"Dreams of Addicts: A Study of Nighttime Dreams of Psychoactive Substance Addicts"

Tonight's program:

19:30 – Opening remarks - Ms. Racheli Siegel

19:35-20:45 – Lecture

20:45 - Discussion with audience participation.

Drug addiction affects almost all spheres of life. The process of withdrawal and treatment is complex and lengthy and involves functional changes, including sleep. Dreaming has significant consequences for the quality of sleep and waking life, including those that can jeopardize withdrawal and treatment. One of the most prominent changes in the drug abstinence phase is the return of dreaming, which was suppressed during the period of use. Previous studies were based on the Freudian theory that dreams are an expression of an unfulfilled wish while awake. Therefore, drug dreams express a craving for drug use. The researchers assumed that detecting drug craving in dreams would help prevent relapse to drug use.

The current lecture will examine the subject through the Moranian concept that dreaming is a creative expression of a person's inner world, and its goal is to describe a comprehensive and inclusive description of the dreams of addicts in the various stages of recovery (abstinence, detoxification, and advanced detoxification).

The lecture will review the findings of a recent study that conducted in-depth interviews with addicts, with an emphasis on the topic of dreaming. The findings that will be presented in the lecture require drug addiction therapists to develop awareness of this phenomenon. This lecture will emphasize the content of dreams and their distressing and panic-inducing characteristics, during the various stages of withdrawal. We will answer the questions: What do dreams teach us about the emotional, family and social process of the addict during the physical withdrawal stage? What do they teach us about the consequences of the experience of contact with the emotional world and the addict's integration into society? What do they teach us about the addict's coping with traumatic memories from the past. Events such as the death of loved ones, sexual abuse, and more? There will be a reference to the question of how addicts are encouraged to include their dreams as an integral part of the therapeutic discourse. We will also discuss the therapeutic interventions required in each stage of withdrawal, the various contents that arise during these stages, and the characteristics of their nightmares. A central and important issue related to our abilities as therapists to accommodate such difficult dream descriptions will also be raised. The lecture will be accompanied by descriptions of addicts' dreams and the addicts' attitude towards their dreams on a personal and social level, including the relationship with therapist figures.

About the lecturer:

Rosa Shemesh - Social worker, senior psychodramatist, instructor. Specialist in treating addictions and their families. In the past, she managed the addiction unit in the city of Yavne for years. A role that included, among other things, training the professional team, leading groups of addicts, groups of addicts with their partners, groups of addicted women and groups of addicted women. She gave lectures and workshops to staff members in prisons and to prisoners. In parallel with this role, she served as the coordinator of prisoner rehabilitation in the city of Yavne. For years, she served as a senior lecturer at the Kibbutzim Seminar College in Tel Aviv, at the Center for Art Therapists in the Psychodrama Division. She has training in family therapy for addictions to psychoactive substances - Hebrew University. She has training in leading groups for addicts - Central School of Social Work - Tel Aviv. As part of her master's degree studies at the University of Haifa in the Crime and Addiction Research track, she engaged in original research on the dreams of psychoactive substance addicts. She is currently a fellow member of a group of senior psychodermatologists in Europe, a doctoral student at the Faculty of Community Mental Health, University of Haifa - researching women's relationships with their addicted partners. She owns a private clinic for training therapists in general and psychodermatologists in particular.

She previously headed the Israeli Psychodrama Association.

Among her publications:

A play - "Rain of Light" that deals with the process of addiction in teenagers. It was presented to teenagers.
A book of poetry – "The Choreography of Venus" published by Contento.