Long-term effects of extreme situational stress on sleep and dreaming
American Journal of Psychiatry March 1, 1987 DOI: 10.1176/ajp.144.3.344 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Case-control study Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Sample size | 11 |
| Population | Survivors of traumatic events who complained of sleep disturbances, compared with control subjects |
| Topics | Dreaming |
| Citations | 217 |
| Key findings | Trauma survivors with sleep complaints showed poorer sleep continuity (lower sleep efficiency, longer sleep latency, more awake and movement time), shorter REM time, and longer REM latencies than controls. Four of 11 had REM- and non-REM-related nightmares, with REM-related motor activity in two sea-disaster survivors; the others had unusually low dream recall despite high eye movement density. |
Abstract
Sleep data were obtained on 11 patients who had survived traumatic events and who complained of sleep disturbances. Each was awakened from REM and non-REM sleep for dream recall. The patients had lower sleep efficiency indices (because of prolonged sleep latency and larger amounts of "awake" plus "movement" time within sleep periods), shorter REM time, and longer REM latencies than did control subjects. Four of the 11 patients had REM- and non-REM-related nightmares, which, in two sea disaster patients, were associated with REM-related motor activity. The rest of the patients had unusually low dream recall in spite of high eye movement density.
In the evidence
This study is part of the evidence base for a synthesis in the library. Here is how each one recorded it.
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Trauma survivors had poorer sleep continuity, shorter REM time, and longer REM latency than controls; four of eleven had nightmares, while others showed unusually low dream recall despite high eye movement density.
Synthesized
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 |
| The relationship of nightmare frequency and nightmare distress to well‐being Adults who reported dreams | 2004 | Observational cohort | n = 147 |
| The prevalence of nightmares and their independence from anxiety. Undergraduates | 1990 | Observational study using daily dream logs | n = 220 |
| 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 20
- Nightmare Rescripting: Using Imagery Techniques to Treat Sleep Disturbances in Post-traumatic Stress Disorder Frontiers in Psychiatry April 4, 2022
- Sleep Disorders Among Holocaust Survivors The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease August 28, 2017
- Parasomnias I Oxford University Press eBooks May 22, 2025
- Short-Term Stability and Night-to-Night Variability of Sleep Parameters in Nightmares Comorbid with Chronic Insomnia Disorder Across Multiple Nights of Polysomnography. Sleep February 1, 2024
- Clinical and polysomnographic features of trauma associated sleep disorder. Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine December 1, 2022
and 15 more in the library