SLEEPJ
May 8, 2026
Andrew Meierotto, Garrett Baber, Nancy Hamilton
Abstract Introduction Dreaming is theorized to facilitate fear extinction, a type of implicit emotion regulation, whereas nightmares are thought to reflect failures in this regulatory process. However, it is not known whether the frequency of nightmares and associated functional impairment are related to explicit emotion regulation styles. This study examined associations between nightmare...
Sleep
May 1, 2026
Holland Doise, A. Gonzalez Quesada, Garrett Baber et al.
Abstract Introduction Nightmares are associated with more severe posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The advent of large language models (LLM) offers unique advantages to efficiently code affective dream content over human methods, which can be resource intensive and prone to error. This study tested whether dream affect (DA), measured via self-report, human-rated narrative coding, and LLM...
SLEEPJ
May 1, 2026
Lacey Nguyen, G. Baber, Nancy Hamilton
Dreaming is theorized to facilitate emotion regulation through processes resembling exposure therapy. Advances in artificial intelligence (AI) now allow researchers to scale dream research by automatically estimating emotional content in dream narratives. However, prospective studies applying sentiment analysis to examine the relationship between dream affect and emotion regulation remain...
SLEEPJ
May 1, 2026
Sophie Nilsson, G. Baber, Elijah Nichols et al.
Trauma exposure is a known risk for sleep disruption from both nightmares and insomnia. Informed by recent research proposing specific mechanisms linking trauma to sleep disruption and between nightmares and insomnia, (Werner et al. 2021), we tested a model in which the relationship between nightmares and insomnia was mediated by fear of sleep. Study participants were college-aged women (N=497;...
Sleep
May 19, 2025
Garrett Baber, Nancy Hamilton, Matthew Gratton
Abstract Introduction Dream reports provide unique insights into emotional processing during sleep. While self-reports are the gold standard for assessing dream affect, natural language processing (NLP) tools like ChatGPT may offer scalable alternatives. This study evaluated ChatGPT’s ability to estimate positive and negative affect from dream reports, comparing its performance against...
Sleep
April 20, 2024
Garrett Baber, Daiil Jun, Jeffrey M. Girard et al.
Abstract Introduction Dreaming has been theorized to facilitate fear extinction learning in a manner akin to desensitization therapy. A testable hypothesis from this theory is that the experience of fear in dreams leads to lower subsequent daytime negative affect. This study employed a novel natural language processing tool and multilevel modeling to test whether fear in dreams led to...
Psychological Trauma
July 31, 2023
Westley Youngren, N. Hamilton, Kristopher J Preacher et al.
OBJECTIVE Posttrauma nightmares are recurring nightmares that begin after a traumatic experience. Research has only recently begun to identify variables that predict posttrauma nightmare occurrences. Research has identified presleep arousal-cognitive (PSA-C) and presleep arousal physiological (PSA-PHYS), sleep onset latency (SOL), and sleep-disordered breathing (SDB) as potential predictors of...