Nightmare First-Aid (video)

Everyone dreams, and everyone has nightmares. Children and adolescents tend to have more nightmares than adults, but they can strike at any time, leaving us wide awake in the middle of the night, heart pounding in fear.

When I wrote my book on nightmares, What To Do When Dreams Go Bad, I included in it a “nightmare survival kit”: a list of several things you can do beginning at the moment you wake from a nightmare, to soothe your nervous system as well as your fears. Nightmares carry many different meanings, and working with them intentionally and creatively can lead to life-changing insights.

In this short video, I go through the steps listed in my book for how to respond to nightmares, and getting the most out of what they have to tell us.