Dr Michelle Dickinson: nanotechnologist on the new therapy method for treating kids with nightmares

For 1 in 6 children with mental health challenges, being too scared to fall asleep knowing that terrifying nightmares await is a daily reality. 

Research published in the journal Frontiers in Sleep this week offers new hope with a new therapy showing a reduction in the frequency and distress caused by nightmares, which helped the children to sleep more peacefully through the night. 

Children who suffer from nightmares often dread going to sleep and sleep poorly which can make them tired and irritable during the day and lead to behavioural problems. 

1. First each child received a box containing “boggle goggles” that simulate the effects of sleep deprivation and fabric pens to decorate pillowcases with happy thoughts they want to dream about. 

2 .Cognitive behavioural therapy was combined with relaxation strategies, mindfulness, stress management, and visualisation to help children reshape their dream patterns. 

3. The children were taught that they have the power to control their dreams and asked to create plans for 'changing the channel' if a nightmare occurs, helping them return to sleep calmly. 

The trial involved 46 children aged 6 to 17, all of whom had experienced persistent nightmares for at least six months. 

The results found: 

Significant reductions in nightmares and their associated distress. 

Improved ability to sleep through the night. 

A decrease in suicidal thoughts tied to nightmares, a crucial finding given the known link between nightmares and youth suicidality. 

While five children in each group reported suicidal thoughts at the start of the trial, only one child in the therapy group reported these thoughts at the end, compared to four in the control group. The study’s success was the first time a randomised clinical trial was used to test a nightmare therapy for children rather than adults and marks an exciting leap in children’s mental health care. By addressing nightmares directly, this therapy opens up new possibilities for improving the lives of children and their families.  

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Sunday Session podcast with Francesca Rudgin
from News Talk SEDB.

Speaker 2 (00:13):
It is time for our science study of the weekend.
I'm joined by doctor Micheldakin. Think of Morning, Good morning,
and new therapy is bringing some hope for kids with
chronic nightmares.

Speaker 3 (00:22):
Yeah, and what I loved about this So this is
published this week in the journal Frontiers in Sleep. It's
an open source journal. You can go and read it.
I will do a cover. It's a hard paper to read,
and I'll tell you why later. But a lot of
the things that they learn in this study are transferable
to every child who has a nightmare. They've got some
really lovely solutions.

Speaker 1 (00:41):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (00:42):
So this study was specifically about children who have what
are called chronic nightmares. And for this study, they took
forty six children who were aged between six and seventeen
who have persistent nightmares and have done for at least
six months. Some of them have been having these nightmares
four years. And a lot of these children have a
lot of challenges in the day because they're not sleeping
at night, so they have behavioral challenges in the day

(01:03):
because they just exhausted, and most of the said, they're
petrified to go to sleep because they know as soon
as they go to sleep, it's going to be a
horrible traumatic experience. So this study, and it's the first
time a study like this has been done on children.
Mostly nightmare research has done on adults. This is the
first child's study, had a really simple way of dealing

(01:25):
with the nightmares with the children that I think anybody
can take some ideas from and had a huge positive effect.
So the first thing they did is they gave all
of the children a box, a gift box, and inside
this gift box were a few things. One of them
was fabric pens, and they said to the children, here
appends that you can draw on your pillowcase. I want

(01:47):
you to think about the best, nicest dreams you could
possibly have and draw those images on your pillowcase. So
if you do have a nightmare and you open your eyes,
the first thing you see is something pleasant and something
lovely that you can think about. And the second thing
they had is these things called boggle goggles. And boggle
goggles are goggles that you put on that sort of

(02:07):
make your image fuzzy, and it's sort of like how
you see the world when you're tired. What it did
is taught the consequences of if you're not sleeping properly,
this is the consequence you have in the day you
feel tired. Things are a bit blurry to give them
a sense of the effect of poor sleep at night.
Actually is what's happened to you in the day. They're
connected because some children are struggling in the day and
not realizing that it was the lack of sleep. So

(02:28):
that was number one, and a physical box with things
number two. They went through cognitive behavior therapy and relaxation strategies.
So actually, if you're stressed out, how do you control
your breathing? Things you can do to help control things
to calm yourself down. So if you do wake up
you're on your own, you can do something immediately to
calm your body down. And the third thing, and this
is the thing that the children hadn't felt before, is

(02:49):
they taught them that they have the power to control
their dreams. And what they did is they made them
write down a plan to what they called change the channel.
So what is the dream that you want to have,
write it out, know it really well. And if you
are having a nightmare, I know that you have the
control to change the channel with your brain and go

(03:09):
straight to the dream that you actually want to have
versus what you're having. And that they said was the
most significant thing. Actually, the children for the first time
felt more in control of their sleep than they had
ever done before. And what happened, well, these simple three
things that many of us could teach our children at home.
Massive reduction in nightmares, massive reduction in the associated distress

(03:30):
with nightmares, huge increasibility of the children be able to
sleep through the night. And this is important now. These
children in this study, these children were challenging children. They
had typically had a mental health challenge. A lot of
them had post traumatic stress. They had witnessed something or
had something happened to them that was significant. There were

(03:52):
views of violent deaths in their neighborhood, or a family
member dying, or just horrific things. If you are going
to read this paper the things some of these children
had gone through, just be prepared. It's pretty hard. And
one in five of the children in this study at
the beginning of the study had reported suicidal thoughts at
the beginning because they didn't see any point in going on.

(04:13):
They were so tired, they were so afraid of sleeping
just in the point. By the end of this study,
only one of all of the forty six children in
the study actually reported any suicidal thoughts at the end
of it, which is a huge significance. The children in
this study are at high risk of self harm, which
is why this study focused on these very high risk children.

(04:35):
And when you look at the significant impact of these
kids and you go, hold on, all kids have nightmares.
What is it like to have a fabric pen in
your drawer so they can draw on their pillow? What
is it like to actually teach them that they can
change the channel and just go with them and say, hey,
if you had the best dream in the world, let's
write it down and put it on your walls so
you've got a change channel paper. It was just a
beautiful study. But yeah, if you are going to read it,

(04:56):
it's in front is the sleep just warning. Yeah, the
things that these kids have gone through is hard.

Speaker 2 (05:01):
But as you say those tips you've given, I mean
even just sometimes as the adults, we've got to remember
that we can check to the channel, can't we. That's wonderful.
Thank you so much, Michelle.

Speaker 1 (05:10):
For more from the Sunday Session with Francesca Rudkin. Listen
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