Relationship Between Epilepsy and Dreaming: Current Knowledge, Hypotheses, and Perspectives.
Frontiers in Neuroscience January 1, 2021 Aurélien De la Chapelle, Birgit Frauscher, Amandine Valomon et al.
People with epilepsy recall dreams less often than others, especially those with primary generalized seizures. Their dream content tends to be more negative and set in familiar surroundings. Although anti-seizure medications, depression, anxiety, and cognitive problems may partly explain these changes, some evidence points to seizures themselves affecting dreams. Seizure symptoms sometimes appear in dream content, with or without a focal epileptic discharge during sleep, suggesting epilepsy directly or indirectly interferes with dreaming. These findings, combined with knowledge of dream neurophysiology and epilepsy-sleep links, indicate epilepsy may impair cognition during both wakefulness and sleep.