Sleep Quality, Daytime Napping, and Dream Recall in Older Adults: A Biopsychosocial Study of Health, Loneliness, and Humor Styles.
Agni Nakou, Elena Dragioti, Stefanos Mantzoukas, Christos Tsironis, Eleni Bartzou, Fotios Tatsis, Nektaria Zagorianakou, Mary Gouva
Cureus April 1, 2026 DOI: 10.7759/cureus.107940 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Cross-sectional study Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Sample size | 609 |
| Population | Community-dwelling adults aged 60 years and older in Greece |
| Topics | Dreaming |
| Keywords | Biopsychosocial model Daytime napping Humor styles Loneliness Older adults Sleep quality |
| Key findings | Sleep quality was positively associated with mental health (ρ=0.247), physical health (ρ=0.211), and affiliative humor (ρ=0.148) and negatively associated with emotional loneliness (ρ=-0.215). |
Abstract
Sleep experiences in later life are shaped by multiple biological, psychological, and social factors. This exploratory cross-sectional study examined associations between subjective sleep quality, daytime napping, dream recall, and selected health and psychosocial variables in community-dwelling older adults, within a biopsychosocial framework. A cross-sectional questionnaire-based survey was conducted in Greece among 609 community-dwelling adults aged 60 years and older. Participants completed self-report measures of health-related quality of life (SF-36), loneliness, humor styles, and brief single-item measures of subjective sleep quality, sleep sufficiency, daytime napping, and dream recall. Descriptive statistics, Spearman correlations, Mann-Whitney U tests, and multiple regression analyses were performed. Given the exploratory design and the use of multiple statistical tests without correction for multiple comparisons, the findings were interpreted cautiously. Sleep quality was positively associated with mental health (ρ=0.247), physical health (ρ=0.211), and affiliative humor (ρ=0.148) and negatively associated with emotional loneliness (ρ=-0.215). Sleep sufficiency and sleep quality were almost perfectly correlated (ρ=0.989), suggesting substantial conceptual overlap. Daytime napping was positively associated with age (ρ=0.184) and was more frequent in men than women. Dream recall was positively associated with physical health (ρ=0.141) and self-enhancing humor (ρ=0.202) and negatively associated with social loneliness (ρ=-0.136). In multivariable analyses, mental health (β=0.145; p=0.049) and affiliative humor (β=0.159; p=0.001) were independently associated with sleep quality. Subjective sleep experiences in older adults showed modest associations with health status, loneliness, and humor styles. These findings should be considered preliminary and exploratory, particularly because key sleep and dream variables were assessed using non-validated single-item measures, several associations were modest in magnitude, and multiple statistical tests were conducted without correction for multiple comparisons. The results may help generate hypotheses for future studies using validated multidimensional sleep and dream measures, but they should not be interpreted as confirmatory or causal evidence.
Comparable studies
Other cross-sectional and survey studies on dreaming, most cited first.
| Study | Year | Design | Participants |
|---|---|---|---|
| Insomnia Symptoms, Nightmares, and Suicidal Ideation in a College Student Sample Undergraduate students at a large, public university in the southeastern United States | 2011 | Observational cross-sectional survey | n = 583 |
| Prevalence and Correlates of Frequent Nightmares: A Community-Based 2-Phase Study Middle-aged Hong Kong Chinese adults from the community, mean age 40.9 years (SD 5.5,... | 2010 | Cross-sectional survey with subsequent clinical evaluation (two-phase design) | n = 8,558 |
| Factors of home dream recall: a structural equation model Adults (general population sample) | 2003 | Cross-sectional survey with structural equation modeling | n = 444 |
| 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 |