Journal of Sleep Research
December 1, 2019
Julie A E Christensen, Sébrina Aubin, Tore Nielsen et al.
There is ongoing controversy regarding the role of rapid eye movements (EMs) during rapid eye movement (REM) sleep. One prevailing hypothesis is that EMs during REM sleep are indicative of the presence of visual imagery in dreams. We tested the validity of this hypothesis by measuring EMs in blind subjects and correlating these with visual dream content. Eleven blind subjects, of whom five were...
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...
Journal of Sleep Research
February 1, 2019
Erin J. Wamsley, Robert Stickgold
Sleep following learning benefits memory. One model attributes this effect to the iterative "reactivation" of memory traces in the sleeping brain, demonstrated in animal models. Although technical limitations prohibit using the same methods to observe memory reactivation in the human brain, the study of mental activity during sleep provides an alternative method of observing memory activation...
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...
Journal of Sleep Research
October 1, 2018
Raphael Vallat, Mickael Eskinazi, Alain Nicolas et al.
There is a lack of up-to-date data on sleep and dream habits of college students. To fill in this gap, we used an online questionnaire sent to the student mailing lists of two major universities of Lyon (Lyon 1 and Lyon 2) for the recruitment of an functional magnetic resonance imaging study with sleep disorders as exclusion criteria. In the sample (1,137 French college students, 411 males,...
Journal of Sleep Research
October 1, 2018
Dan Denis, Christopher C. French, Melanie N. Schneider et al.
SummaryResearch suggests that poor sleep quality is related to the occurrence of sleep paralysis, although the precise relationship between these two variables is unknown. This association has generated interest due to the related possibility that improving sleep quality could help to combat episodes of sleep paralysis. To date, studies examining the association between sleep quality and sleep...
Journal of Sleep Research
April 22, 2018
Jean-Baptiste Eichenlaub, Elaine Van Rijn, Mairéad Phelan et al.
17 citations
Incorporation of details from waking life events into rapid eye movement (REM) sleep dreams has been found to be highest on the 2 nights after, and then 5-7 nights after, the event. These are termed, respectively, the day-residue and dream-lag effects. This study is the first to categorize types of waking life experiences and compare their incorporation into dreams across multiple successive...
Journal of Sleep Research
April 1, 2018
Pilleriin Sikka, Antti Revonsuo, Nils Sandman et al.
The aim of this study was to compare the emotional content of dream reports collected at home upon morning awakenings with those collected in the laboratory upon early and late rapid eye movement (REM) sleep awakenings. Eighteen adults (11 women, seven men; mean age = 25.89 ± 4.85) wrote down their home dreams every morning immediately upon awakening during a 7-day period. Participants also...
Journal of Sleep Research
July 27, 2016
Dan Denis, Giulia Poerio
70 citations
Sleep paralysis and lucid dreaming are both dissociated experiences related to rapid eye movement (REM) sleep. Anecdotal evidence suggests that episodes of sleep paralysis and lucid dreaming are related but different experiences. In this study we test this claim systematically for the first time in an online survey with 1928 participants (age range: 18-82 years; 53% female). Confirming...
Journal of Sleep Research
December 1, 2015
Bastien Herlin, Smaranda Leu-Semenescu, Charlotte Chaumereuil et al.
To determine whether non-dreamers do not produce dreams or do not recall them, subjects were identified with no dream recall with dreamlike behaviours during rapid eye movement sleep behaviour disorder, which is typically characterised by dream-enacting behaviours congruent with sleep mentation. All consecutive patients with idiopathic rapid eye movement sleep behaviour disorder or rapid eye...
Journal of Sleep Research
August 1, 2015
Gaëlle Dumel, Michelle Carr, Louis-Philippe Marquis et al.
Although sleep facilitates learning and memory, the roles of dreaming and habitual levels of recalling dreams remain unknown. This study examined if performance and overnight improvement on a rapid eye movement sleep-sensitive visuomotor task is associated differentially with habitually high or low dream recall frequency. As a relation between dream production and visuospatial skills has been...
Journal of Sleep Research
April 1, 2015
Carlo Cipolli, Mario Guazzelli, Claudia Bellucci et al.
This study aimed to investigate the cycles (2nd/4th) and duration-related (5/10 min) variations in the story-like organization of dream experience elaborated during rapid eye movement (REM) sleep. Dream reports were analysed using story grammar rules. Reports were provided by those subjects (14 of 22) capable of reporting a dream after each of the four awakenings provoked in 2 consecutive...
Journal of Sleep Research
February 9, 2015
Dan Denis, C. French, R. Rowe et al.
Sleep paralysis is a relatively common but under‐researched phenomenon. In this paper we examine prevalence in a UK sample and associations with candidate risk factors. This is the first study to investigate the heritability of sleep paralysis in a twin sample and to explore genetic associations between sleep paralysis and a number of circadian expressed single nucleotide polymorphisms....
Journal of Sleep Research
May 16, 2013
Tana Kröner-Borowik, Stefanie Gosch, Kathrin Hansen et al.
26 citations
Suppressing unwanted thoughts can lead to an increased occurrence of the suppressed thought in dreams. This is explainable by the ironic control theory, which theorizes why the suppression of thoughts might make them more persistent. The present study examined the influence of thought suppression on dream rebound, dream distress, general psychiatric symptomatology, depression, sleep quality and...
Journal of Sleep Research
June 1, 2012
Sarah L Chellappa, Mirjam Münch, Vera Knoblauch et al.
Ageing is associated with marked changes in sleep timing, structure and electroencephalographic (EEG) activity. Older people exhibit less slow-wave and spindle activity during non-rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep, together with attenuated levels of rapid eye movement (REM) sleep as compared to young individuals. However, the extent to which these age-related changes in sleep impact on dream...
Journal of Sleep Research
May 29, 2012
Ursula Voss, Clemens Frenzel, Judith Koppehele-Gossel et al.
76 citations
The current study focused on the distribution of lucid dreams in school children and young adults. The survey was conducted on a large sample of students aged 6-19 years. Questions distinguished between past and current experience with lucid dreams. Results suggest that lucid dreaming is quite pronounced in young children, its incidence rate drops at about age 16 years. Increased lucidity was...
Journal of Sleep Research
February 1, 2012
Caroline Kusse, Anahita Shaffii-LE Bourdiec, Jessica Schrouff et al.
This study characterizes hypnagogic hallucinations reported during a polygraphically recorded 90-min daytime nap following or preceding practice of the computer game Tetris. In the experimental group (N = 16), participants played Tetris in the morning for 2 h during three consecutive days, while in a first control group (N = 13, controlling the effect of experience) participants did not play...
Journal of Sleep Research
September 1, 2011
Jaap Lancee, Victor I. Spoormaker, Jan Van den Bout
Nightmares are a prevalent disorder leading to daily impairments. Two cognitive-behavioural self-help interventions--imagery rehearsal and exposure--recently showed short-term efficacy compared to a waiting-list and a group that recorded their nightmares. This paper reports the long-term results of the imagery rehearsal (n=103) and exposure (n=95) interventions. Participants were assigned...
Journal of Sleep Research
August 4, 2011
Katja Valli, Birgit Frauscher, Viola Gschliesser et al.
58 citations
Motor activity in rapid eye movement (REM) sleep behaviour disorder (RBD) has been linked to dream content. Systematic and controlled sleep laboratory studies directly assessing the relation between RBD behaviours and experienced dream content are, however, largely lacking. We aimed to investigate whether a link can be established between RBD behaviours and dream content when both are...
Journal of Sleep Research
December 1, 2008
E J O Kompanje
Hypnagogic and hypnopompic hallucinations are visual, tactile, auditory or other sensory events, usually brief but sometimes prolonged, that occur at the transition from wakefulness to sleep (hypnagogic) or from sleep to wakefulness (hypnopompic). Hypnagogic and hypnopompic hallucinations are often associated with sleep paralysis. Sleep paralysis occurs immediately prior to falling asleep...
Journal of Sleep Research
June 1, 2008
Michael Schredl, Iris Reinhard
SummaryMany studies have reported gender differences in dream recall. Data from 175 independent studies have been included in the analyses. Overall, estimated effect sizes in five age groups of healthy persons differed significantly from zero. Variables like measurement method and publication year did not affect the gender difference but age groups showed different effect sizes. The smallest...
Journal of Sleep Research
May 13, 2008
Geneviève Robert, Antonio Zadra
97 citations
Studies on nightmare frequency have yielded inconsistent results. We compared the frequency of nightmares and bad dreams obtained with retrospective methods (annual and monthly estimates) and with two types of prospective measures (narrative and checklist logs). Four hundred and eleven participants completed retrospective estimates of nightmare and bad dream frequency and recorded their dreams...
Journal of Sleep Research
September 1, 2007
Mariana Szklo‐coxe, Terry Young, Laurel Finn et al.
SummarySleep disturbances are important correlates of depression, with epidemiologic research heretofore focused on insomnia and sleepiness. This epidemiologic study’s aim was to investigate, in a community sample, depression’s relationships to other sleep disturbances: sleep paralysis (SP), hypnagogic/hypnopompic hallucinations (HH), cataplexy – considered rapid eye movement‐related...
Journal of Sleep Research
June 1, 2006
Todd A. Girard, J. Allan Cheyne
SummaryThe objective of this prospective naturalistic field study was to determine the distribution of naturally occurring sleep‐paralysis (SP) episodes over the course of nocturnal sleep and their relation to bedtimes. Regular SP experiencers (N = 348) who had previously filled out a screening assessment for SP as well as a general sleep survey were recruited. Participants reported, online...
Journal of Sleep Research
September 1, 2005
J. A. Cheyne
SummarySleep paralysis (SP) episodes are often accompanied by vivid hallucinoid experiences that have been found to fall into three major categories thought to be organized according to intrinsic rapid eye movement (REM) processes. Prior research has, however, combined data for individuals with varying degrees of experience with SP episodes, rendering interpretations of the source of this...