151 – What Causes Nightmares? Holistic ways to shift them

Welcome to the Frontline Herbalism Podcast with your host, Nicole Rose from the

Solidarity Apothecary.

This is your place for all things plants and

liberation.

Let's get started.

Hello. Welcome back to the Frontline Herbalism Podcast.

How are you doing? I'm doing good.

Not gonna lie a little bit premenstrual today, but that's okay.

Yeah, I'm on the last few days now of the herbalism PTSD and traumatic stress cause

promotion.

Oh my God. If you want to join it,

join it.

Please don't leave it to the last minute.

It just is such a like anxiety roller coaster financially.

But then people join on the last day and I'm like, phew.

But this literally happens like every time.

But yeah, like I've talked about it plenty.

It's a banging eight module course all about

trauma, nervous system physiology, different nervous system states, the politics of trauma,

and then just like all the dreamy herbal content, how to make medicine, how to harvest

sustainably,

how to sort of design your own like learning pathway as a herbalist and get involved in

different projects and stuff.

And then there's 32 in depth plant profiles of

herbs with an affinity for the nervous system.

With all my nuance and rants that you've heard on this podcast, but in a much more

structured, pretty format with my beautiful slides.

But yeah, I do think the course is really life changing.

I was putting together a testimonial post a couple of days ago and like had to reread a

bunch of testimonials which I still haven't put on the website.

And I just, I felt really emotional of like,

you know, in the digital world you don't always have that like face to face interaction

with people to kind of gauge the impact of what you're doing.

Like for me, I just feel like I'm just dropping my child off and then like running

around like a headless chicken, like getting stuff done.

And then you just reread these testimonials of people that are like,

you know, I keep returning to these resources or this is like one of the best herbalism

courses I've done.

Or you know, the resources are like super

organised or, or I've learned so much or now I've got a relationship with Rosemary or do

you know what I mean?

Like, it just,

it really ******* means a lot to me basically like what people have said about the course.

And yeah, like I'm just, I need to like remember the impact of it.

Does that make sense? Because I think I just get like lost in this,

like Promotion.

******* weird digital marketing land.

And it's like,

no, like, I literally ******* created it because I spent a long time dancing around a

million different resources and strategies of how the **** do I feel better with this pmt

that is like, pmt,

pmt. I. Like I said I'm feeling premature today, but this ptsd, which is just, like,

permeating every cell in my body,

like, how do I ******* escape from this cage of distress?

And the.

Obviously, like, not everyone that goes

through the course will, like, have that resolution.

But I just mean in this sense of, like,

having this information organised and having this insight and understanding of, like,

okay, I'm in fight or flight right now.

Like, I need to do this, this and this to help

to help me shift this state, or this is the herb I draw on, or I'm ******* run down and

depleted.

Which herbs can I make a tonic with to support myself?

Do you know what I mean? Like, all of these things that took me so long

to piece together because I couldn't find it in a clear resource.

Like, it's just there now.

And the fact that it's no one turned away for,

like, funds just means everything to me.

Like, I haven't had to lose my political

integrity by creating an offering that, like,

serves people.

So, like, please use the solidarity code.

If, like, finances are a barrier, like, that is what it's for.

And, you know, like, I get like a buzz every time someone joins.

You know, if they pay for work or start a payment plan, I get excited because I'm like,

amazing.

You know, that money can help with all the things, the packages, like reopening the Black

Flag Clinic, like, all of this stuff.

And then if people don't pay, I think, great,

like, I've just supported another working class person to, like, access this knowledge,

you know?

So,

anyway, yeah, last few days now, final push.

And then I can finally give all the other

things a bit of headspace.

I'm really doing a lot of thinking behind the scenes about the free clinic model.

And is it better to do it once a month rather than once a week?

Like, how can sort of students get more from it?

How can I have a more, like, structured relationship to it?

So it's not quite having the same impact on my livelihood and stuff.

I don't know, I'm just like, in a reflective mood at the moment.

So, yeah, watch this space.

And also,

once this course promotions out the way, I'm gonna be promoting all the other things,

aren't I? It's gonna be a merchandise extravaganza.

I'm determined to raise those money for the Mobile Herbal Clinic Calais,

and also for Black Flag.

We can have a beaut herbal bandana coming your

way soon,

actually.

Shout out if you're an illustrator and you'd

be up for sharing a design you've done or doing something bespoke for one of these

herbal projects.

Like, I would love you forever.

So,

yeah, please get in touch if that's something that resonates.

All right, I'm gonna stop talking now and.

Well, I'm not going to stop talking because

I'm about to record a longer podcast episode, but I'm going to be talking about nightmares.

Fun topic,

but, yeah, I'll pause here and then, yeah, let's get stuck into the show.

Okay,

so nightmares.

So I've actually already got a podcast episode about herbal support for Nightmares, where I

do go into some of this stuff.

So there's a little bit of repetition.

But that episode, like, specifically focused more on plants.

I'm going to obviously be talking about plant medicines today, but a bit like the rest of

the episodes around Insomnia and also the series before about, like, depletion is like,

I'm going to be looking at things, like, a bit more,

like, holistically in this, like,

bigger framework of, like, what are the kind of other factors that can be contributing to

nightmares? Because, again, it's not just a case of, like,

throw a herb at someone.

Like, it's much more complex.

So, yeah, the reason I'm really passionate about nightmares is, like, I struggled with

them a lot.

Like, after I got out of prison for what

honestly felt like years, I'd have the same recurring nightmare of being in a prison cell

and the walls just closing in on me and they would never,

like, completely crush me, but there was always this feeling of, like, I'm gonna

******* die in here.

And, like,

I cannot tell you how much of effect that had on my life.

Like, I would wake up in the mornings,

like, especially if I'd woken up from that nightmare, just feeling just so horrendous and

full of, like, panic and, you know, you have a kind of hangover that follows you through the

day.

Right. I mean, I was already, like, quite kind of in fight or flight a lot with, you know,

especially all the prisoner support work I was doing at the time.

But, like,

yeah, I think they made me kind of, like, fear going to sleep, but I would always kind of

pass out from just pure exhaustion from workaholism.

But, like,

yeah, they just made,

like, sleeping not be this, like, nourishing life giving thing that it should be and just

made them the nights feel kind of full of terror, if I'm honest.

And you know, I'd have all sorts of other nightmares of like I want to go into the

horrors but different things.

But it was, yeah, it was quite like the recurringness of it also felt like a bit of a

challenge, if that makes sense.

So yeah, I think nightmares, yeah, they're,

they're communicating something to us that there's like distress in the body and there

can be many different reasons and I'm going to talk about those in a second.

But I just want to kind of emphasise that like it is possible to shift them and it is

possible to get like good quality nourishing sleep that doesn't feel threatening, that is

resourcing and regenerative and like.

Yeah, like I have worked with a lot of like former prisoners and like other people who've

gone through trauma stuff that nightmares is like a big factor of why they've reached out

to me.

And like it is, yeah, it's basically just completely possible to shift them.

And I know people think that like their trauma is insurmountable and I totally understand

that and it can definitely feel like that when you're in the middle of it.

But I just want to reassure you that I do think it is possible to kind of work through

that kind of trauma and you know, sleep well.

And also not everyone has gone through gnarly

trauma to generate having nightmares.

And I'm going to talk about that now of like the different sort of drivers of, of

nightmares because they are kind of important.

Okay, so what are the different drivers? So okay, I've just mentioned trauma.

I'll just talk about that briefly.

But I think in my Herbalism Mistake Violence

book I've got a article in there about Hubble's support for nightmares.

And I do quote some research around actually.

I'll just pull it up.

Medicine.

They found that 80% of people experiencing

PTSD have frequent nightmares.

So you know, like they are a significant thing that correlate with trauma and traumatic

stress.

And there's lots of reasons for that.

Like for example, maybe you've heard of like REM sleep, like rapid eye movement sleep.

So this is the kind of like stage of sleep where we are consolidating memories and we are

emotionally processing and you know, it's also where our sort of like brain is developing and

everything else.

Like I just look at my beautiful son when he falls asleep.

And I just think of all those new vehicles, you know, he's his obsessed with tractors and

stuff like vehicle words in his brain and just how he's sucking everything up like a sponge

and just learning and learning and learning.

And you know, I think we should be learning all the time.

Not just as a toddler, but I just mean like sleep is so vital to this kind of integration

and processing.

And I think that's potentially why nightmares become so chronic is like they are preventing

us from processing that traumatic memory because we're unable to get into like deep

enough stages of sleep where we're like, our brain is actually really able to reorganise

our memories.

Which is why I think it's like ******* valuable to do things like brain spotting or

edmr.

I talk about those in the herbalism PTSD

Traumatic stress stress course because I talk about how plant medicines are like one tool in

the toolbox.

And I kind of have a lesson where I like run through a whole variety of kind of like

modalities and approaches that have been,

you know, well used, well researched.

I talk about some of their like political like

nuances and you know, like a lot of this stuff's being used with like people in the

army so that they can like continue to like be violent.

You know, I mean like it's really up.

But there are lots of tools in the toolbox and

I think that kind of daytime traumatic memory processing is really, really, really

important.

Especially if we're not getting like quality sleep to do that.

So I had like several months of brain spotting with lots of intrusive thoughts I was having

from prison.

And this was like years after prison but

because I was like so heavily engaged in like anti prison expansion work, prisoner support

work, I was just like ******* triggered like non stop like constant memories and like

remembering of the violence and like.

Yeah, it just.

So anyway, but having this brain spotting, I did really feel like it kind of helped me

actually finally integrate those memories.

Like I literally don't understand how it works

but it is life changing and I've heard that from so many people.

So yeah, if you are struggling with like intrusive thoughts and nightmares, like I

think that kind of daytime strategies of those tools with a good practitioner it's like

really, really like powerful.

And yeah, I can recommend a woman who's in Glasgow, she used to live down near me but she

moved back to Scotland and like she was just like fantastic.

Okay. So yeah,

so yeah, we need to be kind of like processing that trauma as much as we can in the kind of

daytime and you know, like, this is where things like counselling and stuff are really

difficult for people that have experienced a lot of trauma because it can just often re

trigger you.

But I think a good sort of therapist or counsellor will hopefully shift you to do that

work in that session so that you're in a bit more of a kind of like resource state at the

end.

But I am very aware that like any kind of trauma healing stuff takes a lot of energy.

Okay, so yeah, I'm going to talk about,

yeah,

the kind of other trauma stuff, but I just, yeah, I want to name that.

It is like a big,

yeah, a big driver of nightmares because the body is, is, you know, needing to kind of just

organise the world of like, are you safe? Are you not safe?

Like what has happened?

Like,

does that need some sort of like healing or completion or understanding or integration?

Do you know what I mean?

Okay, so yeah, so there's that kind of like historical trauma and I recognise in the PTSD

course that like,

it's a privilege.

It's not privileged, but it is a different

position when trauma is historical versus like something that's ******* ongoing.

Do you know what I mean? Like for people living like in ******* Gaza or

something, that trauma is like endlessly ongoing.

It's not a historical thing that they can now start processing.

Right.

But yeah, for many people it will be something that has happened that you now need to kind of

heal and recover from, even if you're living in conditions where, you know, you don't have

like safety emotionally or physically,

etc.

But yeah, so there's this kind of like historical.

Sorry, it's not just historical.

Anyway, I don't want to say the same point

again, but there is also like acute stress.

So when I've had like a very high stress day,

you know, where it doesn't happen very often now, thank God.

But like the other day I was in like such a mad rush trying to get loads of stuff done and

my mum, bless her, like popped into my herb share to say something and I was just caught

off guard and I spill all this oat seed glycerite which I just spent like three days

making in the slow cookers.

I just spilled like probably a litre on the floor and I just, just screamed and I, you

know, I was angry that I'd spilled this medicine but like the scream was a release of

like built up pressure of like the course launch and the, you know, the solo parenting

and like all of this like Economic stuff and you know,

just this time pressure in the mornings.

But like that acute spike in adrenaline.

Like that night I did have a nightmare and that the nightmare wasn't like triggered by

historical stress.

I mean, maybe like some childhood poverty was coming up.

But like, actually I just had a spike in that kind of in those stress hormones.

And yeah, there is like that connection between stress hormones and nightmares.

So it's like.

Yeah, it was kind of a big trigger.

Okay.

So, yeah, so there's that kind of like peak

acute stress, like adrenaline surgery stuff.

And then there is just kind of like baseline

anxiety, I would say, of like if there's something that you are feeling like

particularly sort of threatened by.

I feel like that's something that often causes nightmares.

Like,

like when my ex was kind of had relapsed and was in like full on active addiction again.

I mean, thank God he's like, safer now.

But like, I would have like frequent dreams of

him.

Yeah. Getting stabbed or being at his funeral and explaining to my son what had happened.

And like, do you know what I mean? And I think like,

those nightmares are probably quite necessary of like,

protecting me and keeping me safe of like just processing fear.

Does that make sense? So. And you know, maybe I would sort of say

they're like there's a spectrum, right, of like distressing dreams versus, like nightmare

horror where you wake up in panic.

Do you know what I mean? Like, I think there's kind of a spectrum and I

think when you have like very real life challenges going on, like, that will obviously

be processed in the night because that's when we process our fear and our anxiety and

everything else.

So. Yeah, there's often like this structural stuff that's influencing our sleep.

Right.

Like, it would be kind of evolutionary crazy

if like you had some really hardcore thing going on and then you just like slept like a

baby.

I hate it when people say sleep like a baby because babies don't always sleep very long.

Like they ******* wake up for booby.

So anyway,

okay.

Other things that can worsen nightmares or like be drivers of them.

It sounds ironic, but actually like sleep deprivation, like when sleep is like heavily

disrupted and those kind of patterns of like, which stage of the sleep you're able to

access,

like, that will go like, really wonky.

Like, I find some people actually have almost

like nightmares in like daytime naps and stuff because it's like their body has just like

kind of gone too fast into certain stages of sleep or more like come out of them too

quickly.

So. Yeah. So kind of.

Yeah, Any sort of sleep deprivation can be a

factor.

And I think our cultures are like very

normalised to people not getting enough sleep.

And people will be like, I'm getting five

hours, like, I'm fine and I'm just like,

me, it's not enough.

Like, we need you on eight or nine.

Like.

So, yeah, I think people don't realise like quite what an extreme sleep deficit they're

in.

And that can be a big factor of kind of,

yeah,

sleep disturbances, what quality of their sleep cycle is going on, you know, and

obviously it's like vicious cycle, right? Like when you start having nightmares, you

don't want to go to sleep.

So then, you know, you get into this kind of pattern of avoiding sleep and stuff.

Okay, so medications,

so certain medications can cause nightmares.

Like,

I find more the sort of like antidepressant types aren't too bad when people are going on

them, but I find when they're withdrawing from them, they'll start getting bad nightmares.

But yeah, there's like a million and one other meds that can influence sleep, obviously,

especially if they're things you take in the nighttime or like even like strong

antihistamines can really give people different nightmares.

So. So yeah, I think if, like night, if you haven't gone anything, gone through anything

like recently quite traumatic or where you've got a lot of intense anxiety and sort of daily

threats, like if you start on a new med and you start experiencing nightmares, like I

would double check,

do you know what I mean? Like, look on the BNF website or your, the

leaflet that comes with medication and, or, you know, speak to a doctor or whatever.

But just have a little check and see if other people have experienced that.

You know, ask on.

I love Reddit, you know, I mean, I've never actually written anything on there, but like

the amount of times since I've had a child where I'm like some other poor parent from

Indiana or something is like, yeah, my child has a fever when he's teething, but the

doctors say you can't have it anyway.

But yeah, so basically just, just, yeah, just double check your meds and if you are

withdrawing from medication, then that can obviously be a big sort of factor.

Okay, so like different substances and alcohol especially can also trigger nightmares.

Like for some people,

like they just can't like smoke weed or something, for example, because it triggers

like bad dreams for them.

And like, I think this is a kind of like

chicken and egg thing of like, is it the substance or is it that certain pathways in

your brain are unlocked,

like to process trauma.

And you know, the alcohol or the drugs have

unlocked those pathways.

Do you know what I mean?

But like, alcohol does obviously affect the liver and when we have liver things going on,

that can often like wake us up in the middle of the night or like change our cortisol

levels and stuff like that.

So I think that is like a factor.

So if you're having kind of like intermittent

nightmares, like maybe it is worth checking, like,

did you have them on the odd night where you had even just like a glass of wine?

You know, that could be enough to trigger nightmares in someone.

Fever or illness.

So who hasn't had a crazy dream when they've got a fever?

Like, it's just a standard part of an activated immune system, I think.

And this is where allergies come in, right? Like, I think I've mentioned this before, but

like people that have got chronic allergies especially, I find where there's like sinus

activation, kind of like sinusitis type stuff like, like they will often have bad

nightmares, especially if there's like a sort of environmental allergen that's like peaked,

if you know what I mean.

Like a certain time of year or like they like

stay in a hotel or something and they're like reacting to the bed linen and sheets and stuff

like this.

But like, yeah, kind of like, kind of like when you have a fever, your immune system is

like highly activated in the body and that can trigger nightmares.

It's.

I think it's just basically very similar with

allergies of your immune system is activated, therefore you feel under threat.

Like when I have gluten, for example, like I've mentioned, I will have like pure

nightmares sometimes about like being attacked or it will be like proper survival dreams,

like kind of zombie apocalypse type stuff.

I mean, I've never actually had a dream about zombies.

Like, I actually think that would be really fun.

But maybe it's not.

Not that like running for your life thing, but

just anyway.

But yeah, but it's kind of.

Yeah, there are like lots of environmental

factors basically that could be influencing things.

Oh God, don't get me started on like actual sleep disorders, like sleep apnea,

for example.

Like,

yeah, if you are like persistently waking up in the night and people around you have been

telling you that you've been snoring for years.

Please get investigated for sleep apnea because when you have the right like breathing

support in the night, you will feel like a different human, you know, Especially if

you've been getting nightmares from this Kind of completely ****** up sleep cycle because

you literally are waking yourself up because you can't breathe.

So, yeah, let's screen out all the basic stuff.

Hormonal changes.

So,

yeah, maybe you notice more nightmares when you're like premenstrual, for example, or

ovulating.

You know, like having a dream about falling in

love with a man again, like, that's quite frightening, isn't it?

No, I'm just joking.

But yeah, but there might be like hormonal

changes, like perimenopause.

Like all of these different factors can, can

obviously contribute to changes in sleep and therefore risks of nightmares.

So, yeah, if you are experiencing chronic nightmares, basically just kind of like, like

start a bit of like tracking and detective work of, you know, was it after a certain food

or did you drink that night or had you had a disrupted sleep pattern previously or, you

know, had you seen something particularly triggering on the tv?

I think,

yeah, I think like on a kind of trauma level in terms of actual support,

I like,

like, I totally understand that people that have been through traumatic stuff want to

change those conditions, right.

And I totally understand why we need to be

engaging with real life and death stuff, because that is reality.

You know, people need to be organising against genocide, people need to be liberating animals

that are getting abused in labs.

Like all of these things need to happen.

But it's like, oh, can we try and do them in the daytime?

No, I'm just joking.

But I'm.

I. I mean, like, for example, for me,

with my prison related ptsd,

I can take all the herbs I want, but if I'm having a meeting just before I go to sleep,

where we're talking about prisoners we're supporting and who attempted suicide and this

person got,

you know, felt up by this prison officer, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, like, that is

gonna go in my sleep.

So, like, the best thing I ever did for

preventing nightmares for myself was just saying no to like prison meetings of like,

I can't ******* do this in the evening anymore, you know, and then trying to have

them, like I have the headspace to talk about the horrors of state violence, right?

Like my whole ******* life's designed around that.

But, like,

there is a difference for me about doing that.

Having my client calls, like in the morning or

in the afternoon where I can hear that stuff, I can process it, and then,

you know, in the evening get a bit of respite for the nervous system.

So that stuff's not just right there before you drop into sleep.

So,

you know, I think people like I mean I find people that have been through a lot of trauma

stuff like actually just can't do like horror films and stuff.

Like my ex was saying, like how many rom coms he's watched in rehab.

Like, I mean he's a Pisces, he loves all that.

But like,

yeah, like we just have to be really aware in our digital world what consuming just before

bed, like what we're thinking about, like is it going to be triggering something that is

like a ******* core part of us that has been threatened of danger, do you know what I mean?

And just,

it sounds crazy but like it is going to be more effective than any herb to just kind of

try and give your body some time before bed where you can have that parasympathetic like

rest and digest stuff going on.

Okay, so what other things can you do? So like I said,

you know, trying to reduce those triggers before bed,

addressing any sort of drivers where possible.

So you know, like doing that kind of like

trauma, trauma work in the daytime, the brain spotting the edmr, like if you can access

funding for that or whatever, that's like amazing.

And it, this does come back and link into this like daytime nervous system support.

Like if I'm so overwhelmed in a day that I've got to the level where I'm like screaming in

my herb shed because, because I've spilled something,

I know I haven't been like tending to my nervous system enough.

Do you know what I mean? Like as in haven't been taking my relaxant

nerve irons.

I haven't given myself like 10 minutes to just

drink a cup of tea and have a cheeky snack.

Like so it's like,

yeah, how can you be preventing yourself from getting to 100, do you know what I mean?

And taking that really seriously.

And I think when you struggle with anxiety,

like, like being observant and sort of soothing yourself so you don't get there is

really important because having days with like really extreme levels of stress hormones and

panic attacks and all the other horrors of ptsd,

like that's just,

yeah, it's just like harm in your body.

Right?

Like so, yeah, like doing whatever you can to support yourself through the daytime to yeah,

kind of reduce the activation will definitely have a knock on effect on the kind of

frequency of nightmares in my experience.

Okay. My other thought was like sleep consistency.

So like I know there's like a real luxury to this and I know loads of people do evening

shifts and night shifts and like all the things but like if it is possible for you to

kind of try and anchor like a steady routine as possible.

Like, I think that is really, really important.

Like, I,

I realised like when I kind of went on a bit of a sleep mission years ago of kind of like

improving my sleep,

for me, it wasn't getting to sleep wasn't the problem.

The problem was I was like bouncing out of bed so early and I realise now that was like a big

cortisol thing.

But I would be like booking trains to go to the other side of the country.

So I'd have to get up at like 4 and then get to the train station.

And then I just realised, like, if I travelled in the daytime to the prison, as in, you know,

like to the area,

I mean I, I am grateful to the pandemic for this because obviously, I mean, they stopped a

lot prison visits, but like we started leveraging like a little bit of group money of

one of the collectives I'm in to like pay for hotels because I couldn't like risk staying on

like random people's sofas and stuff like this because my stepdad was shielding.

I obviously also didn't want to get covered because who wants to get covered?

But also, you know, I was going back and forth to France,

so me getting sick would have had like big repercussions and things.

So I would go to an area and, you know, drive there if I was too nervy of the train and I

would stay in a cheap hotel, cheap Airbnb or whatever.

And like,

lo and behold, my sleep's so much better because I can just sleep in like a few hours

later.

And so, yeah, like I. In the herbalism, PTSD

and traumatic stress course, I've got a whole lesson on sleep where I sort of share these,

like, tracking things you can track.

So tracking like what time, roughly, if you can, what time you fall asleep, but also what

time you wake up and sometimes the shifts the next day, if that makes sense.

But sleep consistency will really help because when we get into these patterns of like not

enough sleep,

it starts to affect the quality of sleep.

Okay, so like, I've mentioned checking your medications.

Like you can kind of Google that stuff pretty easily.

But if you're concerned, like, obviously talking to your doctor about that, if you want

to titrate something or experiment with a different med, like all of that stuff,

Stuff's, you know, their kind of arena.

But yeah, that might be like a sneaky factor.

Likewise, you know, reducing substances or,

you know, it might be that just food intolerance is the thing.

Right? So it might be like experiment with cutting

out gluten or nightshade family or dairy, you know, like our dairy is a really big one for

people.

So yeah, like,

you know, it's not just, oh, I've been through this trauma and it's causing this thing.

Like there's all these other physiological drivers, right.

That we can kind of holistically look at.

Okay. Like I mentioned the edmr, stuff like that.

Yeah.

And I think planning in advance for like if you wake up from a nightmare,

what's your kind of go to, do you know what I mean?

Like, what's your process? Like, this person K, who I used to have the

EDMR with,

she also taught me these like trauma releasing exercises.

And when I would have nightmares years, I mean, I didn't have a baby at this point, so I

was on my own in bed.

But like I could trigger that shaking in my body.

I don't know if you've heard of it.

You kind of like hold your legs in certain

positions and to kind of tie them out and it just like triggers shaking.

It's amazing.

But like I could do that after I had a

nightmare.

Do you know what I mean?

Or I could like get up or like sometimes I would just need something soothing and I would

just get up and watch like videos of like puppies.

Like, no,

like whatever thing is soothing to you.

Get that in place if you're experiencing chronic nightmares.

And obviously for me it was all about like the herbs, right?

So like I said, like there is this whole other episode where I talk about herbal support for

nightmares.

And a lot of the herbs that I worked with then I just can't take now because they're a bit

too sedating.

But one of my absolute favourites is like

passion flower.

Like, oh, I make such a nice passion flower glycerite.

But like that herb to me was like,

it just,

yeah, it just made me feel safe like as soon as I took it, like, because, you know, there

is this element of like fright of being frightened of going back to sleep.

Like, chamomile is another one.

Absolutely beautiful for nightmares.

I found skull cap a little bit too sedating for me.

So like, if I woke up at like 3, 4, you know, the classic cortisol time with a nightmare, I

might not want to then have like a strong sedative because I would often be getting up

at like 6,

6, like that's just like my normal body clock.

I go to bed really early.

So if you're like shot by that, it's like it's

not a big deal because I go to bed at like 9 so I get loads of sleep.

Well, less so now I have an infant.

But yeah, like I,

back then I wouldn't want to take something like skull cap in the middle of the night for

me personally because I knew I'd be up in a few hours and I wouldn't want that kind of

like groggy, tired feeling.

Whereas if you're someone that is going to bed like 11 midnight and you know, you know that

you can sleep in till 8, 9, 10 or later, then you know, you could take something more

sedating in the night like Skullcap for example.

And I have found.

Oh my God, skullcap rant.

But I have found skullcap one of the most effective herbs at supporting people to like

shift ongoing nightmares like post trauma.

And most of that trauma has been like prison related.

And people who've gone through repression who find that kind of of nighttime difficult

because they've been raided in the morning.

So there's this like fear alert protective mechanism of the nervous system waking them

up.

I mean it's also just caught us all.

But it's waking them up because they're frightened of getting raided and any noise

they hear in the night, they're just waking up.

Or like I've mentioned several times, like prison is like quite a scary time in terms of

people,

you know, dying or self harming or going on like noises, keys, like all of this ****.

So it's like, like there's a lot of like nighttime related trauma that kind of is like

persistent.

So yeah, so I found skullcap over like several weeks or months has just supported that person

to access this parasympathetic time which sets them up for much better sleep and is having

all these like nerve tonic actions which is like supporting them longer term recover and

then yeah, it's just doing something for helping them to get into that like,

like deeper, deeper sleep that is kind of like more nourishing where maybe they're having

nightmares but they're not like waking up from them.

They're not in that kind of like light sensitive sleep state.

Does that make sense?

So yeah.

So please check out the herbal support for

nightmares section because there's much more in there.

Oh, sorry, I forgot to say about lavender, but.

Oh my God,

lavender oil.

I'll still use that now if I wake up from a

bad dream, I'll kind of put that on myself because I can, you know, just like function

the next day with lavender still on me.

Okay.

So there are also other Drivers of nightmares, which I've forgotten to mention, which are

things like nutritional deficiencies.

And I have obviously done that whole podcast about nutritional deficiencies and depletion.

But like things like vitamin D,

hell, I've had so many people that have just started taking on vitamin D supplement and A,

they've just felt better in general, but B, like their nightmares have shifted.

There's been like a fair bit of kind of peer reviewed research connecting like the

prevalence of nightmares with vitamin D,

also vitamin B1, which is really interesting.

So yeah, in my PTSD course I have like the papers organised around this stuff.

But yeah, it's not uncommon that there's like a bunch of other nutritional deficiencies that

could be, for example, feeding into like general anxiety and activation, you know, like

vitamin B12 or their fatty acid profile or vitamin A,

vitamin E, like all the things like.

Yeah, and the other factor could also be

someone's like blood sugar stuff like waking them up in the night.

I don't know the research between blood sugar and nightmares, but I think that would be

something to look into.

Okay, I feel like.

Sorry, I've just been reviewing my notes and

seeing if I've missed anything out.

But yeah, okay, I think I'm gonna stop there.

Oh, sorry.

There's also herbs like Bettany that have

literally got this like historical association.

Nightmares and yeah, okay, I'm gonna stop talking but if you're interested in this

stuff,

I've got a whole section on herbal support for nightmares in my Herbalism and State Violence

book.

Oh my God.

Side note, PM Press have just emailed me the final PDF about to go to print.

Don't know when the.

I'm gonna have time to like double check 440

pages, but I'll have to make it happen.

But yeah, so that's exciting.

Thank you so much everyone.

If you've ordered it on the Kickstarter.

Woohoo.

But yeah, please check herbal support for nightmares episode where I actually talk about

the specific herbs in detail.

But yeah, I think this one is really useful if you just kind of want to look at the,

you know, the other patterns, other influences of what could be going on if you're

experiencing nightmares.

I'm sorry, I feel for you.

They're horrendous.

But like I mentioned, like multi strand approach.

Is it a food intolerance? Is it traumatic memories that need to be kind

of processed and worked through?

Is it nervous system safety and building in that sort of parasympathetic time?

Is it just the vitamin D deficiency? Do you know what I mean.

So, yeah, have a little think, and I hope you found something useful in this episode.

Last Shameless Plug but the Herbalism, PTSD and Traumatic Stress course closes this

Sunday,

so please, please, please check it out.

I've got a whole lesson in there about sleep,

where I'm talking about this stuff in more detail.

And any of the herbs I've mentioned are very likely to be explored in there.

There's 32 plants with an affinity for the nervous system system that you can listen to

and watch and.

Yeah, okay.

Thank you for listening and take care.

Thanks so much for listening to the Frontline Herbalism Podcast.

You can find the transcript, the links, all the resources from the

show@solidarityapothecary.org podcast.