Journal of Sleep Research
January 29, 2019
Annika Gieselmann, Malik Ait Aoudia, Michelle Carr et al.
192 citations
Chronic nightmares arise from an interaction between elevated hyperarousal and impaired fear extinction, facilitated by trait affect distress from traumatic experiences, early childhood adversity, trait susceptibility, elevated thought suppression, and potentially sleep-disordered breathing. Treatment options target nightmare meaning, chronic repetition, or maladaptive beliefs. The paper reviews epidemiological findings, aetiology models for traumatized and non-traumatized individuals, and evidence-based interventions, noting gaps in healthcare provider knowledge and delivery. Future perspectives for nightmare treatment and aetiology research are outlined.
Personality and Individual Differences
March 20, 2004
Michael Schredl, Daniel Erlacher
141 citations
No Summary
The American Journal of Psychology
April 21, 2014
Tadas Stumbrys, Daniel Erlacher, Miriam Johnson et al.
104 citations
Lucid dreamers are aware they are dreaming. An online survey of 684 respondents, 571 of whom were lucid dreamers (83.5%), found that lucid dreams most often begin spontaneously in adolescence and last about 14 minutes on average. Dreamers are typically active, planning actions like flying, talking with dream characters, or having sex, but often fail to remember or execute these intentions due to awakening or obstacles in the dream. The frequency of lucid dreaming was the strongest predictor of dream phenomenology, with some differences linked to age, gender, and whether the dreamer was natural or self-trained.
Consciousness and Cognition
September 8, 2013
Tadas Stumbrys, Daniel Erlacher, Michael Schredl
88 citations
Applying transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) over the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex during REM sleep increased dream lucidity in frequent lucid dreamers, though the effects were not strong. Nineteen participants spent three nights in a sleep laboratory; on the second and third nights they randomly received either 1 mA tDCS for 10 minutes or sham stimulation during each REM period starting with the second one. Self-ratings showed increased lucidity only in frequent lucid dreamers. The results provide preliminary support for the involvement of the DLPFC in lucid dreaming, but further research controlling for indirect effects and including other brain regions is needed.
Perceptual and Motor Skills
February 1, 2011
Michael Schredl, Daniel Erlacher
81 citations
About half (51%) of a representative sample of 919 German adults reported having had at least one lucid dream—a dream in which the person knows they are dreaming. Women recalled lucid dreams significantly more often than men, and lucid dream recall decreased with age. These differences may be explained by overall dream recall frequency, which correlated moderately (r = .57) with lucid dream frequency. Education, marital status, and income showed no relationship with how often people had lucid dreams. The high prevalence suggests that laboratory research on lucid dreams could further understanding of sleep, dreaming, and consciousness.
The Sport Psychologist
June 1, 2010
Daniel Erlacher, Michael Schredl
76 citations
Practicing a motor task during a lucid dream can improve subsequent waking performance. In a pilot study, 40 participants were assigned to a lucid dream practice group, a physical practice group, or a control group. The task was tossing coins into a cup. Seven of the 20 volunteers in the lucid dream group successfully practiced the task in a lucid dream and showed a performance improvement from 3.7 to 5.3 successful tosses out of 20, while the other 13 in that group showed no improvement (from 3.4 to 2.9). The physical practice group improved the most, followed by the successful lucid dream group; both improved significantly more than the nondreaming and control groups. The design cannot distinguish whether specific motor learning or unspecific motivation caused the improvement.
Journal of Sports Sciences
April 7, 2015
Tadas Stumbrys, Daniel Erlacher, Michael Schredl
60 citations
Rehearsing a finger-tapping sequence during a lucid dream improves next-morning performance as much as physical or mental practice while awake. In an online experiment with 68 participants split into four groups, those who practiced in a lucid dream, physically, or mentally all significantly improved from evening pre-test to morning post-test, while the no-practice control group did not. Subjective sleep quality was unaffected by nighttime practice. The results confirm earlier work showing that motor practice in lucid dreams can enhance subsequent performance, with effects comparable to waking practice.
Sleep
April 30, 2015
Michael Rak, P. Beitinger, Axel Steiger et al.
56 citations
People with narcolepsy recall dreams and nightmares significantly more often than healthy controls, and they also experience lucid dreaming—awareness of dreaming during a dream—at a much higher rate. Among 60 narcolepsy patients and 919 controls, narcolepsy patients reported roughly double the frequency of dream recall and nightmares, and their lucid dreaming frequency was about four times higher. Most narcolepsy patients who had experienced lucid dreaming said it helped relieve the distress from nightmares. Medication did not affect lucid dreaming frequency, though it did reduce dream recall and nightmare frequency.
heiDOK (Heidelberg University)
January 1, 2011
Allan Hobson, Michael Schredl
50 citations
A discussion between J. Allan Hobson and Michael Schredl examines unresolved questions in dream research, starting from the continuity hypothesis—that waking life is reflected in dreams—and Hobson's theory of protoconsciousness. The conversation centers on discontinuity: how dreams include activities the dreamer never experienced while awake. Possible functions of dreaming are debated, such as preparation for waking life or personal growth. The paper aims to stimulate further discussion among researchers on these fundamental topics for neurophysiological and psychological dream research.
heiDOK (Heidelberg University)
January 1, 2008
Michael Schredl
49 citations
Dreams collected in a sleep laboratory are influenced by the laboratory setting itself, creating a methodological problem where the measurement technique alters the object being measured. This incorporation of laboratory elements into dreams supports the continuity hypothesis of dreaming, which holds that dream content reflects waking experiences. A review of the literature shows a strong effect of the experimental setting on dreams, and emotional involvement may explain why some people incorporate laboratory elements more than others. Studying these effects offers a detailed way to examine continuity between waking and dreaming.
Frontiers in Psychology
January 1, 2014
Daniel Erlacher, Melanie Schädlich, Tadas Stumbrys et al.
48 citations
Actions in lucid dreams take longer than the same actions in wakefulness, but only for motor tasks. Counting, a non-motor task, showed no time difference. In a sleep-laboratory experiment, lucid dreamers performed counting, walking, and a gymnastics routine while marking time intervals with eye movements. Walking and gymnastics required significantly more time in dreams than in waking, but the relative duration of each task remained proportional—no task was disproportionately longer. A more complex motor task did not increase the time delay. The findings suggest prolonged dream durations may stem from absent muscular feedback or slower neural processing during REM sleep.
Imagination Cognition and Personality
February 21, 2012
Daniel Erlacher, Tadas Stumbrys, Michael Schredl
36 citations
About 57% of German athletes have experienced a lucid dream at least once, 24% have one or more per month, and 9% of lucid dreamers have used the dream state to practice sport skills. Most of those athletes felt that such practice improved their waking performance. The prevalence of lucid dreaming among professional athletes is similar to the general population, but the proportion of lucid dreams relative to all dreams is nearly twice as high (14.5% vs. 7.5%). The findings suggest lucid dreaming offers a unique form of mental rehearsal for sports.
Consciousness and Cognition
August 1, 2020
Abigail Stocks, Michelle Carr, Remington Mallett et al.
33 citations
Higher levels of lucidity during dreaming are associated with more positive dream content and a more positive mood the following day. Twenty participants completed a week-long online dream diary after practicing lucid dream induction techniques. The study found no link between lucidity and subjective sleep quality. The findings suggest that cultivating lucid dreams may help improve waking mood, though longer-term studies are needed.
heiDOK (Heidelberg University)
January 1, 2010
Michael Schredl, Daniel Erlacher
25 citations
Sleep is known to help memory consolidation, but the role of dreaming in this process is less clear. This study examined whether dreams that directly incorporate a mirror tracing task improve performance on that task after sleep, and found no such effect. However, bizarre, long, and intense dreams were linked to slower performance but also to fewer errors. Whether these associations stem from changes in sleep physiology or from negative effects of dreams on mood and performance remains unknown. Future work should investigate more complex procedural tasks and how dreaming relates to emotional memory consolidation during sleep.
Clocks & Sleep
March 1, 2020
Michael Schredl, Sophie Dyck, Anja Kühnel
22 citations
Lucid dreaming does not impair the feeling of being refreshed in the morning. In a five-week dream diary study with 149 participants, nights with a lucid dream were followed by a higher feeling of being refreshed compared to nights with a non-lucid dream. Earlier cross-sectional studies had linked frequent lucid dreaming to poorer sleep quality, but that relationship was explained by nightmare frequency, not lucid dreaming itself. The findings indicate no negative effect of lucid dreaming on sleep's restorative function, though future research should use both objective and subjective measures of daytime tiredness.
The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease
August 1, 2010
Anne Katrin Kuelz, Ulrike Stotz, Dieter Riemann et al.
14 citations
Dreams of people with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) contain less positive content than those of healthy individuals. During treatment with exposure and response prevention, OCD-related themes in dreams significantly decrease, supporting the continuity hypothesis that daytime symptoms carry over into dreams. Contrary to expectations, exposure therapy does not make dreams more intense or disturbing. The analysis compared 40 dreams from 9 inpatients, 84 dreams from 10 outpatients, and 63 dreams from 11 healthy controls, with dream reports collected at treatment start and after initial exposure exercises.
Frontiers in Psychology
April 20, 2021
Ana Guerrero-Gomez, Isabel Nöthen-Garunja, Michael Schredl et al.
13 citations
During the COVID-19 lockdown, 31% of adolescents reported heightened dream recall and 18% noticed more nightmares, with 15% of recorded dreams containing pandemic-related content. Subjective emotional reactions to lockdown correlated more strongly with dreaming than objective distress such as illness or death of a close person from COVID-19. The findings suggest that dreams may reflect waking-life stress and that attention to dreams could be included in preventive programs for adolescents facing pandemic-related stress.
BORIS
October 9, 2020
Daniel Erlacher, Michael Schredl, Tadas Stumbrys
12 citations
About 90% of 386 participants who had lucid dream experiences reported some benefit of lucid dreams on their waking life, including mental and physical health. This benefit was linked to higher lucid dream frequency, trait mindfulness, and spirituality. The authors suggest these results should encourage development of a manualized lucid dream therapy and testing its effects in a randomized waiting-list pre-post design, while qualitative research could explore how lucid dreaming contributes to well-being over time.
Imagination, Cognition and Personality
December 1, 2022
Michael Schredl, Anellka Remedios, Silvia Marin-Dragu et al.
8 citations
Dream recall frequency and lucid dream frequency vary widely among individuals and are partly linked to personality traits. An online survey of 1,537 participants (1,150 women, 387 men; mean age 35.1 years) confirmed that openness to experience is associated with higher dream recall, supporting the lifestyle hypothesis. However, associations between the Big Five personality factors and lucid dream frequency were less consistent; for example, neuroticism showed a negative relationship with lucid dream frequency. Effect sizes were small. Lucid dream frequency was related to COVID-19-related worries, while dream recall frequency was not.
Behavioural Neurology
January 1, 2016
Gotthard G. Tribl, Mateus C. Trindade, Michael Schredl et al.
8 citations
People with Wilson's disease who also have rapid eye movement sleep behavior disorder (RBD) report more nightmares and dreams with violent or aggressive content than those without RBD, and their dream reports contain more negative emotions and aggression. Patients with Wilson's disease overall have shorter dream reports than healthy controls, which may reflect cognitive deficits. The lack of major differences in dream content between Wilson's disease patients and controls might be due to successful treatment. Violent, aggressive dream content appears characteristic of RBD in Wilson's disease as in other populations.
Philosophy and the Mind Sciences
April 15, 2021
Remington Mallett, Michelle Carr, Martin Freegard et al.
7 citations
Lucid dreaming—being aware that one is dreaming—occurs on a spectrum rather than as an all-or-nothing state. Participants used mnemonic training methods at home for one week and rated their dream awareness on a 5-point scale each morning. About half reported at least one lucid dream, and about half of all dreams included some lucidity, but success rates varied with the minimum criteria used. The amount of mnemonic rehearsal during a brief early awake period predicted lucidity level. Lucidity levels correlated positively with dream control, dream bizarreness, and next-morning positive affect. Qualitative analysis of 'semi-lucid' dreams (intermediate ratings) explored why participants chose those levels, highlighting methodological implications for lucid dreaming research.
Frontiers in Psychology
January 28, 2020
Michael Schredl, Daniel Erlacher
7 citations
Fever dreams are more bizarre, negatively toned, and contain more references to health and temperature perception than ordinary dreams, according to an online survey of 164 participants who submitted 100 fever dream reports. These findings align with the continuity hypothesis of dreaming, which holds that waking-life experiences influence dream content. The authors suggest future diary studies during febrile illness and sleep-laboratory experiments with induced fever could further clarify how elevated body temperature shapes subjective sleep experiences.
The American Journal of Psychology
September 18, 2019
Michael Schredl, Verena S. Struck, Christine Schwert et al.
5 citations
Gender differences in the dreams of children and adolescents mirror those seen in adults. In a large UK sample of 1,995 most recent dreams, boys reported more physical aggression and fewer female characters, while girls' dreams more often featured indoor settings. These patterns support the continuity hypothesis, which holds that dreams reflect waking life. Dream content analysis offers a window into the inner world of young people, revealing their experiences, thoughts, and concerns. Future studies should measure waking aggression, social contacts, and leisure activities to directly link waking and dreaming.
heiDOK (Heidelberg University)
January 1, 2008
Michael Schredl
5 citations
Judges can identify a dreamer's gender from a single dream report slightly better than chance, with correct rates between 57.5% and 64%. This accuracy is too low for reliable matching in individual cases, indicating that more dream material is needed for valid predictions. Female judges were more confident matching women's dreams correctly than men's dreams, a pattern not seen among male judges. The authors conclude that qualitative studies are needed to identify specific dream characteristics that improve matching accuracy.
Journal of Sleep Research
July 1, 2024
Michael Schredl, Albrecht Vorster, Michael J. Schmid et al.
1 citation
About 6% of elite athletes report having nightmares at least once a week. Female gender and higher general stress levels are strongly linked to more frequent nightmares. To a lesser degree, more training hours, lost training days due to illness, and early training sessions also relate to higher nightmare frequency. Sport discipline itself shows no connection. An unexpected finding is that consuming alcohol late—within four hours of bedtime—is associated with more nightmares. These results suggest that stress from sports participation may contribute to nightmare frequency. Future research should explore whether interventions for athletes with frequent nightmares could improve their well-being and possibly athletic performance.