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Michael Schredl

Central Institute of Mental Health, Heidelberg University

137 papers in the library · 2,505 citations · publishing 1994-2026

Papers

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Dream recall frequency: Stability and changes assessed in a longitudinal design

University Library Heidelberg May 30, 2020 Michael Schredl, Maria Gilles, Isabell Wolf et al. 2 citations

Dream recall frequencies exhibit large inter-individual differences, ranging from recalling a dream almost every morning to recalling a dream almost never. Although dream recall has been conceptualized as a stable trait, longitudinal studies in this area are scarce. Within the framework of a complex study, 279 women (mean age: 31.76 ± 4.73 yrs.) completed a brief sleep questionnaire three times...

0112 Lucid Dreaming Associated with Positive Waking Mood

May 27, 2020 Michelle Carr, A. Stocks, Remington Mallett et al.

Lucid dreaming (being aware that one is dreaming) is typically a positive experience that may enhance positive mood even after waking. There is concern, however, that lucid dreaming may interfere with sleep quality. In the current experiment, participants practiced common lucid dream induction techniques over the course of a week, and kept a daily sleep and dream diary. The study objective was...

Lucid Dreaming and the Feeling of Being Refreshed in the Morning: A Diary Study.

Clocks & Sleep March 1, 2020 Michael Schredl, Sophie Dyck, Anja Kühnel 22 citations

REM periods with lucid dreaming show increased brain activation, especially in the prefrontal cortex, compared to REM periods without lucid dreaming and, thus, the question of whether lucid dreaming interferes with the recovery function of sleep arises. Cross-sectional studies found a negative relationship between sleep quality and lucid dreaming frequency, but this relationship was explained...

Fever Dreams: An Online Study

Frontiers in Psychology January 28, 2020 Michael Schredl, Daniel Erlacher 7 citations

In addition to a large variety of somatic symptoms, fever also affects cognition, sleep, and mood. In an online survey with 164 participants, 100 fever dream reports were submitted. Fever dreams were more bizarre and more negatively toned and included more references to health and temperature perception compared to "normal" most recent dreams - findings that are in line with the continuity...

Gender Differences in the Dream Content of Children and Adolescents: The UK Library Study

The American Journal of Psychology September 18, 2019 Michael Schredl, Verena S. Struck, Christine Schwert et al. 5 citations

Abstract Although gender differences in the dreams of adults have been studied extensively, large-scale studies in children and adolescents are scarce. The UK Library Study collected 1,995 most recent dreams of children and adolescents. Boys reported more physical aggression and fewer female characters in their dreams, whereas indoor settings were more prominent in girls’ dreams, results that...

Music in dreams: A diary study

Psychology of Music June 29, 2019 Nina König, Michael Schredl 13 citations

In every culture and nation music has been mentioned as a sort of natural language. While the existence of dreams including music in musicians has been anecdotally reported, music in dreams have been rarely studied empirically. In the present study, 425 participants, mostly psychology students, reported their dreams in a dream diary for 14 days as well as the intensity of their dream emotions...

Nightmare distress, nightmare frequency, and beliefs about nightmares

University Library Heidelberg May 23, 2019 Michael Schredl, Louisa Holyba, Tina Köllmer et al. 12 citations

The diagnosis of a nightmare disorder is based on clinically significant distress caused by the nightmares and, therefore, empirical research should focus on studying factors that affect nightmare distress in addition to nightmare frequency. Overall, 2056 persons (1212 woman, 844 men) completed the online survey. A reliable 6-item scale measuring beliefs about nightmares was developed. The...

Who Keeps a Dream Journal? Sociodemographic and Personality Factors

Imagination, Cognition and Personality March 25, 2019 Michael Schredl, Anja S. Göritz

A fascinating area of dream research is the analysis of long dream series. However, research regarding differences between long-term journalists and normal persons is lacking. The present online survey (N = 2,492) focused on the relationship between the Big Five personality dimensions and frequency of recording dreams. As expected, dream recall frequency, nightmare frequency, and attitude...

The effect of dream report collection and dream incorporation on memory consolidation during sleep.

Journal of Sleep Research February 1, 2019 Sarah F. Schoch, Maren J. Cordi, Michael Schredl et al.

Collecting dream reports typically requires waking subjects up from their sleep-a method that has been used to study the relationship between dreams and memory consolidation. However, it is unclear whether these awakenings influence sleep-associated memory consolidation processes. Furthermore, it is unclear how the incorporation of the learning task into dreams is related to memory...

Aetiology and treatment of nightmare disorder: State of the art and future perspectives

Journal of Sleep Research January 29, 2019 Annika Gieselmann, Malik Ait Aoudia, Michelle Carr et al. 192 citations

This consensus paper provides an overview of the state of the art in research on the aetiology and treatment of nightmare disorder and outlines further perspectives on these issues. It presents a definition of nightmares and nightmare disorder followed by epidemiological findings, and then explains existing models of nightmare aetiology in traumatized and non-traumatized individuals. Chronic...

Psychometric evaluation of the Hamburg Nightmare Questionnaire (HNQ).

European Journal of Psychotraumatology 2019 Robert-Jacek Gorzka, Katja Rebling, Helge Höllmer et al.

Background: Nightmares are a widespread phenomenon. In comparison to the general population, they occur in mentally ill and especially in traumatized individuals with an increased frequency. Despite the high prevalence, there is no short questionnaire in the German language that is able to characterize nightmares, to differentiate between different nightmare types and to assess their impact on...

Nightmare frequency and nightmare distress: Socio-demographic and personality factors.

Sleep science (Sao Paulo, Brazil) 2019 Michael Schredl, Anja S Goeritz

The diagnosis of a nightmare disorder is based on clinically significant distress caused by the nightmares, e.g., sleep or mood disturbances. In order to understand nightmare etiology better empirical research should focus on studying factors that affect nightmare distress in addition to nightmare frequency. Overall, 2492 persons (1437 woman, 1055 men) completed the online survey. Nightmare...

General knowledge about lucid dreaming and lucid dream induction techniques: An online study

November 1, 2018 Annabelle Neuhäusler, Michael Schredl, Anja S. Göritz

A variety of induction techniques have been proposed to increase lucid dream frequency. An online survey was performed asking about knowledge of lucid dreaming and lucid dream induction techniques. The initial sample size was N=1380 with a subsample of N=716 who were asked questions concerning lucid dream induction techniques. The findings indicate that one quarter of all participants had heard...

Lucid Dreaming: A Diary Study

Imagination, Cognition and Personality September 1, 2018 Michael Schredl, Alina Noveski

Most studies looking into the relationship between lucid dream frequency and personality were based on questionnaire measures of lucid dream frequency. Thus, the aim was to investigate the effect of keeping a dream diary on lucid dream frequency and the correlates of the frequency of lucid dreams in the diary with the Big Five personality factors. The study included 1,612 dreams reported by 425...

Dream reflecting cultural contexts: comparing Brazilian and German diary dreams and most recent dreams

Portuguese National Funding Agency for Science, Research and Technology (RCAAP Project by FCT) June 10, 2018 Gotthard G. Tribl, Franziska Beuerle, Mateus C. Trindade et al. 1 citation

The continuity hypothesis states that waking life experiences, e.g., personal concerns and cultural environment, are reflected in dreams. The present study’s goal was to compare written dream reports from Brazilian and German samples. Overall, 97 Brazilian participants were included; two German samples from previous studies (N=89 and N=4197) were selected for comparison. The Brazilian...

The relationship between lucid dream frequency and sleep quality: Two cross-sectional studies

OPUS June 7, 2018 Celina Schadow, Michael Schredl, Janina Rieger et al. 20 citations

Lucid dreams are dreams that involve awareness of dreaming while dreaming. As lucid dreaming is accompanied by heightened cortical activation, e.g., in the prefrontal cortex, it was speculated whether lucid dreaming interferes with the restorative function of sleep. Two cross-sectional studies have found inhomogeneous results regarding the relationship between lucid dream frequency and...

Nightmare Themes: An Online Study of Most Recent Nightmares and Childhood Nightmares.

Journal of clinical sleep medicine : JCSM : official publication of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine March 15, 2018 Michael Schredl, Anja S. Göritz

Even though the common diagnostic criteria (ICSD-3, DSM-5) acknowledge that nightmares do not only contain anxiety/fear (definition of the ICD-10) but also other emotions such as grief, disgust, and anger, the definition of a nightmare still focuses on threats to survival, security, or physical integrity. However, empirical studies on nightmare content in larger samples are scarce. The current...

Improvement of darts performance following lucid dream practice depends on the number of distractions while rehearsing within the dream - a sleep laboratory pilot study.

Journal of Sports Sciences December 1, 2017 Melanie Schädlich, Daniel Erlacher, Michael Schredl

In a lucid dream, the dreamer is aware of the dream state and can deliberately practice motor skills. Two field studies indicated that lucid dream practice can improve waking performance in simple motor tasks. The present pilot study investigated the effect of lucid dream practice in a controlled sleep laboratory setting, using a pre-post design with dart throwing in the evening and morning....

Nightmare frequency in adults with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder.

European Archives of Psychiatry and Clinical Neuroscience February 1, 2017 Michael Schredl, J Malte Bumb, Barbara Alm et al.

Nightmare frequency in adult ADHD patients has not yet been studied systematically. In a sample of 65 patients, it could be shown that nightmare frequency was elevated in ADHD patients compared to a sample representative for Germany. Frequent nightmares (once a week or more often) were reported by 4.62 % of the patients and 1.77 % of the controls. This increase was neither explained by the...

Nightmare frequency in last trimester of pregnancy.

BMC Pregnancy and Childbirth November 9, 2016 Michael Schredl, Maria Gilles, Isabell Wolf et al.

Pregnancy-related dreams are often found in pregnant women but also the number of negatively toned dreams seems to be increased in this challenging phase of a woman's life. Nightmare frequency and subjectively experienced stress was elicited via questionnaires. The mothers-to-be were approached during their application visit about 4-8 weeks prior to delivery in three obstetric hospitals. The...

Dream Sharing, Dream Recall, and Personality in Adolescents and Adults

Imagination, Cognition and Personality September 1, 2016 Michael Schredl, Josie Henley-Einion, Mark Blagrove

Although dreams are very private experiences, they are often shared with others. The findings of the present study ( N = 1,375) indicate that sharing dreams is indeed very common and that dream sharing frequency is related to gender (only in adolescents, with girls sharing dreams more often than boys), extraversion, dream recall frequency, and nightmare frequency. Future studies should study...

Interest in Information about Nightmares in Patients with Sleep Disorders.

Journal of clinical sleep medicine : JCSM : official publication of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine July 15, 2016 Michael Schredl, Lara Dehmlow, Judith Schmitt

Despite the considerable prevalence of the nightmare disorder and its burden on the patient, nightmares are underdiagnosed and undertreated, even in sleep centers. A total of 1,125 patients in a sleep center undergoing routine diagnostic procedures for their sleep disorders completed a questionnaire about nightmares. About 20% of the sample indicated an interest in more information about...

Dreams and Nightmares in Personality Disorders.

Current Psychiatry Reports February 1, 2016 Michael Schredl

Although the relationship between dreaming and psychopathology has been studied quite extensively, research on dreaming in patients with personality disorders has been very scarce. In patients with borderline personality disorder, negatively toned dreams and heightened nightmare frequency have been found-characteristics not determined by co-morbid depression or posttraumatic stress disorder....

Dream Recall Frequencies and Dream Content in Wilson’s Disease with and without REM Sleep Behaviour Disorder: A Neurooneirologic Study

Behavioural Neurology 2016 Gotthard G. Tribl, Mateus C. Trindade, Michael Schredl et al. 8 citations

Objective. Violent dream content and its acting out during rapid eye movement sleep are considered distinctive for rapid eye movement sleep behaviour disorder (RBD). This study reports first quantitative data on dreaming in a cohort of patients with treated Wilson's disease (WD) and in patients with WD with RBD. Methods. Retrospective questionnaires on different dimensions of dreaming and a...

Lucid dreaming and personality in children/adolescents and adults: The UK library study

ORCA Online Research @Cardiff 2016 Michael Schredl, Josie Henley, Mark Blagrove 7 citations

Research that has focused on the relationship between the Big Five personality dimensions and lucid dreaming frequency has been restricted to student samples. The present study included adolescents and adults (N = 1375). i.e., the sample included a large range of ages. Lucid dreaming was more strongly related to openness to experiences compared to previous findings. The small but significant...