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Longitudinal Study of Early Adversity and Disturbing Dream Frequency: Moderating Role of Early Negative Emotionality.

Mira El-Hourani, Antonio Zadra, Natalie Castellanos-Ryan, Charlie Rioux, Richard E Tremblay, Sophie Parent, Jean R Séguin

Research on child and adolescent psychopathology February 2024 DOI: 10.1007/s10802-023-01109-1 (opens in new tab)

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Study at a glance

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Characteristics Observational longitudinal cohort study Peer reviewed
Sample size 410
Population Children followed from 5-42 months to 13-18 years, with early measures reported by mothers
Duration Follow-up from 5-42 months to 13-18 years
Topics Dreaming
Keywords Disturbing dream Early adversity Early negative emotionality Early social environment Youth
Key findings Disturbing dream frequency decreased across adolescence overall. Early negative emotionality moderated the association between early social environment and later disturbing dream frequency: at higher negative emotionality, disturbing dreams were more frequent in adverse environments and less frequent in positive environments. The authors argue that disturbing dream development is most strongly associated with a combination of individual and environmental factors.

Abstract

Although disturbing dreams are prevalent in youth and are associated with psychopathology, little is known about their developmental course and risk factors. We aimed to examine the association between early social environment and subsequent disturbing dream frequency across adolescence as moderated by early negative emotionality. Measures of children's early social environment and negative emotionality were collected from the mothers of 410 children (5-42 months old) and measures of disturbing dream frequency directly from the children (13-18 years old). Preliminary steps identified subgroups of families with distinct profiles of social environment using latent variable mixture modeling, and captured changes in disturbing dream frequency using latent growth modeling. Regression and moderation analyses were conducted to test the study objectives. Results showed that the diverse family patterns were best captured by two profiles reflecting adverse and positive social environments and that overall disturbing dream frequency decreased during adolescence. Moderation analyses showed that when early negative emotionality was higher, DD frequency was not only more elevated in an adverse environment, but lower in a positive environment. These results indicate that the development of disturbing dreams is most strongly associated with a combination of individual and environment factors. Our study adds to the literature by refining our conception of individual traits and disturbing dream development and has implications for the prevention of bad dreams, nightmares, and associated psychopathologies.

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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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