Journal of Sleep Research
February 10, 2026
Vivien Tomacsek, Noémi Báthori, Miha Likar et al.
Psychotic-like experiences are subclinical psychotic symptoms that are usually accompanied by sleep problems, negative emotions, and poorer cognitive functioning. However, their night-to-day associations remain understudied in older adults. 72 participants aged 50-79 took part in a home-based sleep study. After an intelligence test, they reported their sleep quality, dream and morning emotions,...
European Psychiatry
November 17, 2023
Vivien Tomacsek, Borbála Blaskovich, Richárd Reichardt et al.
Introduction In nightmare disorder, dysfunctional emotion regulation goes along with poor subjective sleep quality, which is characterised by pathophysiological features such as abnormal arousal processes and sympathetic influences. Dysfunctional parasympathetic regulation, especially before and during REM phases, is assumed to alter heart rate (HR) and its variability (HRV) of frequent...
European Psychiatry
November 17, 2023
Noémi Báthori, Bertalan Polner, Péter Simor
Introduction Insomnia and Nightmare disorder are the two most common comorbid sleep disturbances in psychotic conditions. However, insomnia and psychotic symptoms are umbrella terms that hide the heterogeneity of these concepts. Several studies have found that worsening sleep quality is associated with the strengthening of psychotic symptoms. Until now, there was less interest in the...
Sleep
November 16, 2023
Péter Simor, Bertalan Polner, Noémi Báthori et al.
9 citations
Mind-wandering is a mental state in which attention shifts from the present environment or current task to internally driven, self-referent mental content. Homeostatic sleep pressure seems to facilitate mind-wandering as indicated by studies observing links between increased mind-wandering and impaired sleep. Nevertheless, previous studies mostly relied on cross-sectional measurements and...
Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews
April 1, 2023
Péter Simor, Philippe Peigneux, Róbert Bódizs
Dreams are often viewed as fascinating but irrelevant mental epihenomena of the sleeping mind with questionable functional relevance. Despite long hours of oneiric activity, and high individual differences in dream recall, dreams are lost into oblivion. Here, we conceptualize dreaming and dream amnesia as inherent aspects of the reactive and predictive homeostatic functions of sleep. Mental...
European Archives of Psychiatry and Clinical Neuroscience
March 2, 2023
Vivien Tomacsek, Borbála Blaskovich, Anna Király et al.
8 citations
Nightmare disorder is characterized by dysfunctional emotion regulation and poor subjective sleep quality reflected in pathophysiological features such as abnormal arousal processes and sympathetic influences. Dysfunctional parasympathetic regulation, especially before and during rapid eye movement (REM) phases, is assumed to alter heart rate (HR) and its variability (HRV) of frequent nightmare...
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
November 1, 2022
Péter Simor, Tamás Bogdány, Philippe Peigneux
23 citations
Lucid dreaming (LD) is a mental state in which we realize not being awake but are dreaming while asleep. It often involves vivid, perceptually intense dream images as well as peculiar kinesthetic sensations, such as flying, levitating, or out-of-body experiences. LD is in the cross-spotlight of cognitive neuroscience and sleep research as a particular case to study consciousness, cognition, and...
NeuroImage. Clinical
2022
Tamás Bogdány, Pandelis Perakakis, Róbert Bódizs et al.
Frequent nightmares are highly prevalent and constitute a risk factor for a wide range of psychopathological conditions. Despite its prevalence and clinical relevance however, the pathophysiological mechanisms of nightmares are poorly understood. A recent study (Perogamvros et, al 2019) examined the heart beat evoked potential (HEP) in a small group of nightmare sufferers (N = 11) and matched...
Sleep Medicine
November 1, 2020
Gwen Van der Wijk, Borbála Blaskovich, Yeganeh Farahzadi et al.
Frequent nightmares show signs of hyperarousal in NREM sleep. Nevertheless, idiopathic nightmare disorder is considered a REM parasomnia, but the pathophysiology of REM sleep in relation to frequent nightmares is controversial. Cortical oscillatory activity in REM sleep is largely modulated by phasic and tonic REM periods and seems to be linked to different functions and dysfunctions of REM...
Sleep
January 13, 2020
Borbála Blaskovich, Richárd Reichardt, Ferenc Gombos et al.
Frequent nightmares have a high prevalence and constitute a risk factor for psychiatric conditions, but their pathophysiology is poorly understood. Our aim was to examine sleep architecture and electroencephalographic markers-with a specific focus on state transitions-related to sleep regulation and hyperarousal in participants with frequent nightmares (NM participants) versus healthy controls....
Brain and Cognition
November 1, 2014
Péter Simor, János Körmendi, Klára Horváth et al.
Abnormal arousal processes, sympathetic influences, as well as wake-like alpha activity during sleep were reported as pathophysiological features of Nightmare Disorder. We hypothesized that in Nightmare Disorder, wake-like cortical activity and peripheral measures linked to arousals would be triggered by physiological processes related to the initiation of REM periods. Therefore, we examined...
Biological Psychology
December 1, 2013
Péter Simor, Klára Horváth, Péter P Ujma et al.
Although a growing body of research indicates that frequent nightmares are related to impaired sleep regulation, the pathophysiology of nightmare disorder is far from being fully understood. We examined the relative spectral power values for NREM and REM sleep separately in 19 individuals with nightmare disorder and 21 healthy controls, based on polysomnographic recordings of the second nights'...
Orvosi hetilap
March 31, 2013
Péter Simor
Nightmares are intense and unpleasant dream experiences that characterize approximately 4 percent of the adult population at least on a weekly basis. Nightmare frequency is often co-morbid with other mental complaints; however, recent results indicate that nightmare disorder is independent from waking mental dysfunctions. Nightmare disorder is intimately related to poor subjective sleep...
Brain and Cognition
April 1, 2012
Péter Simor, Péter Pajkossy, Klára Horváth et al.
Nightmare disorder is a prevalent parasomnia characterized by vivid and highly unpleasant dream experiences during night time sleep. The neural background of disturbed dreaming was proposed to be associated with impaired prefrontal and fronto-limbic functioning during REM sleep. We hypothesized that the impaired prefrontal and fronto-limbic functioning in subjects with frequent nightmares would...
Attachment & human development
March 1, 2011
Szilvia Csóka, Péter Simor, Gabor Szabo et al.
Early maternal separation is a particularly stressful experience. Current models of nightmare production emphasize negative emotionality as having a central role in determining dream affect. Our aim is to test the hypothesis that persons who experienced early maternal separation (before one year of age and lasting at least one month) report more frequent nightmare experiences and bad dreams as...
The European Journal of Psychiatry
March 1, 2010
Péter Simor, Szilvia Csóka, Róbert Bódizs
35 citations
Background and Objectives: Previous studies reported a high prevalence of nightmares and dream anxiety in Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) and the severity of dream disturbances correlated with daytime symptoms of psychopathology. However, the majority of these results are based on retrospective questionnaire-based study designs, and hence the effect of recall biases (characteristic for...
European Journal of Mental Health
June 1, 2008
Róbert Bódizs, Péter Simor, Szilvia Csóka et al.
31 citations
Both neurobiological and cognitive psychological evidence suggests that dreams reflect the affective concerns and emotional balance of the dreamer. Moreover, there is increasing evidence for the thesis that dreams take part in the process of emotional regulation by creating narrative structures and new associations for memories with emotional and personal relevance and giving birth to a reduced...
Péter Simor, Miha Likar, Teodóra Vékony et al.
preprint
Mind wandering, the experience when attention drifts away from the current task and engages in spontaneous thoughts is generally labeled as a mental liability with a robust negative impact on cognitive performance. Despite its established cognitive costs, the potential benefits of mind wandering remain elusive. Nonetheless, an emerging line of studies suggest that although mind wandering...