Abstract
The term “sleep experiences,” coined by Watson (2001), denotes an array of unusual nocturnal consciousness phenomena; for example, nightmares, vivid or recurrent dreams, hypnagogic hallucinations, dreams of falling or flying, confusional arousals, and lucid dreams. Excluding the latter, these experiences reflect a single factor of atypical oneiric cognitions (“general sleep experiences”). The current study is an opinionated mini-review on the associations of this factor—measured with the Iowa sleep experiences survey (ISES, Watson, 2001)—with psychopathological symptoms and stress. Findings support a strong relation between psychological distress and general sleep experiences. It is suggested that that they should be viewed as a sleep disturbance; they seem to represent involuntary intrusions of wakefulness into sleep, resulting in aroused sleep. These intrusions may stem from excessively thin boundaries between consciousness states (e.g., “transliminality”), or, conversely, they may follow an attempt at disconnecting mental elements (e.g., dissociation), which paradoxically results in a “rebound effect.” The extent to which unusual dreaming is experienced as intrusive, rather than controlled, may explain why general sleep experiences are related to psychopathology, whereas lucid dreams are related to psychological resilience. In conclusion, the exploration of the interplay between psychopathology and sleep should be expanded from focusing almost exclusively on quantitative aspects (e.g., sleep efficiency, latency) to including qualitative conscious experiences which may reflect poor sleep quality. Taking into account nocturnal consciousness—including unusual dreaming and permeable sleep-wake boundaries—may unveil rich information on night-time emotional states and broaden our definition of poor sleep quality.
Highlights
Specialty section: This article was submitted to Psychopathology, a section of the journal Frontiers in Psychology
The extent to which unusual dreaming is experienced as intrusive, rather than controlled, may explain why general sleep experiences are related to psychopathology, whereas lucid dreams are related to psychological resilience
The focus on quantitative measures is intertwined with a certain neglect of subjective—or qualitative—aspects of the sleeper’s consciousness, such as dream characteristics. This relative neglect is evident in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM-5; American Psychiatric Association, 2013); out of numerous disorders of sleep-wake processes, spanning problems with the amount and timing of sleep, breathing-disordered sleep, and parasomnias, only one, namely, nightmare disorder (ND), is primarily concerned with an alteration in dreaming
Summary
The relationship of GSEs with various forms of psychopathological distress, reviewed in Table 1, suggests that GSEs may represent a form of distressed sleep. The relationship of GSEs with various forms of psychopathological distress, reviewed, suggests that GSEs may represent a form of distressed sleep This raises a question, namely: Should there be some correlation between GSEs and traditional (quantitative) measures of disturbed sleep quality? Knox and Lynn (2014) found it only in one of their two samples These null findings may be rooted in the fact that Van Der Kloet et al (2013) and Watson (2003) used the total ISES score, which included LDs, and that Watson (2003) and Knox and Lynn (2014) did not separate sleep quality from sleep duration. In a rigorous daily study, Soffer-Dudek and Shahar (2011) showed that elevated GSEs were related to poor sleep quality, and to long sleep duration (see van Heugten–van der Kloet et al, 2015a, for somewhat similar results). Some individuals seem to Frontiers in Psychology | www.frontiersin.org
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