Gender differences in dreaming in childhood and adolescence: the UK Library study

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 more often to dreams and reported higher nightmare frequency than boys. For dream sharing frequency and dream listening frequency gender differences increased significantly with age indicating that gender-specific dream socialization might be probable. As this effect was most prominent for adolescents of 13 years and older, one might speculate that the peer group – especially same-sex friendships play an important role in dream socialization. Dream listening is still a very young field of research and longitudinal studies are necessary to study when gender differences in dreaming emerge and whether this processes effect dream recall frequency and other dream variables in adults

Association of Locomotor Activity During Sleep Deprivation Treatment With Response

Disrupted circadian rhythms and sleep patterns are frequently observed features of psychiatric disorders, and especially mood disorders. Sleep deprivation treatment (SD) exerts rapid but transient antidepressant effects in depressed patients and has gained recognition as a model to study quick-acting antidepressant effects. It is of interest how locomotor activity patterns during SD might be associated with and potentially predict treatment response. The present study is an analysis of locomotor activity data, previously collected over a 24 h period, to examine the night of SD (Trautmann et al. 2018) as mood disorder patients suffering from a depressive episode (n = 78; after exclusions n = 59) underwent SD. In this exploratory analysis, the associations between response to SD, locomotor activity, and subjective mood during the 24 h period of SD were explored. Higher levels of activity overall were observed in non-responders (n = 18); in particular, non-responders moved more during the evening of SD until midnight and remained high thereafter. In contrast, activity in responders (n = 41) decreased during the evening and increased in the morning. Subjective mood was not found to be associated with locomotor activity. The window of data available in this analysis being limited, additional data from before and after the intervention are required to fully characterize the results observed. The present results hint at the possible utility of locomotor activity as a predictor and early indicator of treatment response, and suggest that the relationship between SD and locomotor activity patterns should be further investigated

Characteristics of the memory sources of dreams: A new version of the content-matching paradigm to take mundane and remote memories into account

Several studies have demonstrated that dream content is related to the waking life of the dreamer. However, the characteristics of the memory sources incorporated into dreams are still unclear. We designed a new protocol to investigate remote memories and memories of trivial experiences, both relatively unexplored in dream content until now. Upon awakening, for 7 days, participants identified the waking life elements (WLEs) related to their dream content and characterized them and their dream content on several scales to assess notably emotional valence. Thanks to this procedure, they could report WLEs from the whole lifespan, and mundane ones before they had been forgotten. Participants (N = 40, 14 males, age = 25.2 ± 7.6) reported 6.2 ± 2.0 dreams on average. For each participant, 83.4% ± 17.8 of the dream reports were related to one or more WLEs. Among all the WLEs incorporated into dreams dated by the participants (79.3 ± 19%), 40.2 ± 30% happened the day before the dream, 26.1 ± 26% the month before (the day before excluded), 15.8 ± 21% the year before the dream (the month before excluded), and 17.9 ± 24% happened more than one year before the dream. As could be expected from previous studies, the majority of the WLEs incorporated into dreams were scored as important by the dreamers. However, this was not true for incorporated WLEs dating from the day before the dream. In agreement with Freud’s observations, the majority of the day residues were scored as mundane. Finally, for both positive and negative WLEs incorporated into dreams, the dreamt version of the WLE was rated as emotionally less intense than the original WLE. This result, showing that dreams tend to attenuate the emotional tone of waking-life memories towards a more neutral one, argues in favor of the emotional regulation hypothesis of dreaming

Emotion dysregulation mediates the relationship between nightmares and psychotic experiences: Results from a student population

Sleep-disruption is commonly associated with psychotic experiences. Whilst sparse, the literature to date highlights nightmares and related distress as prominent risk factors for psychosis in students. We aimed to further explore the relationship between specific nightmare symptoms and psychotic experiences in university students whilst examining the mediating role of emotion dysregulation. A sample (N=1273) of student respondents from UK universities completed measures of psychotic experiences, nightmare disorder symptomology, and emotion dysregulation. Psychotic experiences were significantly more prevalent in students reporting nightmares (n=757) relative to those who did not (n=516). Hierarchical linear regression analysis showed that psychotic experiences were significantly associated (Adjusted R2 = 32.4%) with perceived nightmare intensity, consequences and resulting awakenings, and with emotion regulation difficulties. Furthermore, multiple mediation analysis showed that the association between psychotic experiences and nightmare factors was mediated by emotion regulation difficulties. Adaptive regulation of dream content during rapid eye-movement sleep has previously been demonstrated to attenuate surges in affective arousal by controlling the intensity and variability of emotional content. Difficulties in emotion regulation may partially explain the experience of more intense and disruptive nightmares amongst individuals with psychotic experiences. Emotion regulation may represent an important control mechanism that safeguards dream content and sleep quality

Linking psychological need experiences to daily and recurring dreams

The satisfaction of individuals’ psychological needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness, as conceived from a self-determination theory perspective, is said to be conducive to personal growth and well-being. What has been unexamined is whether psychological need-based experiences, either their satisfaction or frustration, manifests in people’s self-reported dream themes as well as their emotional interpretation of their dreams. A cross-sectional study (N = 200; M age = 21.09) focusing on individuals’ recurrent dreams and a three-day diary study (N = 110; M age = 25.09) focusing on daily dreams indicated that individuals experiencing psychological need frustration, either more enduringly or on a day-to-day basis, reported more negative dream themes and interpreted their dreams more negatively. The contribution of psychological need satisfaction was more modest, although it related to more positive interpretation of dreams. The discussion focuses on the role of dreams in the processing and integration of psychological need-frustrating experiences

The dream-lag effect: Selective processing of personally significant events during Rapid Eye Movement sleep, but not during Slow Wave Sleep

Incorporation of details from waking life events into Rapid Eye Movement (REM) sleep dreams has been found to be highest on the night after, and then 5–7 nights after events (termed, respectively, the day-residue and dream-lag effects). In experiment 1, 44 participants kept a daily log for 10 days, reporting major daily activities (MDAs), personally significant events (PSEs), and major concerns (MCs). Dream reports were collected from REM and Slow Wave Sleep (SWS) in the laboratory, or from REM sleep at home. The dream-lag effect was found for the incorporation of PSEs into REM dreams collected at home, but not for MDAs or MCs. No dream-lag effect was found for SWS dreams, or for REM dreams collected in the lab after SWS awakenings earlier in the night. In experiment 2, the 44 participants recorded reports of their spontaneously recalled home dreams over the 10 nights following the instrumental awakenings night, which thus acted as a controlled stimulus with two salience levels, high (sleep lab) and low (home awakenings). The dream-lag effect was found for the incorporation into home dreams of references to the experience of being in the sleep laboratory, but only for participants who had reported concerns beforehand about being in the sleep laboratory. The delayed incorporation of events from daily life into dreams has been proposed to reflect REM sleep-dependent memory consolidation. However, an alternative emotion processing or emotional impact of events account, distinct from memory consolidation, is supported by the finding that SWS dreams do not evidence the dream-lag effect

The incidence of unpleasant dreams after sub-anaesthetic ketamine

Ketamine is an N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA)receptor antagonist with psychotogenic effects and for whichthere are diverse reports of whether pleasant or unpleasantdreams result during anaesthesia, post-operatively or aftersub-anaesthetic use. The aim was to assess in healthy volunteers the incidence ofunpleasant dreams over the three nights after receiving asub-anaesthetic dose of ketamine, in comparison to placebo,and with retrospective home nightmare frequency as acovariate.Thirty healthy volunteers completed questionnairesabout retrospective home dream recall and were then giveneither ketamine or placebo. Ketamine resulted in significantly more meandream unpleasantness relative to placebo and caused athreefold increase in the odds ratio for the incidence of anunpleasant dream. The number of dreams reported over thethree nights did not differ between the groups. Theincidence of unpleasant dreams after ketamine use waspredicted by retrospectively assessed nightmare frequencyat home.Ketamine causes unpleasant dreams over thethree post-administration nights. This may be evidence of aresidual psychotogenic effect that is not found on standardself-report symptomatology measures or a result of disturbedsleep electrophysiology. The results have theoretical implications for the relationship between nightmares and schizotypy