Even people who are only indirectly exposed to these repeat tragedies, such as first responders and those affected by media coverage, can experience profound and long-lasting grief.
People reported having frequent bad dreams at the beginning of the study were twice as likely to develop Parkinson’s compared with those who had them less than once a week.
In some cases, recurring dreams that emerge during childhood can even persist into adulthood.
(Shutterstock)
Dreams help us regulate our emotions and adapt to stressful events. Repetitive content may represent an unsuccessful attempt to integrate difficult experiences.
Firefighters regularly face scenes of loss and suffering.
Mike Dohmen/EyeEm via Getty Images
Firefighters are hailed as heroes and pillars of strength, bravery and courage. But the daily stressors and traumas of their jobs take a heavy emotional toll that largely goes unnoticed by the public.
A gathering of women survivors at a Solace Ministries meeting, near Kigali, Rwanda, in 2010.
Donald E. Miller
Donald E Miller, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences
A scholar of the Rwandan genocide argues that while a genocide and a pandemic are very different, the experiences of Rwanda’s survivors may provide lessons on how to heal from pandemic trauma.
Niamh, age 7, wants to know why we have scary dreams. But after 200 years of study, dreams are still very much a mystery.
Collective trauma: A boy walks among some of the 3,000 flags placed in memory of the lives lost in the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.
Jim Young/Reuters