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. 2023 Sep 1;19(9):1661-1668.
doi: 10.5664/jcsm.10642.

Vivid dreams are associated with a high percentage of REM sleep: a prospective study in veterans

Deema Fattal  1   2 , Nicole Platti  3 , Stacy Hester  2 , Linder Wendt  4
Affiliations

Vivid dreams are associated with a high percentage of REM sleep: a prospective study in veterans

Deema Fattal et al. J Clin Sleep Med. .

Abstract

Study objectives: Vivid dreams are dreams that feel real or are associated with dream enactment behavior. They are prevalent in veterans, especially in those with psychiatric disorders such as post-traumatic stress disorders. Such psychiatric disorders have known association with abnormalities in rapid eye movement (REM) sleep. Vivid dreams are also described in neurological conditions, such Lewy body dementias, which are also associated with REM sleep abnormality. Although vivid dreams occur in neuropsychiatric disorders that have REM sleep abnormalities, there are no studies that have directly investigated an association between vivid dreams and REM sleep. We sought to study vivid dreams and REM sleep in veterans.

Methods: Veterans undergoing polysomnography at our hospital were invited to enroll. Participants completed a dream-related questionnaire the morning after their polysomnography.

Results: We prospectively enrolled 505 veterans. After a night in the sleep laboratory, 196 of 504 (39%) reported experiencing a dream, and, of those, 117 of 190 (62%) described their dream as vivid. Discrepancies in patient totals are secondary to missing questionnaire data. Our novel finding is that participants with a high percentage of REM sleep (above 25%) were more than twice likely to report a vivid dream than participants with a lower percentage of REM sleep (P < .0001). Nonvivid dreams were not associated with a high percentage of REM sleep.

Conclusions: Vivid dreams are associated with a high percentage of REM sleep. Further research into the role of REM sleep abnormalities in vivid dreams may help to advance understanding of neuropsychiatric disorders.

Citation: Fattal D, Platti N, Hester S, Wendt L. Vivid dreams are associated with a high percentage of REM sleep: a prospective study in veterans. J Clin Sleep Med. 2023;19(9):1661-1668.

Keywords: Lewy body dementias; REM sleep; REM sleep behavior disorders; depression; dreams; post-traumatic; prospective studies; stress disorders; veterans.

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Conflict of interest statement

All authors have seen and approved the manuscript. Institution where work was performed: Iowa City VA Medical Center. The authors report no conflicts of interest. Research reported in this publication was supported by the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences of the National Institutes of Health under Award Number UL1TR002537. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.

At the time of the study, Dr. Platti was affiliated with the University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine. She is currently affiliated with University of South Florida, Neurology Department.

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