Nightmare Disorder (NDO) is an underdiagnosed sleep disorder causing significant impairment, particularly in active duty U.S. military personnel who experience unique stressors. Despite 59.28% of referred service members reporting nightmares and 19.76% screening positive for probable NDO, baseline diagnosis rate was only 0.60%. Our quality improvement project aimed to improve identification and...
While most research on sleep mentation focuses on dream reports, sleep experiences can also include reports lacking content, such as white dreaming —the feeling of knowing one dreamt but being unable to recall its contents. I claim that white dreaming is a metacognitive feeling, akin to tip‐of‐the‐tongue and déjà experiences. Conceiving it this way allows for a more nuanced understanding of its...
Background: Lucid dreaming (LD), which involves being aware of and controlling one’s dreams, is of particular interest in the study of consciousness and has potential therapeutic applications. In this narrative review, we highlight the neurobiological aspects of LD, specifically its mechanisms associated with the activation of prefrontal and parietal areas, increased gamma oscillations, and the...
Introduction Recurrent nightmares often severely impair the quality of life, school functioning, and daily functioning of trauma-exposed children and adolescents. However, research to date is limited for treatments focused on reducing the impact of posttraumatic nightmares among youth in conflict zones. This study aimed to investigate the outcome of the Better Learning Program 3 (BLP) as it was...
Beta-adrenergic blockers are effective in migraine prevention but can induce neuropsychiatric side effects, including vivid dreams and nightmares. Their lipophilicity allows penetration of the central nervous system, where β1-adrenergic blockade may disrupt REM sleep, alter noradrenergic activity, and suppress melatonin secretion, contributing to emotionally intense dreams. While reported in...
This special issue unites original theoretical and empirical research on two topics that are gaining traction in cognitive neuroscience and psychology, but so far have small philosophical footprints: dreaming and waking mind wandering. While the fields of dream and mind wandering research are largely separate, phenomenological and neurophysiological similarities between waking mind wandering...
This nightmare-focused study was conducted based on data collected in an open-label, controlled treatment pilot trial conducted at the Johns Hopkins Center for Psychedelic and Consciousness Research (CPCR) under an approved protocol (IRB00407008; NCT06407635). Participants completed screening, baseline assessment, four preparatory sessions, two psilocybin dosing sessions, seven post-session...
Introduction: Background: nightmares are a common sleep disorder characterized by distressing dreams, leading to sleep disruption and psychological distress. Emerging evidence suggests a potential link between lipid metabolism and nightmare occurrence, but the causal relationship is poorly understood. Objective: to investigate the causal relationship between blood lipid metabolism...
STUDY OBJECTIVES: Sensory stimulation during rapid eye movement (REM) sleep has been proposed as a method to induce lucidity, yet most approaches rely on distal sensory modalities such as light and sound. We explored whether bodily stimulation targeting the muscle and vestibular systems differentially influences dream incorporation and lucid awareness during REM sleep. METHODS: 28 participants...
In this exploratory study, the authors used subjective participant data to investigate sleep disturbance in functional neurological disorder (FND) and its impact on FND symptoms. An online questionnaire was designed in collaboration with FND charities and administered to 373 adult participants with a self-reported FND diagnosis. Most participants (86%) were women, and most (73%) perceived their...