Significant individual differences exist in dream recall frequency (DRF) but some variance is likely attributable to instrument choice in measuring DRF. Three hundred and fifty eight participants estimated their weekly DRF and recorded their dreams in either a narrative log (n = 165) or checklist log (n = 193) for 2-5 weeks. There was an early peak in DRF within the first week of both types of...
An overview of the current status of dream science is given, designed to provide a basic background of this field for the sleep-interested physician. No cognitive state has been more extensively studied and is yet more misunderstood than dreaming. Much older work is methodologically limited by lack of definitions, small sample size, and constraints of theoretical perspective, with evidence...
Nightmares are a universal and timeless phenomenon. They occur in most healthy adults as well as a significant portion of clinical populations, especially those exposed to trauma. Considerable advances in the pharmacological and psychological treatment of post-traumatic nightmares have occurred over the last decade with continuing advances in psychological interventions over the last few years....
The characteristics of nightmares of 48 male U.S. Vietnam war veterans with combat-related posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), as well as revised dream scripts developed in the course of Imagery Rehearsal therapy, were examined in relation to pretreatment symptomatology and treatment outcome. Features, content, and themes of nightmares and rescripted dreams were coded by 2 independent raters....
To test whether mental activities collected from non-REM sleep are influenced by REM sleep, we suppressed REM sleep using clomipramine 50mg (an antidepressant) or placebo in the evening, in a double blind cross-over design, in 11 healthy young men. Subjects were awakened every hour and asked about their mental activity. The marked (81%, range 39-98%) REM-sleep suppression induced by...
This meta-analysis evaluates the efficacy of imagery rehearsal as a treatment for nightmares, general sleep disturbance, and symptoms of post-traumatic stress. Bibliographic databases and cited references were searched to identify clinical trials of imagery rehearsal in individuals with post-trauma nightmares. Thirteen studies met inclusion criteria and reported sleep and post-traumatic stress...
Dynamics of creative mental activity are examined in waking and dreaming processes which manifest beyond normative waking consciousness. Some consider such phenomena to be pathological or meaningless. Alternatively they may be viewed in new and healthier ways, in the context of adaptive mental controls, using nonlinear dynamical/chaos theory. The first example involves the innovativeness...
Ageing is associated with marked changes in sleep timing, structure and electroencephalographic (EEG) activity. Older people exhibit less slow-wave and spindle activity during non-rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep, together with attenuated levels of rapid eye movement (REM) sleep as compared to young individuals. However, the extent to which these age-related changes in sleep impact on dream...
Nightmares are a common and serious problem in psychotherapeutic practice, although they are seldom considered as independent mental disorders. There are some promising approaches to the treatment of nightmares, notably Imagery Rehearsal Therapy, a cognitive-restructuring treatment. The core of this approach is the modification of the nightmare script and repeated imagination of the new script....
The current study focused on the distribution of lucid dreams in school children and young adults. The survey was conducted on a large sample of students aged 6-19 years. Questions distinguished between past and current experience with lucid dreams. Results suggest that lucid dreaming is quite pronounced in young children, its incidence rate drops at about age 16 years. Increased lucidity was...
This paper presents a theoretical review of rapid eye movement sleep with a special focus on pontine-geniculate-occipital waves and what they might tell us about the functional anatomy of sleep and consciousness. In particular, we review established ideas about the nature and purpose of sleep in terms of protoconsciousness and free energy minimization. By combining these theoretical...
Nightmare disorder is a prevalent parasomnia characterized by vivid and highly unpleasant dream experiences during night time sleep. The neural background of disturbed dreaming was proposed to be associated with impaired prefrontal and fronto-limbic functioning during REM sleep. We hypothesized that the impaired prefrontal and fronto-limbic functioning in subjects with frequent nightmares would...
Abnormalities in the sleep/wake cycle and within sleep itself have extensively been studied in a broad range of psychiatric and neurodegenerative disorders. Despite increasing evidence for a mechanistic overlap between the disruptions of circadian timing control and neuropathology, the relationship remains unclear (Wulff et al., 2010). One possible way to address this problem from a psychiatric...
Intrinsic and historical weaknesses delayed the spread of a sound neurobiological investigation on dreaming. Nevertheless, recent independent findings confirm the hypothesis that the neurophysiological mechanisms of encoding and recall of episodic memories are largely comparable across wakefulness and sleep. Brain lesion and neuroimaging studies converge in indicating that...
The term lucid dream designates a dream in which the dreamer, while dreaming, is aware he or she is dreaming. Whereas lucid dreaming has been studied in adults, large-scaled surveys in children are scarce. The sample here included 3579 children for the ages from 6 to 18 who completed a brief questionnaire distributed in UK libraries. 43.5% reported having had at least one lucid dream. As...
This study evaluates gender differences in dream recall frequency, dream sharing frequency, dream listening frequency and nightmare frequency in childhood and adolescence. The sample included 3534 children for the ages from 6 to 18 who completed a brief questionnaire distributed in libraries. We were able to show that overall girls recalled dreams more often, shared dreams more often, listened...
This study investigated the effects of stressors for university students and their big five personality traits on dream recall frequency classified by dream emotion. The following results were obtained: i) stressors and Neuroticism had an interactive effect on dream recall frequency. ii) Stressors had main effects on sad, anxious, and unpleasant dream recall frequency. iii) Extroversion was...
We assessed dream recall frequency (DRF) and dream theme diversity (DTD) with an internet questionnaire among a cohort of 28,888 male and female participants aged 10-79 years in a cross-sectional design. DRF increased from adolescence (ages 10-19) to early adulthood (20-29) and then decreased again for the next 20 years. The nature of this decrease differed for males and females. For males, it...
The study of higher-order cognition in dreaming was guided by the question “What are the scope and purpose of thinking/strategizing efforts as one of three previously identified direct mental problem-solving modalities (Kozmová, 2008; 2012) that some dreamers are capable of using to resolve the novelties of felt-need situations encountered during non-lucid dreaming?” The research utilized...
This study extended previous research by comparing dream content and discovery passages from the dreams of Canadian and Italian patients who were undergoing psychodynamically-oriented psychotherapy. Thirty Italians and 30 Canadians (17 males and 13 females) completed The Storytelling Method of Dream Interpretation in either Italian or English. Dream and discovery content was analyzed via the...