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Contributing factors predicting nightmares in children: Trauma, anxiety, dissociation, and emotion regulation.

Marie E Secrist, Constance J Dalenberg, Richard Gevirtz

Psychological Trauma: Theory, Research, Practice and Policy January 2019 DOI: 10.1037/tra0000387 (opens in new tab)

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Study at a glance

AI-extracted from the abstract
Characteristics Observational study Peer reviewed
Sample size 60
Population Parent-child dyads with children ages 6-11
Topics Anxiety Dreaming
Key findings Anxiety, trauma history, dissociation, and baseline vagal tone together accounted for 39% of the variance in children's nightmare distress, with anxiety and dissociation emerging as positive predictors that remained uniquely significant. Parent processing of emotional information was only a weak predictor. The authors suggest that treatments targeting multiple physiological and psychological sources of nightmare distress may be warranted.

Abstract

There is little research in the current literature regarding contributing factors to nightmares in children. This study aimed to test potentially overlapping predictors of nightmare distress and severity, including anxiety, dissociation, trauma history, vagal tone, and parental processing of emotions. Sixty parent-child dyads (children ages 6-11) filled out a variety of child-report and parent-observation inventories on nightmare frequency and distress, dissociation, anxiety, and trauma history of the child. Children were monitored on heart rate variability and vagal tone. Both parent and child participated in a discussion of positive and negative life events that were later coded for degree of parent processing of emotional information. Anxiety, trauma history, dissociation, and baseline vagal tone accounted for 39% of the variance in nightmare distress. Anxiety and dissociation were positive predictors of nightmare distress in the multiple regression. Parent processing variables were weak predictors in the current analysis. The predictive power of anxiety, dissociation, vagal tone, and trauma history was not entirely due to their overlap, as shown by uniquely significant beta weights in the prediction of distress. Treatment procedures with multiple intervention points targeting physiological and psychological sources of nightmare distress may be warranted. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved).

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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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