This article examines a corpus of dream reports produced by nurses at the Münsterlingen psychiatric hospital (Canton Thurgau, Switzerland), compiled by the psychiatrist Roland Kuhn between the 1950s and the 1980s and incorporated into psychotherapy documentation. It argues that these dream narratives — mediated through a layered documentary chain (clinical dictation, secretarial typing, and...
Background: Mizaj (temperament) is a core concept in Unani medicine, reflecting an individual’s constitutional makeup and influencing physical, psychological and behavioral traits. Classical texts suggest that mizaj modulates dream patterns and sleep quality, yet empirical evidence integrating traditional temperament assessment with contemporary dream and sleep metrics is limited. To...
Lucid dreaming (LD), sleep paralysis (SP), and false awakenings (FA) are liminal sleep phenomena that are often studied independently, despite evidence suggesting that they may arise from overlapping states of consciousness. Within Filipino cultural contexts, such experiences are frequently interpreted through folklore and superstition, such as bangungot, rather than through scientific or...
Nightmares disrupt sleep and heighten daytime anxiety, yet therapeutic support is often hard to access due to limited clinician availability, cost, and clinical framing. We propose TunTun Diary, a mobile game in which an alien puppy named TunTun “eats” players’ nightmares and returns gentle, comic-style retellings. The system uses generative AI to reinterpret users’ nightmare descriptions into...
The concept of narrative is widespread in the philosophical literature on dreams. Although several works have examined the putative narrative character of dreams by drawing on narratology, literary theory, and semiotics, there has been virtually no investigation of how preconceptions about the resemblance between fictional narratives and retrospective dream reports have shaped the philosophical...
This article provides a transnational perspective on the Filipino American novel Leche (2011) and its depiction of both tsismis (“gossip”) and the fatal Filipino medical phenomenon bangungot (“nightmare”). I pay particular attention to the unpredictability of bangungot—its ability to paralyze and kill during sleep without warning—which is precisely why it becomes an object of speculation and...
Abstract Background Evidence suggests that dreaming is subserved by the default mode network (DMN) (Domhoff, 2022. The Neurocognitive Theory of Dreaming ). β‐amyloid plaques and phosphorylated tau ( p ‐tau) protein tangles accumulate and contribute to abnormal functionality in the DMN long before clinical Alzheimer's disease, and similarly early abnormal DMN functionality is shown by...
In this essay, dream reports of the author’s dream diary were probed for their temporal aspects regarding dream production and experience. Three different general inferences were drawn from the dream contents: (a) Dreams are produced and experienced in real-time. (b) Dreams are produced in advance, saved and experienced later. (c) Dreaming is constant, being aware of it is variable. There was...
Anesthesia & AnalgesiaNovember 24, 2025Donggeon Lee, Hayoung Lee, Cheol-Hyeong Lee et al.
BACKGROUND: Drug-induced dreams during intravenous sedation vary by pharmacological agent and influence patient experiences, yet the role of preoperative positive suggestions in modulating these dreams is unclear. This study aimed to investigate the impact of preoperative positive suggestions on drug-induced dream recall (DIDR) frequency, dream content, and subjective perceptions during...
Scientia PsychiatricaNovember 19, 2025Ni Wayan Saka Rahayu, Putu Risdianto Eka Putra
Introduction: The pervasive integration of digital media into pediatric life has shifted the clinical focus from screen time quantity to content quality. Emerging "metaphysical" sub-genres, such as algorithmic "Lucid Dreaming" tutorials, pose unique risks to preadolescents. This case report aims to document a novel presentation of acute sleep anxiety precipitated specifically by "Lucid...
Abstract This chapter opens with an essay called “Cadenzas: Hypnagogic Visions,” which continues the exploration from the beginning of the book, looking more closely at aspects of the hypnagogic state, specifically in relation to the free-flowing dream-like qualities of a cadenza. The cadenza concept is compared to the snooze option on an alarm, which puts the person in a state in between...
Childhood trauma has been found to be associated with suicidal ideation among youth. However, the underlying processes that link childhood trauma and suicidal ideation are unclear. This study investigates the role of nightmare frequency in the association between childhood trauma and suicidal ideation, and the potential moderating effect of sex. Youths were recruited from Fujian Province,...
This appendix reviews evidence that dreams are reported to occur during lighter stages of NREM sleep as well as during REM sleep. It reviews debates about whether REM-related dreams are more fantastic and irrational than NREM-related dreams, and whether the length and complexity of dream recall differs between sleep stages. Determining whether there are sleep stage-related differences in the...
We review the recent published literature on nightmare-focused interventions, including imagery rehearsal therapy, for trauma-exposed adult populations. Imagery rehearsal therapy (IRT) and prazosin remain the most supported treatments, though results vary across studies. New consensus guidelines have led to Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Nightmares (CBT-N), which integrates rescripting,...
NeuropsychologiaOctober 30, 2025Sandrine Baselgia, Björn Rasch1 citation
Psychosocial stress induces stress responses at physiological and cognitive levels which disrupt subsequent sleep. A recent study from our group has shown that stress-induced changes are dynamic: stress before sleep led to prolonged sleep latency and changes in the early sleep period, while anticipated post-sleep stress resulted in changes in the late sleep period. A possible explanation is...
BACKGROUND: Nightmares are a type of sleep disorder characterised by vivid and distressing dreams that cause abrupt awakenings, leading to significant discomfort. In adults, recurrent nightmares can negatively impact quality of life, daytime functioning, and overall mental health. In this context, it is essential to have valid, reliable, and culturally appropriate psychological instruments that...
Identifying fear-related nightmares in children is particularly challenging, as young children often struggle to articulate their experiences or recall dream content. These nightmares, however, can severely disrupt sleep, hinder academic performance, and heighten psychological vulnerability, underscoring the need foraccurate and early prediction for effective intervention. This study explores...
Several measures eliciting nightmare frequency have been developed over the years. Most of the measures show sufficient reliability, but some studies are based on the four-point item of the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) measuring bad dream frequency – even though reliability data for this item have not been published. The present study included a sample of N = 277 participants...
REM sleep behavior disorder, often an early marker of α-synucleinopathies, is characterized by the loss of REM-related muscle atonia and the occurrence of dream enactment behaviors. Dream reports in REM sleep behavior disorder are frequently described as more vivid, violent, and negative than typical dreams. However, evidence for this remains inconsistent, likely due to methodological...
Background: Lucid dreaming (LD) is a state in which individuals become aware that they are dreaming and can exert control over their dream content. Equanimity (EQU) refers to a state of psychological stability, where one remains calm, balanced, and non-reactive in the face of stress or adversity. While LD has been linked to emotional regulation, its predictive relationship with EQU remains...