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ABSTRACT

Title: Post-traumatic Nightmares in Kuwait Following the Iraqi Invasion

 Deirdre Barrett, Ph.D. 
 Harvard Medical School    

 For author bio, please see other two 2001 submissions.

  Short abstract:

       This paper will first review Arabic and Moslem beliefs about dreaming with their strong emphasis on foretelling the future. Then we will describe post-traumatic stress disorder in Kuwait following the Iraqi invasion and occupation of 1990-91, especially the recurring nightmares which involve both literal and metaphoric repetitions of the traumas of that period.  Finally, we will describe how the two interact to make Kuwaiti post‑traumatic nightmares even likelier to provoke anxiety that the  event will occur again than in other cultures. 

     Muhammad received his notice that he was "the greatest of all prophets" in an epic dream of being guided by the angel Gabriel through the seven celestial spheres, conferring with Abraham and Jesus along the way, and returning to earth to write it as his 65 page Nocturnal Journey. Later, much of the Koran was also revealed to Muhammad in his dreams. Every morning, Muhammad and his disciples would share and interpret dreams. Muhammad ordered the practice of adhan--the daily call to prayer from the minarets and a central ritual of Islam to this day--after one of his followers dreamed of it. (Van de Castle, 1994)  The split of Islam into the conflicting factions of Sunni and Shi'ite was based partly on a dream of Mohammed, which the Sunnis used to justify their rights as his successors. (MacKenzie, 1965)

      Secular Arabic traditions have always emphasized the potential of dreams to foretell the future.  There is believed to be great likelihood that they may literally come true, but there have also been elaborate constructions of symbolic translations of what dream symbol may foretell what waking life event.  These were originally oral traditions, but were set down by tenth century scholar, Achmet. In his Oneirocriticon (1991), seemingly traumatic dream events could foretell beneficial outcomes as in the following:

   If someone dreams that he died, he will serve a great source of power and be wealthy, although he will suffer from ophalamia because death cuts off the sight...(p. 140)

 If someone dreams that he was decapitated in battle, he will receive benefience from a powerful man...(p.129)

 Minor dream events could also denote waking tragedies:

 If he dreams that a front tooth fell out, the closer of his kin will die...(p. 108)

 If he dreams that his fingernails were pulled out, the misfortune will be even more severe, and this points to a short life...(p. 113)

      Dream divination continues to be taken very seriously in this century.  The autobiographies of prominent Muslim figures often contain extensive dream diaries and examples of decisions ostensibly based on dreams.  One example was when the Shah of Iran was deciding whether to seek a loan from Russia:

  He dreamed that a famous theological figure dressed in primitive Muslim garb approached the Shah and threw at his feet a sack containing gold and silver.  The fairly obvious interpretation of this dream was that the Shah shouldn't make any new loans with unbelievers but should trust that his subjects and fellow servants of the faith would restore his finances. (van de Castle, 1994)

     Kuwait is a small, affluent Moslem Arabic nation which partakes of the traditions and beliefs described above but which is also somewhat more westernized than most of its neighbors.

     On August 2, 1990 the Iraqi army swept into Kuwait, with heavy fighting and causalities the first day and then complete military rule by the Iraqis including a dusk to dawn curfew for the next six months. Torture and executions were used to obtain information about resistance activities.  Often family members were made to witness rapes and executions. Bodies were left in conspicuous public places with orders to not to remove for hours to days. Even those who experienced no direct harm to themselves or their families lived with a constant sense of danger.

      Kuwait now has a POW situation similar to the one in the U.S. after the Vietnam war. Hundreds of Kuwaitis are missing who were arrested by the Iraqis.   Families cling to the hope that they are being held alive in Iraq. Kuwaitis continue to be injured and killed at the most unexpected of times by the land mines which remain in the desert and beaches of Kuwait. The October 1994 massing of Iraqi troops on the border has renewed fears of future invasions.

      Kuwait presents an opportunity to observe the effects of a specific trauma more directly than in many situations.  Many war traumatized areas have had multiple overlapping conflicts going on within their borders for decades, most have extreme poverty and medical illness, and many are beginning to see a long list of social problems secondary to the war.  Kuwait was secure, politically and socially stable, has excellent medical care and education and trhe effects of the Iraqi occupation appear in relative isolation. 

     Four years after the Iraqi invasion and occupation of Kuwait, 27% of Kuwaitis are suffering from post‑traumatic stress disorder, as high as 86% in an adult clinical population and children are experiencing variety of behavior problems typical of trauma exposure. (Al-Hammadi et al, in press; Staehr et al, in press) A recent survey found that 66% of those  with diagnosable PTSD and 22% of other Kuwaitis are dreaming about traumatic events of the occupation. (Interim report to the United Nations)

      Many Kuwaitis are having classic Post‑traumatic Stress nightmares involving literal repetitions of atrocities which they witnessed with only minor distortions as have been described in other trauma populations. (van der Kolk et al, 1984)   

One dreamer had a brother fighting in the resistance, she heard that he had killed Iraqi soldiers by sniper fire. She had the following recurring recurring nightmare:

We are at home and the Iraqis come to the house. They break the windows and storm in, searching everywhere and demand to know where he [the brother] is.  My two little children are crying. One soldiers is pointing gun at each of our heads one by one, saying he will shoot us if we do not tell where he is hiding, we do not know.  The soldier pulls the trigger and shoots my son, then my daughter.  I wake up screaming.  In real life, they  came into the house almost like this, and did hold gun to everyone's head while they asked about my brother. But they never shot anyone, they finally left.  My brother has never come home, I think they found him and shot him, but my mother believes he is a POW in Iraq.

      Others have nightmares which are more metaphoric representa­tions of the occupation.  Some also show an evolution of mastery in their dreams such as Cartwright (1991) has described.  For example, one young woman had a recurring nightmare throughout the occupation in which she was riding in the elevator of a high rise building along with many people.  The elevator cord would break, plunging the elevator several floors and then dangling by a thread with the terrified passengers not knowing how they could get off before the cord would break and plunge them to their deaths.  The dreamer would wake in terror at this point. After the liberation, changes occurred with each repetition of the dream with most recent repetition ending in rescuers coming to help people climb to safety through a door in the top of the elevator.

      Children were even more likely to have recurring nightmares.  As Terr (1990) and Nador (in press) have observed in other traumatized children, during and shortly after the trauma their dreams were likeliest to contain material directly related to their ordeal.  During the occupation, one six year old boy whose father was being held prisoner by the Iraqis had the following dream as recounted by his mother:

 He dreamed about the Iraqi soldiers attacking his father, they cut his ears and blood was everywhere.  After that they threw him in a ditch and the father was calling out for his son to help him by pulling the rope to pull his father out of the hole.  But the boy could not help and his father fell back into the ditch screaming.  He was so affected by the dream that whenever he would tell it, he would begin crying and feeling sad for his father.

 The mother had attempted to reassure the boy by telling him of the Arabic tradition that blood in dreams means they will never happen and that dream events can sometimes predict their own opposite.  She did not tell him, as a western parent might, that it was "only a dream"  or suggest that his  worry about his father caused the dream.  Instead, she reframed it as a potentially positive prediction.  These nightmares ceased several months after his father was released, but returned four years later at the age of 10 when the Iraqi troops were again massing at the border.

      Another boy, age 7, dreamed repeatedly during the occupation that Saddam Hussain was chasing him down a street with a knife trying to kill him and he would awaken screaming.  After the occupation, he would have dreams that he and his father--sometimes with other Kuwaiti men and boys--would come upon Saddam and fall on him with knives and kill him. These dreams would not frighten him but rather he would recount them with pleased excitement.

      Moslem and Arabic folk beliefs about dreams focus so exclusively on using them to foretell the future that there is little of the assumption--taken as a given in western traditions--of dream content arising from the dreamer's past.  Therefore, many classic repetitive post-traumatic dreams are likelier to arouse anticipation that the  event will occur again and increase the survivor's anxiety level even  more than they might in other cultures. (see Barrett, in press)  Westernized Kuwaitis with some respect for social science are glad to have information that people in other traumatized situations consistently  have recurring dreams about those traumas without those traumas being destined to be repeated. It would not as easily make much difference to fundamentalist anti‑western dreamers. 

     There is, of course, a positive side to this emphasis on dreams foretelling the future in a kind of dream not so far discussed: those of positive outcomes dreamed during trauma.  These are a source of much inspiration that serves to mitigate trauma in this society, while in western tradition they would be dismissed as "wish fulfillment" without the beneficial impact.  One fundamentalist religious woman reported seeing the invasion in a  dream several days before it happened and hearing the voice of Allah telling her she would need to be strong for her people during this time. She then dreamed of the invaders being driven out--specifically getting up from a half eaten meal and running out of a house--which she reports is exactly what she eventually witnessed in the house across the street from her which had been taken over by Iraqi soldiers during the occupation.   Other Kuwaitis tell less dramatic stories of simply dreaming of the city functioning normally, of the Iraqis not being there, and taking comfort in this as a prediction that the occupation would end.

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