Behavioral Sleep Medicine
January 1, 2021
Jason G Ellis, Joseph De Koninck, Célyne Bastien
27 citations
Lucid Dreaming Training for insomnia (LDT-I) may help reduce insomnia severity, anxiety, and depression. In an open-label trial of 48 adults with Insomnia Disorder, participants completed four training modules over two weeks. One month later, insomnia severity, anxious symptomology, and depressive symptomology all showed significant reductions. The effect on insomnia severity was large. The authors caution that these preliminary results require further testing before LDT-I can be established as a non-pharmacological treatment for insomnia.
Journal of Sleep Research
August 18, 2021
Kathryn Kennedy, Célyne Bastien, Perrine Ruby et al.
25 citations
During the COVID-19 pandemic, people experiencing greater general stress, worse sleep, or more middle-of-the-night insomnia were more likely to have nightmares about specific themes such as confinement, failure, helplessness, anxiety, war, separation, totalitarianism, sickness, death, COVID, and an apocalypse. Those with worsened sleep also reported nightmares about oppression, disaster, evil forces, and domestic abuse. The findings suggest that pandemic-related stress may trigger negatively-toned dreams of particular themes, and future research could explore whether such nightmares reflect an emotion regulation mechanism or its failure.
Sleep Medicine Reviews
April 16, 2024
J.P. Delage, Jeannie Côté, William-Girard Journault et al.
22 citations
Insomnia and nightmares frequently co-occur and worsen each other. This systematic review of 67 studies found consistent positive links between insomnia and nightmares across diverse groups—people with insomnia or nightmares, general populations, students, children, older adults, military personnel, and veterans—even during the COVID-19 pandemic. People with insomnia also report more negative dream content and emotions than controls. Some interventions, like Imagery Rehearsal Therapy, may reduce both conditions. The authors propose a model where insomnia increases nightmare likelihood, and nightmares then cause sleep loss and nonrestorative sleep.
Sleep
May 1, 2021
Tommy Begay, Dora Valencia, Sadia Ghani et al.
Among 155 predominantly Hispanic/Latino adults near the US-Mexico border, people who experienced more pandemic-related stress reported more nightmares, even after accounting for depression and anxiety symptoms. Those with higher stress were also more likely to have nightmares about confinement, suffocation, failure, being chased, sickness, and COVID itself. The findings suggest that reducing pandemic-related stress might lessen nightmares and potentially improve mental health.
Sleep
May 3, 2021
Chloe Wills, Kathryn Kennedy, Célyne Bastien et al.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, a survey of 419 US adults examined links between sleep, stress, and dream recall. People whose sleep worsened were more likely to report both increased and decreased dream recall. Those with greater schedule regularity or sleep improvement were less likely to report decreased recall. Negative dream content, positive dream content, maintenance insomnia, and daytime sleepiness were all associated with both increased and decreased recall. Decreased recall was linked to greater insomnia severity, fatigue, sleepiness, COVID stress, anxiety, depression, worse sleep environment, and less sleep control. The authors suggest a sudden drop in dream recall in response to new stress may indicate poor sleep quality and mental health.
Sleep Medicine
April 1, 2016
Alexandra D Pérusse, Joseph De Koninck, Maude Pedneault-Drolet et al.
Patients with primary insomnia have dreams with less positive emotions and more negative content compared to good sleepers, consistent with their waking experiences. In a five-night polysomnography study with 12 patients and 12 controls aged 30–45, dream recall frequency was similar between groups when collected via forced REM-sleep awakenings. Controls' dreams tended to include more positive emotions, while patients' dreams were characterized by more negative elements. Subjectively, controls rated their dreams as more pleasant, joyful, and vivid. Elevated negative dream content was associated with lower sleep efficiency in insomnia. The findings suggest hyperarousal may worsen presleep negative mentation, contributing to poorer sleep quality.