Nightmares and trauma: a comparison of nightmares after combat with lifelong nightmares in veterans
Abstract
In this study the chronic traumatic nightmares of men who had been in combat were found to differ from the lifelong nightmares of veterans with no combat experience in that they tended to occur earlier in the sleep cycle, were more likely to be replicas of actual events, and were more commonly accompanied by gross body movements. Traumatic nightmares may arise out of varying stages of sleep and are not confined to REM sleep alone. The group with lifelong nightmares showed evidence of thought disorder on the Rorschach. The men with posttraumatic stress disorder had failed to psychologically integrate their traumatic experiences and used dissociation as a way of dealing with strong affects.
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Information acquired during phase 1 is highly resistant to develop reconstructive errors over time.
“it appears that information acquired during phase 1, which is when there would be the most intense activation of hippocampal and amygdala neuroplasticity, is highly resistant to develop reconstructive errors over time (van der Kolk et al. [329]; van der Kolk [176]; Koss et al. [330]).”
From The Temporal Dynamics Model of Emotional Memory Processing: A Synthesis on the Neurobiological Basis of Stress-Induced Amnesia, Flashbulb and Traumatic Memories, and the Yerkes-Dodson Law (2007) · cites this paper as van der Kolk et al. [329]
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- Authors
- van der Kolk, B. A., Blitz, R., Burr, W., Sherry, S., & Hartmann, E.
- Affiliations
- Massachusetts Mental Health Center (US)
- Venue
- American Journal of Psychiatry
- Published
- 1984-02-01
- Volume
- 141
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 187-190
- ISSN
- 0002-953X (ISSN-L)
- 1535-7228
- OpenAlex
- W122618005
- Cited by
- 305
- References
- 0
- Citations by year
- 2026: 2 · 2025: 1 · 2024: 4 · 2023: 3 · 2022: 6 · 2021: 1 · 2020: 5 · 2019: 7 · 2018: 6 · 2017: 11 · 2016: 3 · 2015: 5 · 2014: 6 · 2013: 8 · 2012: 7
- FWCI
- 10.06
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- American Journal of Psychiatry (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Research
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Sleep and related disorders
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Sleep and Wakefulness Research
- Keywords
- nightmares, veterans, post-traumatic stress disorder, sleep cycles, REM sleep, dissociation
- MeSH terms
- Combat Disorders, Dissociative Disorders, Dreams, Humans, Male, Movement, Personality, Psychiatric Status Rating Scales, Rorschach Test, Sleep Stages, Sleep, REM, Stress Disorders, Post-Traumatic
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