The study explored relationships between fantasy proneness, dissociation, mindfulness, and anomalous sleep experiences in a sample (N = 306) of comic book convention attendees. Women (N = 60) reported significantly higher fantasy proneness, measured by the Inventory of Childhood Memories and Imaginings, compared to men (N = 246). Fantasizers (N = 35) reported lower mindfulness, measured by the Mindful Attention Awareness Scale, and higher dissociation, measured by the Dissociative Experiences Scale, compared to both medium (N = 33) and low (N = 36) fantasy prone groups. Fantasizers reported a higher frequency of anomalous sleep experiences, measured by the Iowa Sleep Experiences Survey (ISES), compared to the low group. Fantasy proneness was not correlated to mindfulness when controlling for shared variance with dissociation and absorption. A high fantasy proneness high mindfulness group reported approximately half the percentage of dissociative experiences compared to a high fantasy proneness low mindfulness group. Dissociation strongly correlated with fantasy proneness (r = .55) and inversely with mindfulness (r = -.55). Fantasy proneness and mindfulness combined accounted for 44% of variance in dissociation. When shared variance was removed, both variables contributed equivalent unique variance. Fantasy proneness, dissociation, and mindfulness combined accounted for 46% of variance in general sleep experiences and 9% of variance in lucid dreaming. When shared variance was removed, fantasy proneness was the strongest predictor of anomalous sleep experiences. Regressions on each ISES item found that fantasy proneness was the strongest contributor of unique variance for most items, followed by dissociation.

This study empirically investigated content differences in bad dream and nightmare narratives collected prospectively utilizing evidenced-based scoring systems for waking narratives. Three-hundred and twelve participants completed a daily dream log where they were asked to record the incidence of disturbed dreaming and provide a written dream narrative for their bad dreams or nightmares. Participants reported a total of 642 disturbed dreaming narratives (504 bad dreams and 138 nightmares). Content analyses of narratives revealed distinct content differences between bad dreams and nightmares. Overall, nightmares contained more unarticulated and primary affect such as fear, more death references, more severe aggression than bad dreams. Taken together, these findings suggest that nightmares reflect increased deficits in emotional regulation as compared to bad dreams. In contrast, bad dreams contained more markers of emotional processing, such as more articulated and modulated expressions of emotion.

Objective. To date, no studies have directly examined the effects of cognitive trait hostility on prospectively assessed sleep quality. This is important as individuals with heightened trait hostility demonstrate similar patterns of reactivity to perceived stressors as is often reported by poor sleepers. The present study hypothesized that increased trait hostility is associated with poorer subjective sleep quality and that perceived stress mediates this relationship. Methods. A sample of 66 normal sleepers completed daily sleep and stress logs for two weeks. Trait hostility was measured retrospectively. Results. The cognitive dimension of trait hostility was significantly correlated with subjectively rated sleep quality indicators, and these relationships were significantly mediated by perceived daily stress. Individuals with higher levels of trait cognitive hostility reported increased levels of perceived stress which accounted for their poorer sleep ratings as measured by both retrospective and prospective measures. Conclusions. Overall, the findings indicate that high levels of cognitive hostility are a significant risk factor for disturbed sleep and suggest that this might be a fruitful target for clinical intervention.

This is the first study to empirically investigate the heuristic model of dysphoric dreaming proposed by Levin and Nielsen (2007). Participants indicated their incidence of nightmares (NMs) and bad dreams (BDs) over 21 days, and rated their subsequent distress in daily dream logs. Results support the contention that the 2 constructs identified in the model, affect load (AL) and affect distress (AD), underlie NM production and are active in both the waking and sleeping states. As predicted, AL accounted for more unique variance to the prediction of incidences of disturbed dreaming (DD), whereas AD accounted for more unique variance to the prediction of distress over NMs and BDs. Taken together, these findings are consistent with Levin and Nielsen's (2007) model and bolster earlier findings that suggest that distress about DD remains a crucial component in the relation between DD frequency and waking psychopathology.

The AMPHAC/AND network is a vital component of the physiologic infrastructure of normal dreaming and likely influences the shaping of emotional imagery during normal and disturbed dreaming. By its endemic nature, dreaming is a naturally occurring self-regulatory process that may operate much like the emotional processing and habituation or desensitization that occurs during exposure therapy. Thus, the nature and quality of rapid eye movement sleep in particular likely interacts with these brain regions in the formation of dream imagery to facilitate the reduction or even elimination of fear-based memories in an ongoing attempt at achieving emotional homeostasis and optimize survival function.

Nightmares-vivid, emotionally dysphoric dreams-are quite common and are associated with a broad range of psychiatric conditions. However, the origin of such dreams remains largely unexplained, and there have been no attempts to reconcile repetitive traumatic nightmares with nontraumatic nightmares, dysphoric dreams that do not awaken the dreamer, or with more normative dreams. Based on recent research in cognitive neuroscience, sleep physiology, fear conditioning, and emotional-memory regulation, we propose a multilevel neurocognitive model that unites waking and sleeping as a conceptual framework for understanding a wide spectrum of disturbed dreaming. We propose that normal dreaming serves a fear-extinction function and that nightmares reflect failures in emotion regulation. We further suggest that nightmares occur as a result of two processes that we term affect load-a consequence of daily variations in emotional pressures-and affect distress-a disposition to experience events with high levels of negative emotional reactivity.

Despite an abundant literature on disturbed dreaming (DD) incidence and psychopathology, little is known about the pathogenesis of these dream disturbances. Recent work strongly suggests that DD distress may be the primary determinant of the relationship between DD and waking psychological impairment. This is the first empirical investigation of the possible role of somatic distress as a crucial pathway in this relationship. A total of 313 college undergraduates completed 3 measures of somatic distress (SCL-90-R Somatization scale, Somatic Interpretations Questionnaire and the Anxiety Sensitivity Index) and then monitored their DD incidence and distress for 21 consecutive days. It was predicted that high levels of somatic distress would be associated with heightened levels of both DD incidence and distress. Although the results were somewhat mixed, individuals who reported more incidents of both bad dreams and nightmares did indeed report higher levels of somatic distress. The results were largely consistent with our predictions and the findings are discussed with regard to recent modeling by Levin and Nielsen (2007) in identifying key cognitive diatheses for the development of DD.

Nightmares are a prevalent parasomnia associated with a range of psychiatric conditions and pathological symptoms. Current knowledge about how nightmares are produced is still influenced by neo-psychoanalytic speculations as well as by more recent personality, evolutionary and neurobiological models. A majority of these models stipulate some type of emotionally adaptive function for dreaming, e.g., image contextualization, affect desomatization, mood regulation or fear extinction. Nightmares are widely seen to be either an intensified expression of an emotionally adaptive function or, conversely, as evidence of its breakdown. Our recent, affective network dysfunction (AND) model, integrates the tenets of many prior models in proposing that nightmares reflect problems with the fear extinction function of dreaming. This new model accounts for a wide range of dysphoric dream imagery (bad dreams, idiopathic nightmares, post-traumatic nightmares) and incorporates recent findings in the areas of brain imaging, sleep physiology, PTSD, anxiety disorders and the consolidation and extinction of fear memories.

Self-reported sleep complaints and current cognitive functioning were assessed in 375 nondemented participants ages 75 to 85 years (134 men and 241 women) as part of enrollment in the Bronx aging study, an ongoing longitudinal community-based study of cognitive aging. This study only reports on the baseline data collected from 1980 to 1983. Sleep complaints were common, occurring in about 25% of the sample. Furthermore, after controlling for depression, use of hypnotic medication, physical morbidity, age, and education, participants who reported longer sleep onset latencies performed significantly worse on measures of verbal knowledge, long-term memory and fund of information, and visuospatial reasoning. Participants who reported longer sleep durations did significantly worse on a measure of verbal short-term memory. These results suggest that perceived sleep is related to select objective cognitive abilities even when accounting for commonly recognized mediating variables, such as depression, medical comorbidity, age, or use of hypnotic medication. Given the restricted range of this nondemented sample, these results may underestimate the relation between cognitive abilities and sleep.

The authors’ proposed model of nightmare formation withstands several criticisms raised in an accompanying commentary article (D. S. Weiss, 2007). A principal criticism, that the model lacks convergent and divergent validity, appears to stem from the commenter’s application of a strong categorical, as opposed to the authors’ use of a dimensional, approach to the model/construct of nightmares. Furthermore, ongoing research continues to support the authors’ assumptions about the basic relationship between nightmares and affect distress. Other criticisms of the model, including a failure to account for robust epidemiological differences in nightmares and an ambiguity in the concept of affect distress, are also countered by reference to relevant research findings. A robust gender difference in nightmares (women men) is particularly compatible with studies demonstrating gender differences in emotion among the physiological and cognitive systems that the authors propose are centrally implicated in nightmare formation.

Nightmares are common, occurring weekly in 4%-10% of the population, and are associated with female gender, younger age, increased stress, psychopathology, and dispositional traits. Nightmare pathogenesis remains unexplained, as do differences between nontraumatic and posttraumatic nightmares (for those with or without posttraumatic stress disorder) and relations with waking functioning. No models adequately explain nightmares nor have they been reconciled with recent developments in cognitive neuroscience, fear acquisition, and emotional memory. The authors review the recent literature and propose a conceptual framework for understanding a spectrum of dysphoric dreaming. Central to this is the notion that variations in nightmare prevalence, frequency, severity, and psychopathological comorbidity reflect the influence of both affect load, a consequence of daily variations in emotional pressure, and affect distress, a disposition to experience events with distressing, highly reactive emotions. In a cross-state, multilevel model of dream function and nightmare production, the authors integrate findings on emotional memory structures and the brain correlates of emotion.

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In order to investigate both the psychometric structure of the Dissociative Experiences Survey (DES) and the discriminant validity of the DES-Taxon (Waller, Putnam, & Carlson, 1996) as a specific marker of pathological dissociation, 376 non-clinical community based respondents completed the DES and a battery of psychopathology and imaginative involvement self-report measures. The DES was scored for both the Taxon and the DES-Absorption subscale. A DES subscale purported to tap normative dissociative processes. The two DES subscales demonstrated substantial overlap, both with each other (r = .80) and with the self-report measures with both DES scales comparably associated with high levels of psychological distress. Both DES subscales were also associated with elevated levels of "normative" imaginative involvement (fantasy proneness, absorption, daydreaming immersion). We conclude that both DES scales are largely indistinguishable from each other in relation to other self-report measures of psychopathology and fantasy access.

Levin, Ross PhD*; Sirof, Beth PsyD†; Simeon, Daphne MD‡; Guralnick, Orna PsyD‡ Author Information

In order to investigate the relationship between dream recall frequency and personality, 116 college undergraduates kept a dream log for 21 consecutive nights and completed self-report measures assessing fantasy-proneness, psychological absorption, and imaginative involvement. Consistent with most previous literature in this area, with one exception, there were no significant associations found between dream recall and the personality measures. The one exception to this pattern was for fantasy proneness and this correlation was of a small magnitude and only obtained for women. We conclude that dream recall frequency is largely independent from stable personality traits and can better be understood in terms of expectancy and attitudinal factors.

A contextualized image is a powerful central image in a dream which provides a picture context for the dominant emotion of the dreamer. This study examined the psychopathological correlates of both dream and nightmare contextualized images in a community-based sample of 378. As predicted, mean nightmare contextualized image scores were significantly higher than mean dream scores. In addition, while dream contextualized images were unrelated to psychopathology, nightmare contextualized images were significantly associated with elevated scores on three SCL-90-R subscales and the General Symptom Distress Index.

STUDY OBJECTIVES:The relationship between nightmare prevalence, nightmare distress, and self-reported psychological disturbance was assessed prospectively.DESIGN:Differences in self-reported psychological disturbance as a function of nightmare prevalence was investigated by MANCOVA's with non-nightmare dreams as the covariate as well as Pearson correlations. The relative contribution of nightmare prevalence and distress to the prediction of psychological disturbance was investigated through multiple regression analyses.SETTING:N/A.PARTICIPANTS:116 participants (mean age = 20 years) completed self-report indices of depression, anxiety, dissociation, psychosis-proneness, and a psychiatric symptom checklist and kept a nightmare log for 21 consecutive nights.INTERVENTIONS:N/A.MEASUREMENTS AND RESULTS:Frequent nightmares were associated with higher levels of psychological disturbance. Individuals who reported 3 or more nightmares across the 3 weeks reported more dissociation, psychosis-proneness and psychiatric symptoms than participants reporting 2 nightmares or less. However, nightmare prevalence and distress were not significantly correlated and differentially predicted to different types of waking psychological disturbance. Multiple regressions further indicated that nightmare distress accounted for much of the unique explanatory variance in predicting clinical states associated with high negative affect (anxiety and depression). Last, there was no evidence for a specific relationship between nightmares and psychosis-proneness.CONCLUSIONS:The findings suggest that it is not the incidence of nightmares which is associated with poorer waking psychological functioning, especially anxiety and depression states, but the reported distress associated with the nightmare experience which is the critical variable in predicting higher psychological disturbance.