SLEEP 2026 | Clinical hypnosis shows promise for the treatment of parasomnias: a retrospective cohort study

At our center, we use clinical hypnosis to treat parasomnias. Most of the previous data on parasomnias has looked at non-REM parasomnias. But over time, we’ve also been doing hypnosis to treat REM parasomnias, especially REM sleep behavior disorder. So in this study, we looked at our last 10 years’ worth of data, and we had over 130 subjects who underwent treatment for their parasomnias with a session of clinical hypnosis. Usually, what we do is one session of hypnosis, which we record and have the patients practice it for about a month at home. In this study, we examined the outcome data, so when they came back to us for follow-up, we looked at how much improvement we could see in their parasomnias. And based on that, we assigned a CGI score, or Clinical Global Improvement score. This is one of the first studies looking at hypnosis as a treatment for REM sleep behavior disorder. There have been prior studies examining non-REM parasomnias. Basically, what we found was we had follow-up in about 70-odd subjects out of the 130, and there was a meaningful improvement in at least about half the patients who had undergone hypnosis for non-REM parasomnias. Surprisingly, there was improvement in at least about half the subjects who underwent treatment for REM sleep behavior disorder as well. There was little to no improvement with nightmares, vivid dreaming, or other rare parasomnias, which we would think of as experiential phenomena. So what we showed is that clinical hypnosis potentially can be a treatment. It’s pretty low-risk. There are no side effects, which can be used both for non-REM parasomnias and for REM sleep behavior disorder.

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