with nightmares and not sure why.

Therapy certainly stirs the subconscious, and that is likely to affect your dreams.

[Tbtg1510]

Thanks everyone, this is helpful!