SLEEP Advances
January 1, 2024
Christopher M. McGrory, Augustus Kram Mendelsohn, Suzanne L. Pineles et al.
2 citations
Trauma-related nightmares (TRNs) elicit psychophysiological responses similar to those triggered by recalling the original traumatic event. In a pilot study of 17 trauma-exposed participants with clinical or sub-clinical PTSD who reported frequent TRNs, heart rate, skin conductance, and facial muscle activity did not differ significantly between recollections of the index trauma and the most trauma-like nightmare. Bayesian analyses supported the null hypothesis of no difference. Emotional ratings were also largely equivalent, except that sadness was lower for nightmare recollections. These findings suggest TRNs might be as effective a target as the trauma memory itself for imaginal exposure therapy, pending replication.
Sleep
April 20, 2024
Michael Spano, Edward F Pace-Schott
Sleep paralysis (SP) frequency among university students is linked to napping and alcohol use. In a survey of 158 students, those who experienced SP daily napped 4–7 times per week, while those who experienced SP once napped only 1–3 times per month. Most non-SP experiencers napped rarely or never. Daily SP experiencers also reported drinking alcohol more often than one-time experiencers. No differences were found for caffeine or nicotine use. The direction of causation between frequent napping and SP remains unknown. The study suggests drinking frequency may moderately predict SP, and more research is needed on phone and social media use.
Consciousness and Cognition
June 1, 2011
Michelle Neider, Edward F Pace-Schott, Erica Forselius et al.
Greater lucidity in dreams is linked to better performance on a task that engages the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (the Iowa Gambling Task), but not on a task engaging the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (the Wisconsin Card Sort Task). In a prospective study of 28 high school students, those with higher lucidity scored significantly higher on the Iowa Gambling Task. No differences were found in sleep quality or baseline characteristics. The findings suggest a connection between lucid dreaming and ventromedial prefrontal function.
PLoS One
January 1, 2011
Mark Blagrove, Nathalie C Fouquet, Josephine A Henley-Einion et al.
Events and memories from waking life can reappear in dreams, either literally or indirectly. Two temporal patterns are known: the day-residue effect (features from the previous day) and the dream-lag effect (features from 5–7 days earlier). Previous work used spontaneous home dream reports from both REM and NREM sleep. This study tested whether the dream-lag effect occurs only in REM or also in NREM stage 2 (N2) dreams. Twenty participants kept daily diaries for over a week, then slept in a laboratory for two nights. REM and N2 dreams were collected, and participants rated correspondence between each dream and diary entry. The dream-lag effect appeared for REM but not N2 dreams, even after accounting for dream length.
International review of neurobiology
January 1, 2010
Mark Blagrove, Edward F Pace-Schott
People differ greatly in how often they recall dreams, what types of dreams they have (such as nightmares), and what their dreams are about. This chapter reviews research linking these differences to waking-life experiences and to brain biology. Although general dream recall and dream content show stable, trait-like patterns, few psychometric measures reliably predict them. More success has come from studying specific dream types—nightmares and lucid dreams—and how waking events shape dream content. Recent work exploring the neurobiological basis of these individual differences is also reviewed.
Consciousness and Cognition
March 1, 2002
David Kahn, Edward F Pace-Schott, J Allan Hobson
Emotions felt during dreams are almost always triggered by the characters that appear, and people frequently use those emotions to identify who the characters are. Affection and joy are commonly linked with known characters, even when those emotional associations contradict how the person feels about the same individual while awake. These patterns align with brain activity differences between dreaming and waking states: the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, which supports short-term memory, is less active during dreaming, while limbic areas involved in emotion are more active and receive minimal input from the prefrontal cortex.