Central Institute of Mental Health, Heidelberg University
178 papers in the library · 2,743 citations · publishing 1994-2026
International Journal of Dream Research September 30, 2026 Michael Schredl
Sigmund Freud is often cited with his ideas to interpret a variety of dream symbols as being sexual. As erections occur regularly during REM sleep that is associated with vivid dream recall, the question arises whether Freud’s ideas about the sexual meaning of dreams might be related to this physiology.
International Journal of Dream Research August 25, 2026 Michael Schredl
Erotic dreams are quite common, however, measuring the frequency of such a private topic faces some challenges. First, not every participant might be comfortable to report erotic dreams in dream diary, thus, the frequency of erotic dreams might be underestimations. On the other hand, retrospective measures regarding the frequency of erotic dreams might yield overestimations as erotic dreams are...
Journal of Sleep Research June 9, 2026 Julia Wiesenthal, Michael Schredl
ABSTRACT Although about 5% of the German population report having nightmares at least once a week, nightmares are inadequately diagnosed and treated. We therefore examined how people in the general population cope with nightmares in everyday life. The present study aimed to examine the influence of Big Five personality traits on nightmare‐coping behaviour. In an online survey of 411...
International Journal of Dream Research May 26, 2026 Sophie Boudrias, Michael Schredl
Prediction error is a discrepancy between a prior expectation and what is experienced. Predictive processing posits that prediction errors lead to updates of previously acquired models, beliefs, and expectations. They can be valenced (i.e., better or worse than expected) or non-valenced. The presence of prediction errors in dreams remains debated, while dream reports do contain surprise related...
Psychology of Music March 10, 2026 Jan Mauren, Michael Schredl
Music and dreams have been recurring and meaningful themes throughout human history. Empirical research on the topic of music in dreams is limited, particularly when it comes to studies involving participants with professional musical training. In this study, 37 music professionals participated, reporting a total of 151 dreams in a 14-day dream diary and completing questionnaires to assess...
University Library Heidelberg January 26, 2026 Michael Schredl, Anja S. Göritz
The continuity hypothesis of dreaming states that dreams reflect waking life, however, research has also shown that dreams can affect waking life, e.g., creativity, daytime mood. So far, factors that are associated with the effect of dreams on waking life have been rarely studied. Overall, 2492 persons (1437 woman, 1055 men) with a mean age of 47.75 ± 14.41 years participated in the study. The...
2026 Felix Sammer, Michael Schredl, Martin Voracek preprint
A cross-sectional survey examining lucid dream induction technique use outside the research setting and its relationship with lucid dreams and sleep paralysis. Reporting will be done in accordance with the following guidelines: CROSS (Sharma et al., 2021), CHERRIES (Eysenbach, 2004), and Q-SSP (Protogerou & Hagger, 2020).
University Library Heidelberg October 21, 2025 Michael Schredl
Several measures eliciting nightmare frequency have been developed over the years. Most of the measures show sufficient reliability, but some studies are based on the four-point item of the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) measuring bad dream frequency – even though reliability data for this item have not been published. The present study included a sample of N = 277 participants...
Imagination, Cognition and Personality September 1, 2025 Michael Schredl, Anja S. Göritz
The basic definition of lucid dreaming is that the dreamer knows that s/he is dreaming while still dreaming. However, the skills within the lucid dream, e.g., regarding dream control, vary considerably from dreamer to dreamer. The present study tested the psychometric properties of the Lucid Dreaming Skills Questionnaire (LUSK) in a sample of 1267 persons. The findings indicate that the LUSK...
Journal of Sleep Research August 21, 2025 Michael Schredl
Having nightmares can contribute to poor sleep quality, and having sleep problems can be accompanied by increased nightmare frequency. The etiological models of insomnia and nightmare disorder also show some parallels. The present cross-sectional study included 654 participants (509 women, 144 men, 1 non-binary) with mild to moderate sleep problems (mean age: 41.19 ± 12.95 years). As expected,...
Sleep Science August 18, 2025 Ruben Jigalin, Michael Schredl
Patients with REM sleep behavior disorder (RBD) enact their dreams, leading to enhanced dream recall. They report more negative emotions in their dreams, recall retrospective nightmares more frequently, and often experience more aggressive dreams. This study aims to understand dream characteristics in REM sleep behavior disorder using both retrospective and prospective measures in a controlled...
Journal of Psychosomatic Research July 26, 2025 C. Schede, S. Popkirov, A. Hartmann et al.
BACKGROUND Functional neurological disorder (FND) is often associated with trauma and dissociation. There is insufficient data on sleep disturbances and nightmare frequency. METHODS Patients with FND (n = 87) were compared with psychosomatic patients (PSM; mainly with affective and somatoform disorders; n = 97) and post-stroke patients (STR; n = 92). Questions focused on subjective sleep...
European Archives of Psychiatry and Clinical Neuroscience June 1, 2025 Michael Schredl, Elisabeth Anzenberger, Claudia Schilling
Previous research indicated that the prevalence of frequent nightmares and/or the presence of a nightmare disorder is quite high in patients with mental disorders. In the present study, 75 randomly selected psychiatric inpatients were interviewed and completed questionnaires regarding nightmares, sleep, and psychopathology. The percentage of patients with nightmares once per week or more often...
Scientific Reports March 22, 2025 Martin Diers, Michael Schredl, Herta Flor et al. 2 citations
Phantom limb pain (PLP) is a common consequence of the amputation of a limb. Individuals with congenital limb absence (here: congenital amputees), however, seem to rarely experience PLP. Previous results suggest that the experience of PLP in the waking state affects the recalled body appearance in dreams of individuals with acquired limb amputation, with PLP being associated with the recall of...
Journal of Homosexuality October 31, 2024 Johann Dietze, Michael Schredl, Ulrike A. Gisch
Although numerous individual factors influencing dream content have been explored, research on the link between sexual orientation and dreaming remains limited. This study examined this relationship among 119 German-speaking men (mean age = 31.97 years), including 55 homosexual and 64 heterosexual participants. Participants completed a questionnaire on their waking life sexuality and dreams and...
Journal of Sleep Research July 1, 2024 Michael Schredl, Albrecht Vorster, Michael J. Schmid et al. 1 citation
Nightmares, defined as extremely dysphoric dreams, can cause significant distress in everyday life if they occur frequently. Their aetiology is based on a disposition-stress model. As elite athletes often experience high stress levels, the present study investigated factors that might be associated with nightmare frequency in a large cohort of 2297 Swiss elite athletes (1066 women, 1231 men)...
Somnologie: Schlafforschung und Schlafmedizin December 8, 2023 Michael Schredl
Abstract Research indicates that adults suffering from nightmares rarely seek professional help for their condition. However, nothing is known about the help-seeking behavior in adolescents with frequent nightmares. In a sample of 100 adolescents (50 female, 50 male) with a mean age of 15.30 ± 0.80 years, it was found that none of them ever sought professional help for nightmares, even though...
Individual Differences Research December 1, 2023 Michael Schredl, Christina Schwenger, A. Dehé
In clinical praxis, the question whether it is possible – based on a dream report – to make any inferences about the characteristics of the dreamer often arises. For the present study, gender was selected for the matching task. Two judges were able to match the dreamer’s gender based on a single dream report better than chance. The rate of correct decisions (about 64%), however, was not very...
Somnologie: Schlafforschung und Schlafmedizin September 1, 2023 Emma Peters, Daniel Erlacher, Friedrich Müller et al.
AbstractThis study aimed to investigate the efficacy of using hypnotic enhancement of auditory suggestion to induce lucid dreams in inexperienced individuals. Lucid dreaming, a state in which the dreamer becomes aware of their dream state, provides opportunities for personal exploration, sports, and clinical applications. However, the rarity of lucid dreams poses a challenge to scientific...
Journal of Sleep Research June 21, 2023 Michael Schredl
Research indicated that patients suffering from nightmares are often undertreated. One reason for this gap is that nightmare sufferers themselves often have not sought professional help for their nightmares, and-if they did-it was not very helpful. The current study aimed at studying trait factors (personality, harm avoidance) in relation to the persons considering seeking professional help. In...
Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine 2023 Anellka Remedios, Silvia Marin-Dragu, Francis Routledge et al.
Study objectives: The current study investigated nightmare frequency and distress during the pandemic and associated factors. Methods: Participants (n = 1,718) completed a survey, 747 of which were youth. The MADRE dream questionnaire was used to collect self-reported data on nightmare frequency and distress. In addition, personality traits, current stressors, and COVID-related anxiety were...
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 showed large inter-individual differences that are partly related to personality dimensions. However, as dream research is a small field, independent studies are necessary to build a solid empirical foundation. The present online survey included 1,537 participants (1150 women, 387 men) with a mean age of 35.1 ± 15.8 years. Whereas the...
Clocks & Sleep September 1, 2022 Michael Schredl, Claudia Schilling
Sleep-related metacognitions play a role in the etiology of insomnia and are distressing while falling asleep. Although similar concepts, such as thought suppression, have been studied in the context of dreaming, the relationship between sleep-related metacognitions and more negatively toned dreaming due to stressful pre-sleep experiences has yet to be studied. Overall, 919 patients with...
Imagination, Cognition and Personality April 20, 2022 Michael Schredl, Judith Zumstein, Sven Baumann et al.
Previous research identified personality and neurophysiological traits that are associated with inter-individual differences in lucid dreaming frequency. The present study investigated the question as to whether sensory processing sensitivity is related to lucid dreaming. Overall, 1,807 persons (1,008 woman, 799 men) with a mean age of 47.75 ± 14.41 years completed the German High Sensitive...
Pastoral Psychology 2022 Kelly Bulkeley, Michael Schredl
This study considers the relationship between dreaming and race in light of the public protests following the murder of George Floyd on May 25, 2020. Findings are presented from an online survey about dreams and the Black Lives Movement (BLM) gathered from 4,947 demographically diverse American adults sampled between June 15 and June 19, 2020. The results show that the people most likely to...