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End-of-Life in Oncologic Patients' Dream Content.

Alessandro Cicolin, Michele Boffano, Guglielmo Beccuti, Raimondo Piana, Alessandra Giordano

Brain Sciences August 1, 2020 DOI: 10.3390/brainsci10080505 (opens in new tab)

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Study at a glance

AI-extracted from the abstract
Characteristics Observational case-control study Peer reviewed
Sample size 20
Population 13 consecutive patients with sarcoma early after diagnosis and paired controls; 10 patients and 10 controls completed the study
Measures DreamSat
Topics Dreaming
Keywords Sleep Oncology End of life Health communication Memory consolidation
Key findings Patients' dreams contained significantly more negative emotions, fewer familiar settings and characters, and no success involving the dreamer compared with controls and normative data. Illness and death appeared in 57% of patients' dreams versus 0% of controls. No group differences emerged in anxiety, depression, distress, or fear of death, though illness severity was correctly perceived. The authors suggest these dream emotions without conscious distress may reflect the time required for memory elaboration during sleep.

Abstract

Both non-rapid eye movements and rapid eye movements sleep facilitate the strengthening of newly encoded memory traces, and dream content reflects this process. Numerous studies evaluated the impact of diseases on dream content, with particular reference to cancer, and reported the presence of issues related to death, negative emotions, pain and illness. This study investigates death and illness experiences in 13 consecutive patients with sarcoma compared to paired controls, early after diagnosis, evaluating dream contents, fear of death, mood and anxiety, distress, and severity of disease perception (perceived and communicated). Ten patients and 10 controls completed the study. Dream contents were significantly different between patients and normative data (DreamSat) and patients and controls (higher presence of negative emotions, low familiar settings and characters and no success involving the dreamer). Illness and death were present in 57% of patients' dreams (0% among controls), but no differences emerged between patients and controls in regard to anxiety and depression, distress and fear of death, even if the severity of illness was correctly perceived. The appearance of emotional elements in dreams and the absence of conscious verbalization of distress and/or depressive or anxious symptoms by patients could be ascribed to the time required for mnestic elaboration (construction/elaboration phase) during sleep.

Comparable studies

Other observational and cohort studies on dreaming, most cited first.

Study Year Design Participants
Lucid Dreaming: a State of Consciousness with Features of Both Waking and Non-Lucid Dreaming Student volunteers trained to become lucid and signal lucidity with horizontal eye... 2009 Observational study n = 6
Nightmare Prevalence, Nightmare Distress, and Self-Reported Psychological Disturbance Young adults with a mean age of 20 years 2002 Prospective observational study n = 116
Long-term effects of extreme situational stress on sleep and dreaming Survivors of traumatic events who complained of sleep disturbances, compared with... 1987 Case-control study n = 11
The relationship of nightmare frequency and nightmare distress to well‐being Adults who reported dreams 2004 Observational cohort n = 147
Dreaming in NREM Sleep: A High-Density EEG Study of Slow Waves and Spindles Healthy human subjects 2018 Observational cohort n = 14

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Dreaming Anxiety Depression End-of-life distress Lucid dreaming Philosophy of mind