Nightmare Experience In Bipolar I And Ii Disorders

Some patients with bipolar disorder have traumatic experience, sleep disturbance, and emotional variations, which are related to nightmare reports in clinics. We hypothesized that the nightmare experience might present some uniqueness in different types of bipolar disorder. We invited 200 healthy volunteers and 141 bipolar disorder I (BD I) and 78 bipolar disorder II (BD II) patients who had at least one nightmare lifelong to undergo tests of the Nightmare Experience Questionnaire (NEQ) and the questionnaires measuring mania, hypomania, and depression. Compared with healthy controls, both BD I and BD II patients displayed their abnormal affective states and scored significantly higher on NEQ Meaning Interpretation; BD I patients, in addition, scored higher on NEQ Horrible Stimulation. Hypomania was correlated with Horrible Simulation in BD II patients, and depression was correlated with Physical Effect and Horrible Stimulation in healthy controls. We found some NEQ scales were elevated in bipolar disorder, but these abnormalities failed to differentiate BD I from BD II. However, these results help explain the cognitive and emotional disturbances of bipolar disorder in general.