Current concepts: Sleep disturbances in the wake of traumatic events.

Sleep disturbances in traumatized patients are complex behavioral events. In many cases, the subjective reports are out of proportion to the frequency and severity of objective sleep-laboratory findings, and patients are generally unaware of the true nature of their sleep disturbances. In contradistinction to the hypothesis that patients with PTSD must sleep lightly, which is derived from the diagnostic criterion of hyperarousal, patients with PTSD appear to have deeper sleep and lower rates of dream recall than normal persons, even after planned awakenings from REM sleep. Sleep disturbances in traumatized patients should be treated as an independent clinical entity, and both behavioral and pharmacologic therapies can be beneficial.