EMDR, or Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing, has been steadily growing in popularity, with both practitioners and patients touting this therapy’s efficacy to help people heal from anxiety, depression, and other mental health conditions. (1) Along with its mental health benefits, EMDR can have a surprising effect on your sleep — particularly your dreams.
EMDR helps people heal from trauma and painful memories by allowing the brain to “reprocess” experiences. First developed in 1987 by Dr. Francine Shapiro, it uses bilateral stimulation — a process that activates both sides of the brain — to desensitize someone to their difficult memories. While the body experiences this stimulation, a therapist helps the patient focus on a traumatic memory or experience. The stimulation can happen in different ways, including with eye movements (hence the name!), tapping, or even music played on alternating sides of the body.
Over time, EMDR can reduce the intensity of emotional distress, particularly for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). It’s also been linked to positive outcomes for a host of other conditions, including depression, anxiety, eating disorders, addiction, dementia, and more. (2) EMDR is now increasingly happening online, thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic — and it’s effective when practiced that way, too, research indicates. (3)
As more people try EMDR, lots of them have noticed a curious effect: incredibly weird, vivid dreams during and after treatment. This is a known side effect of EMDR. Why do you have these crazy dreams, though? It’s all connected to the overall way the EMDR works in the body and brain.
Although scientists don’t fully understand the exact mechanism of how EMDR works, one hypothesis is that it connects the two hemispheres of the brain. (4) The left brain is associated with language, logic, details, and sequential thinking. The right brain is associated with creativity, imagination, and emotion. During EMDR, both sides of the brain are activated simultaneously, which helps you integrate and process experiences more fully. After the EMDR experience, the brain is still processing information from the therapy session—that ongoing processing is thought to up the intensity of your dreams. Essentially, all that brain activity you’re doing in EMDR continues into your sleep, giving your dreams an intense and life-like quality.
The vivid dreams you might experience with EMDR are also connected to the REM (rapid eye movement) stage of sleep, the stage in which we dream. The right brain is especially active during this stage of sleep, helping us process feelings from the day. Overall, the intense dreams after EMDR result from your brain’s efforts to process and integrate traumatic memories, likely involving multiple brain regions and systems. (4)
Renée Zavislak, LMFT, a licensed marriage and family therapist who specializes in treating trauma (including PTSD and CTPSD) with EMDR and other modalities, explains: “When we are in REM sleep, our left brain uses the most accessible right brain snapshots to create a story. During EMDR, we deliberately go after some of the deeper trauma memories, metaphorically popping the lid off the neurological container where they are stored. After the EMDR session is concluded, our body continues this for a time, which means that additional trauma snapshots make their way out of the container but are not reprocessed. These “right brain escapees,” as I call them, become the content of our dreams.” The dreams may be related to the topic you were working on in EMDR, but they could also be completely random.
Zavislak says, ”In my experience, the most intense dreams happen the night after the first EMDR session,” but could stay vivid for as long as a few days after (or until the trauma or feeling you are working on in EMDR is fully “processed.” For some people, dreams will be particularly intense during the entire span of EMDR treatment (which is usually at least five sessions spread out over time).
If you’re interested in or currently receiving EMDR therapy, it’s reasonable to expect your dreams to be “particularly prickly during the EMDR process,” says Zavislak, who also hosts the podcast Psycho Therapist. She says you can expect relief from both your symptoms and any symptomatic dreams beginning the day after your EMDR treatment is completed.
If you know that having vivid or intense dreams is disruptive to your life, you can plan ahead to optimize your sleep while undergoing EMDR. Head to bed a bit earlier, set your alarm for later, or focus in on a relaxing bedtime routine to make sure you get the best rest, no matter what dreams may pop up during the night.
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Sources
1. Gainer D, Alam S, Alam H, Redding H. A FLASH OF HOPE: Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) Therapy. Innov Clin Neurosci. 2020 Jul 1;17(7-9):12-20. PMID: 33520399; PMCID: PMC7839656.
2. Scelles C, Bulnes LC. EMDR as Treatment Option for Conditions Other Than PTSD: A Systematic Review. Front Psychol. 2021 Sep 20;12:644369. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.644369. PMID: 34616328; PMCID: PMC8488430.
3. Perri RL, Castelli P, La Rosa C, Zucchi T, Onofri A. COVID-19, Isolation, Quarantine: On the Efficacy of Internet-Based Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) and Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (CBT) for Ongoing Trauma. Brain Sci. 2021 Apr 30;11(5):579. doi: 10.3390/brainsci11050579. PMID: 33946179; PMCID: PMC8145551.
4. Patricia Novo Navarro, Ramón Landin-Romero, Rocio Guardiola-Wanden-Berghe, Ana Moreno-Alcázar, Alicia Valiente-Gómez, Walter Lupo, Francisca García, Isabel Fernández, Víctor Pérez, Benedikt L. Amann, “25 years of Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR): The EMDR therapy protocol, hypotheses of its mechanism of action and a systematic review of its efficacy in the treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder,” Revista de Psiquiatría y Salud Mental (English Edition), Volume 11, Issue 2, 2018, Pages 101-114, ISSN 2173-5050, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rpsmen.2015.12.002.
Zavislak, Renée. Author interview. November 2024.
