Hostname: page-component-cc8bf7c57-8cnds Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-12T07:49:30.887Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Post-traumatic nightmares as a dysfunctional state

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 September 2001

Tore A. Nielsen  and
Anne Germain
Tore A. Nielsen
Affiliation:
Sleep Research Center, Hôpital de Sacré-Coeur de Montréal, Montréal, Québec, Canada H4J 1C5; Psychiatry Department, Université de Montréal, Québec, [email protected]
Anne Germain
Affiliation:
Sleep Research Center, Hôpital de Sacré-Coeur de Montréal, Montréal, Québec, Canada H4J 1C5; Psychiatry Department, Université de Montréal, Québec, [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

That PTSD nightmares are highly realistic threat simulations triggered by trauma is difficult to reconcile with the disturbed, sometimes debilitating sleep and waking functioning of PTSD sufferers. A theory that accounts for fundamental forms of imagery other than threat scenarios could explain the selection of many more adaptive human functions – some still pertinent to survival today. For example, interactive characters, a virtually ubiquitous form of dream imagery, could be simulations of attachment relationships that aid species survival in many different ways.

[Revonsuo]

Type
Brief Report
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 23 , Issue 6 , December 2000 , pp. 978 - 979
Copyright
© 2000 Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)