Educational reference
About this symptom
Distressing dreams after trauma often replay the event, or its emotional core, in a form that is recognisable even when the details differ. People wake frightened, sometimes disoriented, and frequently with physical symptoms: racing heart, sweating, difficulty getting back to sleep.
They are among the more disruptive features of post-traumatic stress, because they undermine sleep at precisely the point where sleep would help. Some people begin to fear going to bed, which compounds the problem.
Nightmares also occur outside trauma: in anxiety and depression, during illness or fever, with alcohol and some medications, and after withdrawal from others. Frequent nightmares can also occur without any of these.
They are treatable. Trauma-focused psychological therapies address them as part of the wider picture, and specific approaches exist for recurrent nightmares. Worth raising with a health professional rather than tolerating.