Structural organization of dream experience during daytime sleep-onset rapid eye movement period sleep of patients with narcolepsy type 1.
Carlo Cipolli, Fabio Pizza, Claudia Bellucci, Michela Mazzetti, Giovanni Tuozzi, Stefano Vandi, Giuseppe Plazzi
Sleep August 12, 2020 DOI: 10.1093/sleep/zsaa012 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Observational cohort Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Sample size | 30 |
| Population | Drug-free cognitively intact adult patients with narcolepsy type 1 |
| Topics | Dreaming |
| Keywords | Mslt Narcolepsy type 1 |
| Key findings | Dream reports from daytime SOREMP naps show a structural organization comparable to nighttime REM dreams, with longer and more complex dream-stories in the first and fourth SOREMP naps. |
Abstract
To assess the frequency of dream experience (DE) developed during naps at Multiple Sleep Latency Test (MSLT) by patients with narcolepsy type 1 (NT1) and establish, using story-grammar analysis, the structural organization of DEs developed during naps with sleep onset rapid eye movement (REM) period (SOREMP) sleep compared with their DEs during early- and late-night REM sleep. Thirty drug-free cognitively intact adult NT1 patients were asked to report DE developed during each MSLT nap. Ten NT1 patients also spent voluntarily a supplementary night being awakened during the first-cycle and third-cycle REM sleep. Patients provided dream reports, white dreams, and no dreams, whose frequencies were matched in naps with SOREMP versus non-REM (NREM) sleep. All dream reports were then analyzed using story-grammar rules. DE was recalled in detail (dream report) by NT1 patients after 75% of naps with SOREMP sleep and after 25% of naps with NREM sleep. Dream reports were provided by 8 out of 10 NT1 patients after both awakenings from nighttime REM sleep. Story-grammar analysis of dream reports showed that SOREMP-DEs are organized as hierarchically ordered sequences of events (so-called dream-stories), which are longer and more complex in the first and fourth SOREMP naps and are comparable with nighttime REM-DEs. The similar structural organization of SOREMP-DEs with nighttime REM-DEs indicates that their underlying cognitive processes are highly, albeit not uniformly, effective during daytime SOREMP sleep. Given the peculiar neurophysiology of SOREMP sleep, investigating SOREMP-DEs may cast further light on the relationships between the neurophysiological and psychological processes involved in REM-dreaming.
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 |
Citations in the library
Cited by 4
- The Language of Dreams: Application of Linguistics-Based Approaches for the Automated Analysis of Dream Experiences Clocks & Sleep September 19, 2021
- Nightly dynamics of emotional content in dreams bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory) June 28, 2025
- From living metaphors in impactful dreams to sublime disquietude and sublime enthrallment Frontiers in Psychology August 11, 2026
- Dream Generation and Recall in Daytime NREM Sleep of Patients With Narcolepsy Type 1. Frontiers in Neuroscience 2020
Cites 20
- Lucid Dreaming in Narcolepsy Sleep February 27, 2015
- Increased creative thinking in narcolepsy. Brain July 1, 2019
- White dreams are made of colours: What studying contentless dreams can teach about the neural basis of dreaming and conscious experiences. Sleep Medicine Reviews February 1, 2019
- Beyond the neuropsychology of dreaming: Insights into the neural basis of dreaming with new techniques of sleep recording and analysis. Sleep Medicine Reviews October 1, 2017
- The neural correlates of dreaming. Nature Neuroscience April 10, 2017
and 15 more in the library