Journal of Sleep Research
September 9, 2026
Clara Sayk, A. Probst, F. Lange et al.
High-frequency EEG activity during sleep, reflecting cortical hyperarousal, has recently been incorporated into aetiology models of nightmares. However, its precise role remains insufficiently understood because experimental approaches to manipulate hyperarousal during sleep are limited. In the present study, we investigated whether re-presenting a relaxation-associated odour cue during sleep...
Journal of Sleep Research
August 1, 2026
Nicola De Pisapia, Erdem Taskiran, Stefano Mastino et al.
Lucid dreaming, defined as the experience of becoming aware of dreaming while dreaming, offers a unique window into a state of consciousness characterised by a blending of the sensory vividness of REM sleep with the self-awareness of wakefulness. While past functional imaging has shed light on the neural activity supporting lucid dreaming, the structural brain correlates of lucid dream...
Journal of Sleep Research
June 12, 2026
Giuseppe Forte, Danilo Giaccari, Francesca Favieri et al.
Sleep paralysis (SP) is a REM sleep parasomnia characterized by transient motor paralysis during sleep onset or awakening. It is a terrifying experience often accompanied by vivid hallucinations. Although it is classically linked to narcolepsy, isolated SP in healthy individuals offers a valuable model to investigate the interaction between REM sleep physiology and conscious awareness. In a...
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...
Journal of Sleep Research
April 2, 2026
Ville Loukola, Jarno Tuominen, Eveliina Malinen et al.
Previous studies have examined how the COVID-19 pandemic affected dream recall, dream content, and nightmares. However, relatively little attention has been devoted to the individual and situational factors associated with pandemic-induced changes in dreams. The threat simulation theory of dreaming predicts that threatening situations in our waking life (situational factors) influence...
Journal of Sleep Research
April 1, 2026
Severin Ableidinger, Luigi De Gennaro, Sérgio Mota-Rolim et al.
During lucid dreaming (LD), dreamers are aware that they are dreaming and may be able to influence the oneiric content. There has been recent debate about the relative importance of the ability to influence the dream and having agency over the pure awareness of dreaming. To underline this, we examined the associations of lucid dreams without agency (LD-Ag) and lucid dreams with agency (LD + Ag)...
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,...
Journal of Sleep Research
February 1, 2026
Courtney J Bolstad, Bjørn Bjorvatn, Ngan Yin Chan et al.
The present study aimed to describe the prevalence rates of frequent (i.e., at least weekly) dream recall and nightmares with consideration for differences in age, gender and sleep duration in 16 countries using equivalent assessment methods. The study sample included 15,854 participants (69.9% women) aged 18-99 years (M = 42.39, SD = 16.43) collected by the International COVID-19 Sleep Study...
Journal of Sleep Research
October 1, 2025
Claudia Picard-Deland, Matteo Cesari, Ambra Stefani et al.
Parasomnias are abnormal behaviours or mental experiences during sleep or the sleep-wake transition. As disorders of arousal (DOA) or REM sleep behaviour disorder (RBD) can be difficult to capture in the sleep laboratory and may need to be diagnosed in large communities, new home diagnostic devices are being developed, including actigraphy, EEG headbands, as well as 2D infrared and 3D time of...
Journal of Sleep Research
October 1, 2025
Maïlis Charpentier-Hélary, Aurélien De la Chapelle, Maxime Linard et al.
Epilepsy impacts cognition during wakefulness. As epileptic activity is present and even augmented during sleep, epilepsy could also influence sleep-related cognitive processes. However, whether epilepsy modulates sleep-related experiences like dreaming remains poorly known. Here, we prospectively investigated the characteristics and determinants of dreaming in patients with epilepsy....
Journal of Sleep Research
September 11, 2025
Darren M. Lipnicki
1 citation
Numerous theories of dreaming consider embodied self-representation and participation in dream events as key features. However, past studies suggest that the dream self is absent or an uninvolved observer in over 10% of adult REM dreams. Further, these dreams can be similarly elaborate and of comparable narrative structure to participatory dreams. The current study presents new criteria for...
Journal of Sleep Research
August 21, 2025
Dieter Riemann, Christoph Nissen, Pierre A Geoffroy et al.
Sleep and dreams are frequent themes in science fiction (Sci-Fi) literature and films, often used to explore questions about consciousness, reality, technology and the human experience. Sci-Fi authors and filmmakers utilise the enigmatic nature of sleep and dreams to blur the boundaries between reality and imagination, raising philosophical questions or extrapolating the effects of futuristic...
Journal of Sleep Research
August 1, 2025
Marta Spinoni, Serena Scarpelli, Ilaria Di Pasquale Benedetti et al.
2 citations
The gestational period is a sensitive time marked by significant changes that can affect women's sleep and dreaming processes, with an augmented frequency and recall of dreams suggesting that dreaming represents an adaptive mechanism of emotional regulation. This study investigates the relationship between pregnancy-related variables, alexithymia, and depressive symptoms in influencing dream...
Journal of Sleep Research
July 29, 2025
Pierre Champetier, Anaïs Hamel, Claire André et al.
Meditation practice has been shown to impact resting-state EEG activity in expert meditators, but its benefits on sleep, which is particularly affected with age, are poorly understood. Our aim was to better understand the effects of long-term meditation practice on resting-state EEG and sleep in older adults. Twenty-seven elderly expert meditators (mean age ± SD: 70.7 ± 5.0 years) were compared...
Journal of Sleep Research
June 1, 2025
Jennifer M Mundt, Kristi E. Pruiksma, Karen R Konkoly et al.
7 citations
Nightmares are a common symptom in narcolepsy that has not been targeted in prior clinical trials. This study investigated the efficacy of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for Nightmares (CBT-N), adapted for narcolepsy, in a small group of adults. Given the high prevalence of lucid dreaming in narcolepsy, we added a promising adjuvant component, targeted lucidity reactivation (TLR), a procedure...
Journal of Sleep Research
June 1, 2025
Liborio Parrino, Francesco Rausa, Giulia Balella et al.
4 citations
This article aims at providing a comprehensive review of the historical discovery and following research on rapid eye movement (REM) sleep, highlighting its manifold nature as a behavioural, electrophysiological and dreaming state. Pioneering works conducted by Aserinsky, Kleitman, Dement and Jouvet established the foundational understanding of REM sleep recurrence, brainstem mechanisms, and...
Journal of Sleep Research
May 10, 2025
Brooke A Prakash, Ishani Shah, Guohao Ni et al.
2 citations
Throughout history, the development of new sleep medicines has been driven by progress in our understanding of the mechanisms underlying sleep. Ancient civilisations used their understanding of the sedative nature of natural herbs and compounds to induce sleep. The discovery of barbiturates and bromides heralded a new era of synthetic sleep medicine in the 19th century. This was followed by the...
Journal of Sleep Research
April 3, 2025
Nadia Malek, Anthony Santistevan, Leslie Yack et al.
2 citations
Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a debilitating psychiatric condition that affects approximately 6% of the US population, with even higher rates among veterans. Sleep disturbances (e.g., distressing dreams) are among the most reported symptoms in individuals with PTSD. Distressing dreams (sometimes referred to as nightmares) have been associated with significant negative mental health...
Journal of Sleep Research
April 1, 2025
Jean-Baptiste Eichenlaub, Romain Bouet, Mathieu Pinelli et al.
3 citations
The present study examined dream habits, and their relation to sleep patterns, in 1151 preteens (597 boys; 554 girls; 11.31 ± 0.62 years old). Dream questionnaires assessed the frequency of dream recall, nightmare, and lucid dream, as well as the intensity of emotions experienced in dreams. Sleep variables included sleep duration and efficiency, but also different measurements of nocturnal...
Journal of Sleep Research
February 9, 2025
Lampros Perogamvros, Vincent Rochas, Jean‐Baptiste Beau et al.
5 citations
According to some theories of emotion regulation, dreams could modify negative emotions and ultimately reduce their intensity. We introduce here the idea of cathartic dream, a specific and separate type of emotional dream, which is characterized by a dynamic plot with emotional twists, and where negative emotions are expressed and ultimately decreased. This process would reflect psychological...
Journal of Sleep Research
February 1, 2025
Francesca Siclari
11 citations
Sleepwalking and related parasomnias are thought to result from incomplete awakenings out of non-rapid eye movement (non-REM) sleep. Non-REM parasomnia behaviours have been described as unconscious and automatic, or related to vivid, dream-like conscious experiences. Similarly, some observations have suggested that patients are unresponsive during episodes, while others that they can interact...
Journal of Sleep Research
October 3, 2024
Carlotta Mutti, Francesca Siclari, Ivana Rosenzweig
2 citations
Dreaming, a common yet mysterious cognitive phenomenon, is an involuntary process experienced by individuals during sleep. Although the fascination with dreams dates back to ancient times and gained therapeutic significance through psychoanalysis in the early twentieth century, its scientific investigation only gained momentum with the discovery of rapid eye movement (REM) sleep in the 1950s....
Journal of Sleep Research
October 1, 2024
Courtney J Bolstad, Brigitte Holzinger, Serena Scarpelli et al.
The association between nightmare frequency (NMF) and suicidal ideation (SI) is well known, yet the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on this relation is inconsistent. This study aimed to investigate changes in NMF, SI, and their association during the COVID-19 pandemic. Data were collected in 16 countries using a harmonised questionnaire. The sample included 9328 individuals (4848 women; age...
Journal of Sleep Research
August 19, 2024
Gaspare Alfì, J. Maruani, Giulia Aquino et al.
This exploratory study aimed to investigate the relationship between interoceptive sensibility and quality of consciousness in individuals with insomnia disorder, in order to understand how the modulation of internal states may contribute to modifying the experience of consciousness during sleep difficulties. A total of 37 patients with insomnia disorder (mean age = 46.05 ± 18.16) and 41...
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)...