Behavioral Sleep Medicine
January 1, 2025
Michelle Carr, Westley Youngren, Martin Seehuus et al.
6 citations
In a representative sample of 1,332 people, lucid dreaming was linked to poor sleep quality, stress, anxiety, and depressive symptoms. However, when nightmares were accounted for, nightmares alone explained the associations with poor sleep, anxiety, and stress. Both nightmares and the combination of nightmares with lucid dreaming were associated with increased depressive symptoms.
Sleep
May 1, 2026
Westley Youngren, Victoria West Staples, Emma Angle et al.
A single 90-minute session of Targeted Dream Incubation (TDI), which involves giving auditory cues to shape dream content, increased dream self-efficacy (DSE) immediately after and one week later in both a non-clinical group and a group with frequent trauma-related nightmares (TRNs). A control nap group showed no change in DSE. Only the non-nightmare TDI group showed significant reductions at one-week follow-up in thoughts of suicide, insomnia, PTSD, and nightmare distress. The results suggest TDI may reduce negative outcomes in people with TRNs, potentially through increased DSE, and justify larger-scale investigation.
Sleep
May 1, 2025
Westley Youngren, Emma Angle, Victoria West Staples et al.
A brief nap-based intervention using verbal cues before sleep, called Targeted Dream Incubation (TDI), can increase people's confidence in their ability to dream (dreaming self-efficacy) and enhance the joy they feel about their dreams. In a study of 15 participants, 80% reported dreams that included the cued subject (a tree). Dreaming self-efficacy scores rose significantly from before the nap to immediately after and remained higher at a one-week follow-up. Joy related to dreams also increased significantly from baseline to the one-week follow-up. These results suggest TDI is a reliable method for boosting dreaming self-efficacy and may also positively affect emotional responses to dreaming.
SLEEPJ
May 1, 2026
Victoria West Staples, W. Youngren, Emma Angle et al.
Lower dream self-efficacy (DSE; the perceived ability to manage or influence dream experiences) and heightened nightmare distress (NM distress) both independently predicted more severe PTSD symptoms and more suicidal thoughts in a trauma-exposed sample of 30 adults. Lower DSE alone predicted greater insomnia severity. The findings suggest that confidence in managing dreams and distress from nightmares contribute separately to posttraumatic outcomes, with dream self-efficacy playing a particular role in sleep disturbances.
Sleep
May 1, 2025
W. Youngren, Emma Angle, Victoria West Staples et al.
Dream-related self-efficacy (DSE) increased after a single session of Targeted Dream Incubation (TDI), a protocol that cues dream reports during hypnagogic sleep and then asks participants to think of a tree. Higher DSE at all time points was significantly negatively correlated with suicidal cognitions one week later, and the increase in DSE from baseline to follow-up significantly predicted lower suicidal cognitions. These results suggest that DSE may be a mechanism through which TDI reduces suicidal thinking, though the small sample of fifteen participants limits generalizability.