Associations Between Alexithymia, Negative Dream Emotions, and Nightmares: A Study Using Most Recent Dream Reports
Imagination Cognition and Personality May 7, 2026 Yui Yoshioka
People with higher alexithymia—difficulty identifying and describing feelings—tend to have more negative dream emotions, more frequent nightmares, and greater nightmare distress. In a sample of 282 Japanese adults, those with higher alexithymia scores reported more intense anger, sadness, and confusion in their most recent dream, but no difference in positive dream emotions. The findings suggest that waking emotional difficulties carry over into dream content, supporting the continuity hypothesis and affect network dysfunction model.