Medications like prazosin are sometimes used to treat nightmares in people with PTSD. Therapy usually helps to deal with the frightening themes of the nightmares and alleviate the recurrence of the dreams. The persistent nightmares will usually improve as the patient gets older. Therapy is usually efficient to treat chronic nightmares in PTSD disorder or in other population. Medication has shown efficacy to treat chronic nightmares among a PTSD population but the impact of pharmacological treatments on other populations, such as drug-related nightmares, are unknown. Furthermore, patients usually take more than one medication at a time, whatever the cause related to nightmares, leading to possible interactive effects.Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) has demonstrated a significant nightmares reduction, especially for the treatment of PTSD. Silver, Brooks and Obenchain have found a decrease of the nightmares with Vietnam War veterans after 90 days of EMDR. Jayatunge has found significant results with people who have survived to a tsunami. Greenwald has successfully used the EMDR with children. There wasnt any negative consequence due to the EMDR sessions. Imagery rehearsal therapy has been shown as efficient to treat nightmare disorder in PTSD as well as in non PTSD populations. In this treatment, the person has to write a new scenario of the nightmare with positive images that will be rehearsed during 10 to 20 minutes per day, in order to change the negative content of the nightmare. Cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBT-I) is also efficient to treat nightmares in the PTSD population.
Upon awakening, the sleeper is usually alert and oriented within their surroundings, but may have an increased heart rate and symptoms of anxiety, like sweating. They may have trouble falling back to sleep for fear they will experience another nightmare. A person experiencing nightmare disorder may have trouble going through everyday tasks; anxiety and lack of sleep caused by the fearful dreams may hinder the individual from completing everyday tasks efficiently and correctly. Upon experiencing this, these nightmare sufferers may consult with a psychiatrist. The sleeper may have recurring episodes of awakening while recalling the intensely disturbing dream manifestations which usually result from fear or anxiety, but can also be triggered by anger, sadness, disgust, and other dysphoric emotions. Additionally, the sleeper may experience at least one of the following two features: delayed return of going back to sleep after episodes, and having episodes in the latter half of the sleep period. Consequences
Nightmare disorder is common: it affects about 4% of the adult population. Even if children have more nightmares than adults, only 1% of children meet the criteria of the disorder. Nightmare disorder can impair the quality of life for people who are affected by the condition. It can make the patient avoid sleep, which leads to sleep deprivation, which in turn may lead to even more intense nightmares. Some other consequences of the nightmare disorder are fatigue and insomnia.Nightmare disorders have negative consequences on several aspects of the patients life, such as sleep, cognitive and emotional functioning and well-being.