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.
Journal of Sleep Research
April 2, 2026
Ville Loukola, J T Tuominen, Eveliina Malinen et al.
Individual factors, such as low life satisfaction and fewer positive emotions, are better predictors of threatening dream content during the COVID-19 pandemic than daily situational factors like worry or media consumption. In a large Finnish sample of prospective dream diaries, lower life satisfaction was the only statistically significant predictor of threatening events in dreams, while experiencing fewer positive emotions in the past two weeks was the only significant predictor of pandemic-related threatening events. The findings suggest that the tendency to have threatening dreams is more a stable trait than a daily fluctuating feature, supporting the threat simulation theory's idea that individual differences in simulating threats interact with daily experiences.
Journal of Sleep Research
February 10, 2026
Vivien Tomacsek, Noémi Báthori, Miha Likar et al.
In older adults aged 50-79, poorer subjective sleep quality is linked to more psychotic-like experiences the next day, and this relationship is mediated by negative emotions during the morning and in dreams. Over a 7-day home-based study with 72 participants, those who reported worse sleep quality also reported more subclinical psychotic symptoms the following day, with negative emotions playing a key mediating role. Higher subjective cognitive failures and lower IQ were also associated with more psychotic-like experiences, while objective sleep measures showed no connection. The findings suggest that sleep, emotions, and cognitive function together contribute to daytime psychotic-like experiences in older adults.
Journal of Sleep Research
August 21, 2025
Dieter Riemann, Christoph Nissen, Pierre A Geoffroy et al.
Science fiction frequently uses sleep and dreams to probe questions about consciousness, reality, and technology. This article identifies recurring Sci-Fi themes such as hypno-pedagogics, space hibernation, brain-machine interfaces, electrostimulation, genetic engineering, and the effects of substances on sleep and dreams. The authors compare these fictional concepts with current sleep science to assess their future feasibility. They also examine whether Sci-Fi has inspired real sleep research or merely mirrors existing scientific topics with added fiction.
Journal of Sleep Research
July 29, 2025
Pierre Champetier, Anaïs Hamel, Claire André et al.
Long-term meditation practice in older adults is linked to more preserved brain activity during rest and sleep, and to EEG features that suggest higher cognitive states during NREM sleep. Expert meditators (mean age 70.7 years) slept longer, had less stage N1 sleep, and more stage N2 sleep than controls. During NREM sleep, they showed reduced delta power, increased alpha power, and greater theta permutation entropy. During REM sleep, they tended to have greater theta power. Self-reported sleep quality did not differ between groups. Greater meditation expertise was associated with less stage N1 sleep and tended to correlate with more stage N2 and REM theta power.
Journal of Sleep Research
August 1, 2026
Nicola De Pisapia, Erdem Taskiran, Stefano Mastino et al.
Lucid dreaming—becoming aware that one is dreaming while still in the dream—blends the sensory richness of REM sleep with waking self-awareness. Using a multimodal brain-imaging technique (mCCA + jICA), this exploratory study identified structural brain features linked to how often people naturally have lucid dreams. Lucid-dream frequency was associated with a joint grey-matter and white-matter component spanning frontal, temporal, parietal, and cerebellar regions involved in metacognition, imagery, and volitional control, plus a grey-matter-specific component in visual and attentional areas such as the cuneus. Ordinary dream recall, by contrast, was linked only to two white-matter-specific components, with no overlap. The results indicate that the tendency for lucid dreams depends on distributed, integrated brain systems distinct from those supporting general dream recall.
Journal of Sleep Research
June 12, 2026
Giuseppe Forte, Danilo Giaccari, Francesca Favieri et al.
Sleep paralysis, a REM sleep phenomenon where motor paralysis persists into wakefulness, is reported by one in four adults in a sample of 210 from the Italian population. The experience commonly includes inability to move or speak, tingling, sealed eyelids, vivid cognitive scenes, the felt presence of another being, and overpowering fear of death. Contrary to earlier findings, sleep paralysis was not linked to poorer sleep quality or chronic anxiety but was associated with insomnia symptoms and hyper-attuned body awareness. Individuals experiencing sleep paralysis showed greater interoceptive sensitivity, noticing subtle bodily cues and regulating attention and emotion through them. This suggests sleep paralysis may emerge where boundaries among body, sleep, and consciousness become blurred.
Journal of Sleep Research
April 1, 2026
Severin Ableidinger, Luigi De Gennaro, Sérgio Mota-Rolim et al.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, about 30% of people frequently knew they were dreaming (lucid dreaming), and roughly half of those (17%) could influence their dreams (lucid dreaming with agency). Female gender and anxiety symptoms were linked to less ability to influence dreams, while dream recall, nightmares, insomnia, dream enactment behavior, sleep vocalization, short and long COVID, and PTSD were linked to more ability. Older age, dream recall, nightmares, and anxiety were linked to lucid dreaming without agency, while short sleep, being an evening type, and short COVID were linked to less of it. The different patterns suggest lucid dreaming with and without agency may be distinct sleep states, and this is the first study showing COVID-19 and long COVID are associated with lucid dreaming.
Journal of Sleep Research
February 1, 2026
Courtney J Bolstad, Bjørn Bjorvatn, Ngan Yin Chan et al.
In a large multi-country survey of 15,854 adults, frequent dream recall (at least weekly) was reported by 54.0% of participants in 2021 and 51.1% in 2019. Frequent nightmares rose from 6.9% in 2019 to 11.0% in 2021, suggesting an increase during the COVID-19 pandemic. Dream recall showed a linear relationship with sleep duration, while nightmare frequency had a quadratic relationship. Prevalence rates varied by age, gender, and country. This is the first multi-continent study to provide these prevalence estimates across 16 countries, including some never studied before.
Journal of Sleep Research
October 1, 2025
Maïlis Charpentier-Hélary, Aurélien De la Chapelle, Maxime Linard et al.
People with epilepsy recall dreams on about 1.6 days per week, and 11% have at least one nightmare per week. Younger age, more nighttime awakenings, and fewer seizures predict more frequent dream recall. In patients with focal epilepsy, a seizure focus in the parieto-occipital area is linked to lower dream recall. About a third of patients have dreamed about epilepsy, and such dreams are associated with sleep-related seizures and more nightmares. The findings suggest that both general factors (age, awakenings, brain region) and epilepsy-specific factors (seizure frequency, focus location) shape dreaming in epilepsy.
Journal of Sleep Research
October 1, 2025
Claudia Picard-Deland, Matteo Cesari, Ambra Stefani et al.
Parasomnias, including disorders of arousal and REM sleep behavior disorder, are increasingly diagnosed using home devices such as actigraphy, EEG headbands, and 2D infrared or 3D time-of-flight cameras with automatic analysis. Traditional video-polysomnographic criteria are becoming more accurate, and deep learning methods classify abnormal polysomnographic signals. Big data from clinical, cognitive, brain imaging, DNA, and polysomnography collections reveal factors associated with parasomnias and, for RBD, may predict individual risk of conversion to overt neurodegenerative disease. Dream engineering, targeted memory reactivation, image repetition therapy, and lucid dreaming help alleviate nightmares. RBD has united movement disorder and sleep neurologists; research into nightmares and sleep-wake dissociations has brought together sleep and consciousness scientists.
Journal of Sleep Research
October 1, 2024
Courtney J Bolstad, Brigitte Holzinger, Serena Scarpelli et al.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, suicidal ideation was 2% lower overall than before, while nightmare frequency increased by 4.50%. Data from 9328 individuals across 16 countries showed that suicidal ideation decreased significantly in Austria, Sweden, and Bulgaria but rose non-significantly in Italy and Portugal. Participants with long-COVID reported higher rates of suicidal ideation (21.10%) than those with short-COVID (12.40%), though ideation did not differ by COVID-19 history alone. Nightmare frequency was higher in those with prior COVID-19 (14.50% vs. 10.70%), during active infection (23.00% vs. 8.10%), and in long-COVID (18.00% vs. 8.50%). Frequent nightmares during the pandemic increased the odds of suicidal ideation (OR = 1.
Journal of Sleep Research
May 1, 2024
Pierre A Geoffroy, Émilie Stern, Julia Maruani et al.
A new multidimensional scale, the Nightmare Severity Index (NSI), was tested in 102 patients, mostly women (64%) and outpatients (76%) with mood disorders (depression 31%, bipolar disorder 41%) and frequent PTSD comorbidity (44%). The NSI assesses nightmare frequency, emotional impact, diurnal impact, and nocturnal impact. The questionnaire showed good internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha >0.7) and was well suited for factor analysis. Higher NSI scores corresponded to individuals meeting DSM-5/ICSD-3 criteria for nightmare disorder. The NSI appears to be a promising tool for clinical assessment of nightmare severity.
Journal of Sleep Research
April 1, 2024
Clara Sayk, Sophia Saftien, Nicole Koch et al.
People with frequent nightmares show elevated high-frequency brain activity (beta and low gamma power) throughout the night compared to healthy controls, suggesting that cortical hyperarousal is a stable trait rather than a state limited to nightmare episodes. This heightened activity was reduced after six sessions of imagery rehearsal therapy, a cognitive-behavioral treatment. The findings indicate that the neural signature of hyperarousal in nightmare sufferers is both a persistent characteristic and modifiable by therapy, pointing toward potential treatments targeting high-frequency brain activity.
Journal of Sleep Research
June 1, 2023
Elisabetta Fasiello, Serena Scarpelli, Maurizio Gorgoni et al.
REM sleep behaviour disorder (RBD) involves the loss of muscle paralysis during REM sleep, causing people to act out dreams, which are often vivid and violent. This review systematically examines studies on dream recall in RBD, using both retrospective and prospective designs, to provide a comprehensive overview of qualitative and quantitative dream features. The work highlights that studying dreaming in RBD helps understand unique aspects of the disorder and reveals neurobiological, electrophysiological, and cognitive mechanisms of REM sleep and dreaming.
Journal of Sleep Research
June 1, 2023
Giorgia Margherita, Alessia Caffieri
During the COVID-19 pandemic, dreaming became more intense, with changes in dream recall and nightmare frequency, and the emergence of 'pandemic dreams'. A living systematic review of 71 eligible papers published up to February 2022 found that lockdowns were associated with heightened oneiric activity, alterations in the dreaming-waking-life continuum, and a role for dreaming as an emotional regulator. These findings suggest that monitoring changes in dreaming can provide important information about psychological health and may contribute to understanding the effects of collective trauma on sleep and dreaming.
Journal of Sleep Research
October 1, 2022
Salomé Blain, Aurélien De la Chapelle, Anne Caclin et al.
People who frequently recall their dreams are more easily distracted by hard-to-ignore auditory stimuli than those who rarely recall dreams. Using a new task that tests selective attention and working memory together, the study found that high dream recallers were slower and less accurate when a distractor was difficult to ignore, while low recallers were much less affected. The groups performed similarly on working memory load. This provides the first behavioral evidence that attentional differences exist between high and low dream recallers, supporting the idea that attentional processes play a role in dream recall.
Journal of Sleep Research
June 1, 2022
Gerhard Mayer, Max Fuhrmann
An online survey of 380 people who had experienced sleep paralysis at least once found that more frequent episodes were associated with more phenomena, emotions, and perceived shapes during the event. Some individuals appeared to habituate and de-dramatize the experience with higher frequency. Contrary to expectations, neither general stress nor poor sleep hygiene correlated with episode frequency. Women reported more phenomena and emotions overall, more intruder and incubus-type episodes, and were more likely to perceive concrete forms like human figures. They also reported more fear, especially fear of going crazy. These exploratory findings require replication.
Journal of Sleep Research
February 1, 2022
Claudia Picard-Deland, Tore Nielsen
Auditory cues played during specific sleep stages can shift the timing of when a newly learned virtual reality flying task reappears in dreams. Cues presented during REM sleep led to more task-related dreams 1-2 days later, while cues presented during slow-wave sleep led to more such dreams 5-6 days later, compared to no cueing. This delayed effect helps explain the day-residue effect (dreams about new learning the next day) and the dream-lag effect (dreams about new learning 5-7 days later), suggesting that memory reactivation during sleep influences the temporal pattern of dream content.
Journal of Sleep Research
February 1, 2022
Francesca Conte, Marissa Lynn Rescott, Oreste De Rosa et al.
During Italy's total lockdown in April 2020, about 30% of 1,622 participants reported increased dream frequency, length, and vividness, while roughly 20% reported decreases. Dream affect became significantly more negative compared to the month before lockdown. During the partial lockdown in November 2020, 214 of the same participants showed similar patterns, with negative dream affect again increasing significantly. In both lockdowns, worsened sleep quality predicted increased negative dream emotionality, which in turn predicted changes in dream frequency, length, and vividness. Between lockdowns, negative dream affect returned almost to baseline, suggesting dream emotionality is closely tied to lifestyle and waking emotional changes.
Journal of Sleep Research
October 1, 2021
Serena Scarpelli, Valentina Alfonsi, Anastasia Mangiaruga et al.
During the COVID-19 lockdown, a large Italian sample reported more frequent nightmares and dreams compared to a population-based sample. Predictors of high dream recall included young age, female gender, not having children, and sleep duration. High nightmare frequency was predicted by young age, female gender, changes in napping, sleep duration, intrasleep wakefulness, sleep problem index, anxiety, and depression. Higher emotional features of dream activity occurred in workers who stopped working, people with relatives or friends infected by or who died from COVID-19, and those who changed sleep habits. These findings support the continuity hypothesis linking daily experiences to sleep mentation and the arousal-retrieval model linking poor sleep to nightmares.
Journal of Sleep Research
June 1, 2021
Jaap Lancee, Marieke Effting, Anna E Kunze
Telephone-guided imagery rehearsal therapy for nightmares, delivered by postgraduate students, produced large improvements in nightmare frequency, nightmare distress, and insomnia severity compared with a wait-list condition. 70 adults with nightmare disorder were randomized to three treatment sessions over 5 weeks or to a wait list. Effects were sustained at 3- and 6-month follow-up. No significant effects were found on nights with nightmares per week, anxiety, or depression. The treatment effect was mediated by increased mastery at mid-treatment, supporting mastery's mechanistic role in imagery rehearsal therapy. The findings indicate that imagery rehearsal therapy can be effectively delivered in a guided self-help format with minimal therapist training, improving scalability and cost-effectiveness.
Journal of Sleep Research
December 1, 2020
Jonathan P Hintze, Dominic Gault
Recurrent isolated sleep paralysis, which can be very disturbing and provoke anxiety, is usually treated with cognitive and behavioural therapies, but some patients may benefit from medication. With limited evidence available, there are no standardized pharmacologic recommendations. This report describes the first two cases where escitalopram, a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor, successfully treated recurrent isolated sleep paralysis. Escitalopram generally improves subjective sleep quality, making it an appealing treatment option.
Journal of Sleep Research
August 9, 2020
P. Bugalho, F. Ladeira, Raquel Barbosa et al.
In Parkinson’s disease, negative emotions in dreams predict cognitive decline over four years. Among 58 non-demented patients, 23 reported dreams at baseline; aggression and negatively toned content predominated. Montreal Cognitive Assessment scores decreased significantly from baseline to follow-up. Negative emotion index in dreams was the strongest predictor of cognitive decline in a multivariate model, independent of motor stage, mood disorder, psychosis, or REM sleep behavior disorder. The findings suggest dream content may serve as an early marker of cognitive deterioration in Parkinson’s disease.
Journal of Sleep Research
December 1, 2019
Julie A E Christensen, Sébrina Aubin, Tore Nielsen et al.
Rapid eye movements (EMs) during REM sleep are not necessary for visual dream imagery. Blind individuals, both congenitally blind and late blind, showed significantly less eye movement coverage during wakefulness and all sleep stages compared to sighted controls. Late blind subjects reported more visual dream elements than congenitally blind subjects, yet both blind groups had similarly low eye movement activity. The near absence of nocturnal eye movements in late blind subjects, despite preserved visual dream content, does not support the hypothesis that REM sleep eye movements reflect visual scanning of dream imagery. Results indicate a dissociation between eye movements and visual dream content in blind individuals.