Abstract
Dreams are different for anxious people, according to a new study published in Dreaming, which analyzes the dreams of people with anxiety disorders, Forbes reported July 17. The study suggests these frequently troubling dreams can turn the waking life of such individuals into a nightmare if they are not provided with the right care. “The results of our study reveal that the dream contents of anxiety patients differ significantly from the dream contents of healthy persons and contain more negative and unpleasant elements,” explained lead author and psychologist Anton Rimsh of Universität Düsseldorf in Germany. Rimsh's study tracked the dream contents of 38 anxiety patients through dream diaries, questionnaires, and one‐on‐one dream analysis. The results of the study found several dream topics to be more prevalent in anxiety patients compared with healthy persons. These themes include being chased and pursued, being physically attacked and facing aggressive actions, and the fear of falling. However, Rimsh warned that anxiety patients can find themselves stuck in negative feedback loops between their waking life and dreams, i.e., the negative dreams can worsen anxiety symptoms in their waking life which makes for even more disturbing dreams and so on.
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