What is established is that Okene experienced persistent psychological effects after the rescue that manifested in his sleep, in the specific form of nightmare and confusion. Post-traumatic stress responses to life-threatening situations are well-documented clinically, and the specific forms that Okene described — nightmares, intrusive re-experiencing of the traumatic event, difficulty distinguishing dream from reality — are consistent with what the clinical literature describes as common post-traumatic responses.
These are also not unique to Okene’s situation. Survivors of maritime disasters, mine collapses, building collapses, and other events involving prolonged entrapment in the dark under life-threatening conditions frequently report similar aftereffects. The body’s response to extreme threat does not end when the threat ends. The nervous system that mobilized for survival continues, in various forms, to respond to reminders of the threat — including reminders that exist only in sleep, in the form of dreams.
Whether Okene received formal clinical support for these effects is not established in available reporting. The allthatsinteresting.com account mentions depression after the separation from his wife. His own statements in interviews have not described clinical treatment, though this may reflect the limits of interview coverage rather than the absence of treatment.
He has, in more recent statements, described feeling that he has overcome much of the fear — that the decision to train as a diver and to return to the sea professionally was the resolution of the psychological weight the rescue had placed on him. “I have faced a lot of my fears in my life, and I decided to face this once and for all,” he told one interviewer. Whether this represents a genuine resolution of the post-traumatic effects or a functional adaptation that allows him to work is a distinction that outside reporting cannot resolve.