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Sleep and Nightmares. Remembering disturbing images when you’re sleeping or having nightmares can disrupt your sleep. Trying to control when your mind does this can leave you frustrated and distressed. However, you can experience painful thoughts, feelings, and images differently. And in doing so, you can move toward better sleep that leaves you feeling rested and restored.

Now that you’re armed with skills for sleeping better, below are some steps that might help you turn nightmares into dreams. You may return to this page and continue the process by following the next step or steps. You may also work through any of the steps in any order that works for you.

Step 1: When you sleep, your mind sometimes generates painful images linked with thoughts or feelings. A posttraumatic stress injury can also cause distressing images during sleep.

You can change painful images that occur during sleep. Listen to the Draw an Image Exercise. You’ll learn that your mind generates images that don’t exist outside your head. You can’t recreate the images as your mind creates them. The images are often less powerful outside of you, but you can change and transform them.

Step 2: Nightmares are stories the mind tells you when you’re asleep. You might experience images, intense thoughts, and feelings when you have a nightmare. Nightmares can arise from thoughts and activities that occur when you’re awake. Often, nightmares incorporate vivid, intense, and distorted images that can interrupt sleep and cause behaviors like feeling anxiety, anger, or sadness.

Do you have nightmares that cause you pain? One way you can begin to experience the story of your nightmare differently is to take a different perspective when telling your story. You can try it out by listening to the Tell the Story of Your Nightmare exercise.

Step 3: Whether you’re awake or asleep, your mind constantly generates images that might be positive or negative or do not evoke any particular thought or feeling. If you experience painful thoughts, feelings, or images, mindfulness training can help you recognize how your mind works to provide you with endless content. How often do racing thoughts keep you awake at night? Would you like to try something different so racing thoughts do not prevent you from getting the sleep you need?

One way to begin and explore how your mind generates images is to engage in an exercise, Mindfulness and Images.

Mindfulness training can also help when racing thoughts keep you awake at night. The Racing Thoughts exercise shows you how mindfulness can be more helpful than a strategy of trying to control your thoughts.