Dream Recall and Content versus the Menstrual Cycle: A Cross-Sectional Study in Healthy Women.

Ioannis Ilias,Nicholas-Tiberio Economou,Andrea Romigi,Eftychia Koukkou,Anastasia Lekkou

doi:10.3390/medsci7070081

Abstract

The association between sleep and the menstrual cycle has been scarcely studied. This study aimed to investigate the association between dream recall and content and the menstrual cycle among a large sample of young women. To this aim, 944 women were asked about their day of menstrual cycle, whether they remembered the previous night’s dreams and if they did so to describe the dream content as pleasant or unpleasant. A total of 378 women recalled the previous nights’ dreams, with 199 reporting pleasant dream affect/content and 179 reporting unpleasant dream content. In women who recalled their dreams, there was an association of pleasant dream content with the luteal phase (p = 0.038). In conclusion, in women, the hormonal milieu of the luteal phase may influence dream content.

Highlights

Sleep may be affected by variations in reproductive hormones, stress, depression, aging, life/role transitions, and other factors
Age was not associated with dream recall or content and dream recall was not associated with the menstrual phase
In women who recalled their dreams, there was an association between dream content and menstrual phase (Table 1)

Summary

Introduction

Sleep may be affected by variations in reproductive hormones, stress, depression, aging, life/role transitions, and other factors. The menstrual cycle is associated with changes in the sleep-wake cycle. Menstruating women with or without significant menstrual-related complaints often report poor sleep quality and sleep complaints during the premenstrual week compared to other times of the menstrual cycle [1]. Dream interpretation—necessitating dream recall—is a human universal [2]. Dream recall and content apparently follow individual/personal traits (such as memory and personality) [3]. Few robustly evaluated correlates of dream recall and content have been delineated [3]. Conflicting results have been presented regarding dream recall and dream affect vis-à-vis the menstrual cycle [4,5,6]

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