Music and dreams have been recurring and meaningful themes throughout human history. Empirical research on the topic of music in dreams is limited, particularly when it comes to studies involving participants with professional musical training. In this study, 37 music professionals participated, reporting a total of 151 dreams in a 14-day dream diary and completing questionnaires to assess their retrospectively estimated music dream frequency, daily musical activities, and music-related stress. We found high percentages of music-related dreams (around 50%), reflecting musicians' daily engagement with music. As expected, the frequency of music dreams in the musician group was significantly higher than that of non-musician control samples, supporting the continuity hypothesis of dreaming. However, contrary to our expectations, no direct relationship was found between the extent of daily musical activities and the frequency of music-related dreams. In addition, negative emotions in music dreams may have reflected music-related stress in waking life. Future research could investigate the effects of music-related stress on dream content and examine whether stress-reduction interventions can influence the frequency and nature of negative dream experiences in musicians.

Sleep and mental health are intricately linked. Insomnia – defined as a dissatisfaction with sleep quantity or quality – is highly prevalent among patients with psychiatric disorders, exerting a negative impact on treatment outcome. However, the prevalence of insomnia on a symptom and diagnosis level (insomnia disorder) has not systematically been assessed in inpatient psychiatric care. The aim of this study was to systematically investigate the prevalence of insomnia symptoms and insomnia disorder according to Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM-5) criteria in inpatient psychiatric care. Comprehensive diagnostic interviews were conducted by trained clinicians in four German and two Swiss psychiatric hospitals. A total of 427 inpatients with psychiatric disorders across diagnostic groups were included (225 female, 200 male, 2 non-binary, mean age 40.8 ± 15.1 years, mean duration of psychiatric illness 8.6 ± 10.6 years). The prevalence of comorbid insomnia disorder, according to DSM-5 criteria, was 30.4

We consider whether frequencies of people occurring in a long series of dreams of an individual share properties of frequencies of phone contacts made by a large sample of individuals. Saram & auml;ki et al. (2014) analyzed contacts individuals made by mobile phone over successive time intervals. By treating an occurrence of a person in a dream as analogous to a phone contact with the person, we reformulated their findings for phone calls as hypotheses to be tested for dreams. (1) A few people occur in a large proportion of dreams, and many occur in a small proportion. (2) The distribution of frequencies changes only little from interval to interval. (3) Despite little change in the distribution of frequencies, the people dreamt of change considerably from interval to interval, with greater retention of higher frequency people. The statements were true for frequencies of people occurring in the dreams of our studied individual. We further found that the distribution of nonzero frequencies of people each year was well described by a particular probability distribution, a power law.

Cross-sectional studies have established consistent associations between nightmare frequency, waking anxiety, and sleep disturbances. Yet, little is known about the extent to which individuals explicitly attribute sleep impairments to nightmares. This study examines subjectively estimated effects of nightmares on overall sleep quality and on sleep onset latency due to fear of nightmares. A sample of 285 participants (221 women, 60 men, and 4 nonbinary) with a mean age of 24.00 +/- 7.51 years completed a questionnaire. The findings extend prior research on the interplay between anxiety, sleep quality, and nightmare frequency: Approximately 10% and over 40% reported that nightmares affect sleep onset due to the fear of nightmares and overall sleep quality, respectively. As hypothesized, individuals with more frequent nightmares and higher anxiety levels were more likely to report negative effects of nightmares on sleep onset latency and sleep quality. Our findings suggest that combining therapeutic techniques for treating nightmares, sleep problems, and waking anxiety might be beneficial for nightmare sufferers.

Although about 5% of the German population report having nightmares at least once a week, nightmares are inadequately diagnosed and treated. We therefore examined how people in the general population cope with nightmares in everyday life. The present study aimed to examine the influence of Big Five personality traits on nightmare-coping behaviour. In an online survey of 411 participants (mostly psychology students), we used established questionnaires and a modified coping scale to assess strategy use and perceived effectiveness. We hypothesized that openness predicts information seeking, extraversion predicts discussing nightmares, and neuroticism predicts avoiding potential nightmare triggers. The findings revealed that extraversion had a small positive effect on talking about nightmares (β = 0.44, p < 0.05). Contrary to our hypotheses, openness did not predict information seeking and neuroticism did not predict trigger avoidance. Exploratory analyses suggested further trait-coping links and that demographic variables may relate to perceived effectiveness of coping strategies. Overall, personality was related to some nightmare-specific coping behaviours, but effects were small in this non-clinical sample.

The continuity hypothesis of dreaming states that our daily activities are reflected in our dreams. The question of whether there are factors, for example, personality, that modulate continuity is still unanswered. The majority of participants of the U.K. library study (N = 1,375) stated that their dreams are affected by their daily activities. This perceived continuity is associated with openness to experience and supports the idea that boundary thinness, which is closely related to openness to experience, should be integrated into the framework of the continuity hypothesis. Moreover, dream recall frequency and female gender were also related to the self-rated continuity between waking and dreaming. This line of research clearly supports the necessity to carry out empirical studies looking at factors that might modulate the continuity between waking and dreaming.

Having nightmares and poor sleep quality are closely linked. This raises the question whether treatment programs for insomnia also reduce nightmare frequency and whether a nightmare treatment program improves sleep. Whereas imagery rehearsal therapy (IRT) improves sleep quality, the findings regarding the effect of cognitive–behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBT-I) are mixed. The present study analyzes data from a preregistered trial regarding a personalized sleep improvement app on nightmare frequency and nightmare distress. The frequent app user group (N = 121, 95 women, 26 men, age mean: 41.81 ± 12.13 years) showed a significantly more pronounced decrease in nightmare frequency after 6 and 12 weeks, respectively, compared to the waiting list control group (N = 286, 224 women, 61 men, 1 nonbinary, mean age: 41.66 ± 13.18 years)—even though nightmares were not targeted. Moreover, decreases in nightmare frequency were associated with increases in sleep quality. Based on previous findings and these findings, offering a combined program including CBT‑I and IRT which are the first-line treatments for insomnia patients with nightmares and nightmare sufferers with sleep problems would be very beneficial for these patient groups.

Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is a severe mental health condition influenced by environmental risk factors (for example, interpersonal trauma) and genetic factors. We conducted the largest genome-wide association study (GWAS) meta-analysis of BPD so far, with a discovery sample of 12,339 cases and 1,041,717 controls, and a replication study of 685 cases and 107,750 controls (all participants of European ancestry). We identified 11 independent associated genomic loci and 9 risk genes in gene-based analyses. We observed a single-nucleotide polymorphism heritability of 17.3% and derived polygenic scores (PGS) that predicted 4.6% of the phenotypic variance in BPD on the liability scale. BPD showed the strongest positive genetic correlations with GWAS of post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, antisocial behavior, and measures of suicide and self-harm. Phenome-wide analyses in Vanderbilt University Medical Center Biobank and UK Biobank using BPD-PGS confirmed these associations and also identified associations with other medical conditions, including obstructive pulmonary disease and diabetes. These analyses highlight BPD as a polygenic disorder, with the genetic risk showing substantial overlap with psychiatric and physical health conditions.

The dream studies support the notion that partner dreams are more negatively toned in women compared to men, indicating that women do not profit as much from partnerships as men. Furthermore, the findings indicate that the consequences of break-ups might be more stressful for women than men on an emotional level, contrary to the claim in the target article.

Research has demonstrated that we very likely dream every night in every sleep stage; however, the ability to recall a dream upon awakening shows large interindividual as well as intraindividual differences. Over the years, researchers studied the reliability and validity of different dream recall measures. In this study, 81 persons (59 women, 22 men) with a mean age of 24.44 +/- 8.49 years completed four different retrospective measures of dream recall and a dream diary over a 4-week period. The findings indicate that all dream recall measures (retrospective and prospective) showed high intercorrelations. As all retrospective measuring (last night, last week, last 28 days) yielded comparable estimates of dream recall frequency, it can be argued that underestimation due to memory might be rather small. In addition, we found the expected logbook enhancement effect, that is, dream recall increased during the 4-week period keeping the diary. The internal consistency (reliability of measuring interindividual differences in dream recall with diaries) was sufficiently high for a 2-week period and very high for the 4-week interval. Lastly, the frequency of "white dreams" was not related to the retrospectively elicited dream recall frequency and, thus, indicates that participants do not include "white dreaming" in their dream recall frequency estimates.

We conducted the largest genome-wide meta-analysis of borderline personality disorder (BPD) to date, with a discovery sample of 12,339 cases and 1,041,717 controls, and a replication study of 685 cases and 107,750 controls (all participants of European ancestry). We identified 11 independent associated genomic loci, and nine risk genes in the gene-based analysis. We observed a single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) heritability of 17.3% and derived polygenic scores (PGS) predicted 4.6% of the phenotypic variance in BPD on the liability scale. BPD showed the strongest positive genetic correlations with GWAS of posttraumatic stress disorder, depression, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, antisocial behavior, and measures of suicide and self-harm. Phenome-wide association analyses using BPD-PGS confirmed these associations and additionally revealed associations with general medical conditions including obstructive pulmonary disease and diabetes. The present analyses highlight BPD as a polygenic disorder, with the genetic risk showing substantial overlap with psychiatric and physical health conditions.

Dieses Buch bietet das Praxiswissen für die notwendige differenzierte schlafmedizinische Diagnostik und eine darauf basierende optimale kurz-, mittel- und langfristige Therapie. Schlafstörungen - eine

Summary The aim of this study was to determine the effects of a personalized smartphone application on subjective sleep quality, wellbeing and stress in participants with subclinical sleep problems. Healthy participants with subclinical threshold sleep issues that did not meet diagnostic criteria for insomnia were randomly assigned to use the app or be on a waiting list for app usage (control group). Subjective data on sleep quality (sleep quality component of Sleep Questionnaire B [primary endpoint] and the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index), feeling refreshed after the sleep component of Sleep Questionnaire B, Short Form‐12 physical and mental components, and stress (Perceived Stress Scale) were compared between the app and control groups at baseline and after 6 and 12 weeks. Depending on their usage, app users were defined as “frequent”, “occasional” or “rare/never” users. Two‐hundred and six and 205 app users and 286 and 285 control participants completed the 6‐ and 12‐week assessments, respectively. Sleep Questionnaire B scores improved in frequent (effect size 0.595; F = 13.7) and occasional users (0.653; F = 9.4) after 6 weeks; effects persisted at 12 weeks, and were similar for the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index. Feeling refreshed after the sleep component of Sleep Questionnaire B improved over time in all groups, with no significant difference between app users and controls. There were no changes in Short Form‐12 physical component, Short Form‐12 mental component, and Perceived Stress Scale scores. A personalized app positively affected subjective sleep quality in a population of users with subclinical threshold sleep issues, and could serve as a low‐burden digital intervention to potentially prevent the exacerbation of sleep pathologies.

BACKGROUND:Sleep difficulties are a well-known issue among patients with mental disorders. Sleep related metacognitions often play a role in the etiology of sleep disturbances. This study examined the role of sleep-related metacognitions in a sample of psychiatric inpatients. METHODS:A total of 75 patients admitted to the psychiatric clinic of the Central Institute of Mental Health (CIMH) in Mannheim, Germany, were included in the study. The participants completed a series of psychometric questionnaires, including the Metacognitive Questionnaire for Insomnia (MCQ-I 20), the Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9) and the Insomnia Severity Index (ISI). RESULTS:The psychiatric patient sample exhibited significantly elevated scores on the MCQ-I 20 when compared to a healthy control group and demonstrated comparable scores to a group of insomnia patients. Sleep-related metacognitions in the psychiatric patient sample correlated significantly with increased depression levels and insomnia symptoms. CONCLUSIONS:The findings of this study provide evidence that sleep-related metacognitions play a role in the etiology of sleep problems in patients with mental disorders.

Previous research has demonstrated that several factors might contribute to nightmare distress–in addition to nightmare frequency. One of these factors is beliefs about nightmares, e.g., thinking that nightmares contain clues to unconscious fears or nightmares predict the future are associated with higher nightmare distress. The present study aimed at replicating previously reported relationships between gender, neuroticism, beliefs about nightmares, nightmare frequency, and nightmare distress in an independent sample. Overall, 411persons (305 women, 102 men, 3 non-binary persons, 1 missing value) with a mean age of 28.44 ± 13.81 years participated in the study. The findings of the present study indicated–as expected–that beliefs about nightmares, gender, and neuroticism contribute independently to nightmare distress–in addition to nightmare frequency. It would be very interesting for future research to investigate how exactly the relationships between nightmare distress and, for example, neuroticism or specific beliefs about nightmare work.

Phantom limb pain (PLP) is a common consequence of the amputation of a limb. Individuals with congenital limb absence (here: congenital amputees), however, seem to rarely experience PLP. Previous results suggest that the experience of PLP in the waking state affects the recalled body appearance in dreams of individuals with acquired limb amputation, with PLP being associated with the recall of an impaired rather than an intact body. However, it remains unclear how congenital amputees - who never experienced an intact body and rarely PLP - recall their body appearance in dreams. In the present cross-sectional study, we assessed body-related dream content in a sample of adult congenital amputees and compared their reports with those from adult persons with an acquired limb amputation early in life. We found that congenital amputees reported the least frequent dreams with an intact body, and after birth, the age at amputation positively predicted the recall of an intact body in dreams. The effects were not explained by time since amputation and the presence or absence of PLP. This suggests that life experiences of an intact body find expression in self-related dream content.