Dream Activity in Narcoleptic Patients During the COVID-19 Lockdown in Italy.
Serena Scarpelli, Valentina Alfonsi, Anita D'Anselmo, Maurizio Gorgoni, Alessandro Musetti, Giuseppe Plazzi, Luigi De Gennaro, Christian Franceschini
Frontiers in Psychology 2021 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.681569 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Cross-sectional study Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Sample size | 129 |
| Population | Pharmacologically treated narcolepsy type-1 patients and matched controls during the Italian COVID-19 lockdown |
| Topics | Dreaming Lucid dreaming |
| Keywords | Covid-19 pandemic Creativity Narcolepsy Nightmares Sleep |
| Citations | 18 |
| Key findings | Narcolepsy type-1 patients experienced higher lucid dream frequency than controls, and more frequent lucid dreamers reported greater influence of dreaming on wakefulness, particularly for problem-solving and creativity. |
Abstract
Some studies highlighted that patients with narcolepsy type-1 (NT1) experience high lucid dream frequency, and this phenomenon has been associated with a creative personality. Starting from the well-known "pandemic effect" on sleep and dreaming, we presented a picture of dream activity in pharmacologically treated NT1 patients during the Italian lockdown. Forty-three NT1 patients completed a web-survey during Spring 2021 and were compared with 86 matched-controls. Statistical comparisons revealed that: (a) NT1 patients showed greater sleepiness than controls; (b) controls showed higher sleep disturbances than NT1 patients, and this result disappeared when the medication effect in NT1 was controlled; (c) NT1 patients reported higher lucid dream frequency than controls. Focusing on dreaming in NT1 patients, we found that (a) nightmare frequency was correlated with female gender, longer sleep duration, higher intrasleep wakefulness; (b) dream recall, nightmare and lucid dream frequency were positively correlated with sleepiness. Comparisons between low and high NT1 lucid dreamers showed that patients more frequently experiencing lucid dreams reported a greater influence of dreaming during wakefulness, especially concerning problem-solving and creativity. Overall, our results are consistent with previous studies on pandemic dreaming carried out on healthy subjects. Moreover, we confirmed a link between lucidity and creativity in NT1 patients. Considering the small sample size and the cross-sectional design, our findings cannot provide a causal relationship between lucid dreams and the COVID-19 lockdown. Nevertheless, they represent a first contribution to address future studies on this issue, suggesting that some stable characteristics could interact with changes provoked by the pandemic.
Comparable studies
Other cross-sectional and survey studies on lucid dreaming, most cited first.
| Study | Year | Design | Participants |
|---|---|---|---|
| The Phenomenology of Lucid Dreaming: An Online Survey Respondents to an online survey about lucid dreams | 2014 | Online survey | n = 684 |
| Frequency of Lucid Dreaming in a Representative German Sample Representative sample of German adults | 2011 | Cross-sectional survey | n = 919 |
| Lucid dreaming: an age‐dependent brain dissociation Students aged 6-19 years | 2012 | Survey | |
| Terror and bliss? Commonalities and distinctions between sleep paralysis, lucid dreaming, and their associations with waking life experiences Adults aged 18–82 years | 2016 | Cross-sectional survey | n = 1,928 |
| Increased Lucid Dreaming Frequency in Narcolepsy Patients diagnosed with narcolepsy and healthy control subjects | 2015 | Cross-sectional study | n = 979 |
Citations in the library
Cited by 12
- Dreams and Nightmares during the First and Second Wave of the COVID-19 Infection: A Longitudinal Study. Brain Sciences October 20, 2021
- Treating narcolepsy-related nightmares with cognitive behavioural therapy and targeted lucidity reactivation: A pilot study. Journal of Sleep Research June 1, 2025
- The Oneiric Activity during and after the COVID-19 Total Lockdown in Italy: A Longitudinal Study. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health March 24, 2022
- The clinical neuroscience of lucid dreaming. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews January 14, 2025
- Lucid dreaming increased during the COVID-19 pandemic: An online survey. PLoS One 2022
and 7 more in the library
Cites 18
- Lucid Dreaming in Narcolepsy Sleep February 27, 2015
- Dreaming and the COVID-19 pandemic: A survey in a U.S. sample. Dreaming September 1, 2020
- Increased Lucid Dreaming Frequency in Narcolepsy Sleep April 30, 2015
- Volitional components of consciousness vary across wakefulness, dreaming and lucid dreaming Frontiers in Psychology 2014
- Increased creative thinking in narcolepsy. Brain July 1, 2019
and 13 more in the library