"Nightmare Blessings" Featuring Anxiety & Avoidance

I have found few things more common in my practice than avoidance.  It’s normal to avoid pain and denial can be very tempting, thinking if I turn away from what is happening, what I’m feeling, things will improve.  Unfortunately, often things just keep getting worse with this approach bringing us the literal or wakeful nightmares we tried so hard to sidestep.  I can think of only a few times in my life when denial worked out, such as when I drove around with a cracked windshield pretending I wouldn’t have to fix it.  Amazingly, denial worked out in this scenario.  Upon finishing a round of golf, I returned to my car finding the windshield in my front seat compliments to another golfers wayward drive - “FORE!”  His insurance picked up the tab and I had a new windshield.  If only life worked out like this more often, but it doesn’t.    


I learned a powerful lesson related to avoidance while studying at Indiana University.  Over the course of a few years, I continued having a recurrent nightmare that was truly terrifying for me at that time in my life.  It was a lucid dream so I knew that I was dreaming, had a little sense of control over what was happening, nothing is out of place or distorted in the room, making it all the more real.  A dark shadowy shimmering figure would descend from the ceiling, slowly making its way down toward me, and the room was filled with deafening sounds like standing next to a freight train as it passed in the night.  I interpreted the figure “judgmentally” as something evil which was likely an important element of what made the nightmare so terrifying.  Each time I had this dream I would frantically attempt to wake myself, sometimes flipping on my side to only realize I was still deep in the dream.  Turning myself from side to side until I woke from the dream with my heart pounding, mind racing, and flooded with intense fear.  This repeated so many times I began dreading going to sleep on some nights, worried I would have the nightmare.


The breakthrough for me came when out of desperation to try something different, I decided I wasn’t going to wake myself the next time it happened.  I told myself, “Chad, I’m just going to lay there, look the shadow in the eye and ask “it” what it wants.”  I don’t remember having the courage to follow through with asking “it” what it wants, but I do remember laying there making no effort to wake myself as the shadow figure descended on me and began to enter my body for the first time.  I had never let it get that close previously.  The fear reached a 10/10, the sound had never been louder, and then “POOF,” in an instance it was the first time I just woke up naturally from the dream, with a sense of calm.


I never had the dream again.


From my own life experiences, training - what I have learned about psychology and mental health, my dream experience makes a lot of sense to me now.  There is a large body of research related to trauma and anxiety, and we now know that avoidance is what differentiates someone who quickly works through trauma over a few weeks or months and those who continue to have symptoms and flashbacks for several years in some cases.  Those with ongoing symptoms usually have complex avoidance strategies.  In a similar way - I have little doubt that if I had continued to frantically make efforts to wake myself, I would still be having that nightmare today, over 20 years later.


The fear complex needs "resistance" for oxygen, when provided no resistance, the dream amplified sensations to encourage avoidance by pushing it away, but when staying the course and “just noticing,” the dream provided a final burst of intense fear that proved to be its extinction - similar to what we would call an extinction burst in behavioral psychology with a parent ignoring a child throwing a most fantastic temper tantrum that just gets more and more embarrassing until the child finally realizes there will be NO reaction, no matter how hard it might be for the parent to do so.   


A wonderful metaphor related to this topic, “It’s always darkest right before dawn.”


There are exposure therapies such as Prolonged Exposure Therapy & EMDR that treat trauma symptoms with very much the same idea.  You tell your traumatic story so many times that eventually you become “bored” with it.  It’s very hard for individuals to do this in the beginning, because the sensations, thoughts, and emotions are so intense.  However, if they trust the process, accept a little encouragement from their therapist to keep going - staying the course, there is a calm that develops as the trauma loses its energy, and as stated previously, there is a shift from terror to boredom developing as one tells the same story over and over.    


I have had many clients in my office desperately trying to stop what the diagnostic community has labeled panic attacks.  The part no one ever wants to initially hear is what has already been implied, stop avoiding it.  Sitting with clients, it can be helpful to validate how difficult it must be while also explaining how avoidance and fear work together, and encourage clients to work towards not pushing away whatever is there, even though it’s going to be very hard.  Clients who are willing to participate almost always return reporting the anxiety was reduced, and feeling grateful they went into a feeling of darkness despite being deeply uncomfortable.  I have also observed acceptance prayers to be helpful in this area, not asking for the experience to stop which would be another form of avoidance, but asking for the strength to cope with the hardship.


We also know that panic attacks have never killed anyone, and are not dangerous by themselves.  However, it should be noted it’s not recommended for someone experiencing active suicidal thoughts to engage in exposure when working with trauma.  Trauma history and panic attacks are commonly experienced together.  Learning distress tolerance skills can be helpful until the appropriate time to engage in exposure work.


Coming back to avoidance, mindfulness principles that we have discussed in previous blogs work very much the same way.  Often we don’t want to be mindful, we don’t want to sit with our anger, jealousy, sadness, fear, or tension.  However, whatever we can’t accept and be fully present with remains magnetically drawn toward us until we are ready to give our attention.  When we actively process with a therapist or friend, acknowledge, accept, and stay present with whatever is there we can often go beyond it.


In closing, shifting our focus from avoidance to curiosity allows energy to be freed up for other uses.  Our literal or wakeful nightmares can become interesting, they can be guides, sources of information, feedback, and wisdom to help us move beyond obstacles.  When I look back on my Nightmare I believe it was trying to help me.  I had become overly avoidant at that time in my life, and the dream was likely mirroring that lesson for me over and over until I found an effective way to navigate a life obstacle that was very much like other life obstacles in my outer life.  I am grateful to my psyche for that dream - I remember that being one of the many turning points in my life that was helpful in getting me on a better track.


I hope you enjoyed this short blog related to Anxiety, Avoidance, and Nightmares.  Please comment with your own wisdom, struggles, and victory’s in these areas.  Shame and fear thrive in shadows of secret - mindful curiosity, acknowledgment, and a non-judgmental stance can bring peace and free up a lot of productive energy.

Chad Randall, M.Ed. LPC, CCDP-D
Elephant Rock Counseling
​Kirkwood, MO