PLoS One
January 1, 2021
Elizaveta Solomonova, Claudia Picard-Deland, Iris L Rapoport et al.
During the first COVID-19 lockdown (April–May 2020), 34% of 968 survey participants reported increased dream recall. The most common dream themes centered on inefficacy, human threat, death, and pandemic imagery. Dream, bad dream, and nightmare frequency was highest among those with moderate to severe stress levels. Frequency of bad dreams, nightmares, and dreams about the pandemic, inefficacy, and death were associated with higher stress, depression, and anxiety symptoms. The findings support theories linking dream content to environmental susceptibility and stress reactivity, with dreams reflecting existential concerns during the lockdown.
Consciousness and Cognition
December 1, 2010
Félix-Antoine Lusignan, Roger Godbout, Marie-Josée Dubuc et al.
Dream recall frequency after NonREM and REM sleep awakenings was similar for patients with schizophrenia and controls, matching values for healthy participants. Patients' NonREM sleep narratives were shorter than controls'. Both groups' NonREM reports had fewer words and reportable items compared to their REM reports. Controls more often reported bizarreness in REM than NonREM reports, a difference not seen in patients. Overall, NonREM sleep mentation differed little between groups, and sleep stage cognitive style was comparable, with NonREM reports being more thought-like, less elaborate, and less bizarre than REM reports.
Schizophrenia Research
July 1, 2009
Félix-Antoine Lusignan, Antonio Zadra, Marie-Josée Dubuc et al.
People with schizophrenia report more nightmares than healthy controls, but their overall dream recall, recurrent dreams, and emotional frequency are similar. When dreams are collected in a sleep laboratory, patients' narratives are shorter; after adjusting for length, most content differences disappear except for a higher proportion of unknown characters. Patients rate their own dreams as less bizarre than controls do, even though external judges see similar bizarreness. Eye movement density during REM sleep is comparable between groups, but a link between eye movements and dream content appears only in controls. These patterns suggest that dream content in schizophrenia may reflect disorder-specific neurocognitive processes, particularly emotional processing.
Journal of autism and developmental disorders
April 1, 2008
Anne-Marie Daoust, Félix-Antoine Lusignan, Claude M J Braun et al.
Dreaming in people with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) differs from that of typically developed individuals. In questionnaires, adults with ASD reported fewer dream recollections, fewer bad dreams, and fewer emotions than controls. In a sleep laboratory, dream narratives after REM sleep awakenings were shorter for ASD participants, containing fewer settings, objects, characters, social interactions, activities, and emotions. These differences may reflect neurocognitive features specific to ASD.