Answer: A study of Americans' dreams in the weeks before and after Sept. 11, 2001, suggests that TV coverage of the terror attacks actually increased viewers' stress levels.

A recent study, published in the April issue of Psychological Science, measured the content of "dream journals" kept by Boston-area undergraduate students enrolled in a course on sleep and dreaming from August through December, 2001.

The analysis showed that participants who watched the most TV coverage of the attacks were also most likely to have dreams with high levels of explicit elements of 9/11, suggestive of higher stress levels. In fact, the likelihood of this type of imagery rose with the number of hours per day that students watched 9/11 coverage (anywhere from one to 12 hours daily, according to student reports)..

A similar study, published in 2003 in the journal Dreaming, yielded similar findings among people who had kept dream diaries during the month before and after 9/11.

Based on the new findings, it may be healthier to switch off the TV rather than to accelerate viewing during a disaster, such as the massacre at Virginia Tech.

There is some good news from the study as well about one tried-and-true method of reducing anxiety linked to traumatic events: talking it over with others.

The study found that 9/11-specific imagery in dreams was gradually replaced by less specific, less stressful images as people spent more time discussing the attacks with family or friends.

This finding lends credence to the theory that talking about stressful events with others, in effect "sharing the stress" by coming in to see therapists or talking about terribly stressful events with their friends and family helps the a person feel less stress. Nothing concrete may have been solved, but the act of sharing one's story and concerns -- having someone else be a listener to it -- often reduces stress.