The Dream Completion Technique
The Dream Completion Technique was developed by Dr. Justin Havens, a psychological therapist who has extensive experience and training in the Counselling field, with EMDR, trauma and nightmares.
His PhD was focused on this brief and powerful intervention to resolve traumatic nightmares and disturbing dreams. The goal is to go from nightmares to peaceful sleep as soon as possible.
The technique is straightforward, easy to learn and you can start right away if you are an existing client. If you are a new client, just like any other issue that a client presents with, I still need to do a first session assessment, then we can proceed right away with helping you achieve some relief from relentless nightmares or disturbing dreams.
How It Works
Achieving success with resolving Nightmares involves some steps: investigation, understanding, creation of a new dream idea, implementation/ practice and follow-up.
Investigation
I will investigate by gathering information about your nightmares or sleep disturbance. I need to know basic information such as how often, severity, type of nightmare, when they started, if it is related to trauma and other relevant details. You will not have to go into details of the content of the nightmares.
Education
I will help you to understand the process by explaining basic concepts like the purpose of dreaming, human sleep cycles including REM and how a nightmare becomes a “stuck” dream which causes you to wake up which interrupts the sleep cycle. We will watch a 6 minute video to help explain the process to you.
A New Dream Idea
I will walk you through the process of creating new dream ideas to allow your dream work to complete. This will help to reset your sleep cycle, create more restful sleep and reduce or eliminate symptoms. If you do not remember your dream, we can still work with the emotions that are being evoked by the dream. Before the session is complete you will write down your new dream idea.
Implementation
The new dream idea has been developed and you have written it down. You will read it over just before you go to sleep with an intention that this is what you want to happen in your dream.
Follow-Up
In the next session we will review to determine if there has been an impact after implementing The Dream Completion Technique. Has there been full success, partial success or no success at all? If there is anything less than full success we will create a new dream idea that is more powerful or reinforce the current one to give it more power. You will be encouraged to keep going as it might take a number of nights to see results. If you are committed and are willing to practice (and not give up) then you will likely get results. You will begin to have power and control over your dreams. You become the Director of your Dreams!
Points To Keep In Mind
-
This is not about interpreting dreams. The mind is trying to process disturbing memories or events and you will just be creating new dream ideas.
-
Nightmares are dreams that have become “stuck” and have run out of ideas, so it never finishes processing and you wake up in fear. It can feel like a broken record and keeps repeating.
-
The goal is more restful and productive sleep by providing new dream ideas which enables the dream to complete.
-
You are going to determine: “What do I want to happen next in my dream that feels good?” Writing it down and reading it just before you go to sleep is important.
-
You regain power and control over your nightmares. You become The Dream Director!
What If My Nightmares Are Related To Past Trauma?
If your nightmares are related to past traumatic events, then we can combine Dream Completion with the Flash Technique which is a form of EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitizing Reprocessing). We can use Dream Completion to target the nightmare and Flash to target the trauma. We can also use Flash to target the nightmare and enhance it with Dream Completion. Bottom line is that Dream Completion and the EMDR Flash Technique can be used together beautifully.
Note: You can read more about the Flash technique under the link EMDR.