Studies in cognitive psychology showed that personality (openness to experience, thin boundaries, absorption), creativity, nocturnal awakenings, and attitude toward dreams are significantly related to dream recall frequency (DRF). These results suggest the possibility of neurophysiological trait differences between subjects with high and low DRF. To test this hypothesis we compared sleep...
Recent studies in sleep and dreaming have described an activation of emotional and reward systems, as well as the processing of internal information during these states. Specifically, increased activity in the amygdala and across mesolimbic dopaminergic regions during REM sleep is likely to promote the consolidation of memory traces with high emotional/motivational value. Moreover, coordinated...
Obstructive Sleep Apnea Hypopnea Syndrome (OSAHS) is a condition characterized by repeated episodes of airway obstruction during sleep, causing intermittent asphyxia and sleep fragmentation. The goal of this study was to assess dream content analysis before and during the first night of treatment for OSAHS using Continuous Positive Pressure (CPAP). We included 38 patients diagnosed using...
Isolated reports have long suggested a similarity in content and thought processes across mind wandering (MW) during waking, and dream mentation during sleep. This overlap has encouraged speculation that both "daydreaming" and dreaming may engage similar brain mechanisms. To explore this possibility, we systematically examined published first-person experiential reports of MW and dreaming and...
During sleep, humans experience the offline images and sensations that we call dreams, which are typically emotional and lacking in rational judgment of their bizarreness. However, during lucid dreaming (LD), subjects know that they are dreaming, and may control oneiric content. Dreaming and LD features have been studied in North Americans, Europeans and Asians, but not among Brazilians, the...
Duration of insomnia symptoms or nightmares was investigated to see if it was related to suicide risk independent of current insomnia symptoms, nightmares, anxiety symptoms, depressive symptoms, and posttraumatic symptoms. The cross-sectional study involved analyses of survey responses from undergraduate students who endorsed either insomnia symptoms (n = 660) or nightmares (n = 312). Both...
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....