Role of REM sleep and dream affect in overnight mood regulation: A study of normal volunteers
Abstract
To test that REM sleep and/or dreaming aid in the overnight regulation of negative mood, 60 student subjects, selected to have no current or past episodes of depression, were tested with the Profile of Mood States (POMS) before and after two nights of laboratory sleep. There was a significant overnight effect of sleep on the Depression scale (Dep) both on a sleep-through night and a night of REM awakenings for dream recall. Pre-sleep Dep was significantly correlated with the affect in the first REM report. Although Dep scores were truncated due to the screening criteria, a subgroup of the 10 highest scorers differed from the 50 low scorers in the distribution of dream affect categories across the night. Low scorers displayed a flat distribution of positive and negative affect in dreams, while those with some pre-sleep depressed mood showed a pattern of decreasing negative and increasing positive affect in dreams reported from successive REM periods. This suggests that dreaming may actively moderate mood overnight in normal subjects.
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Dreaming during REM sleep may have a pivotal role in emotional regulation and emotional memory consolidation.
“Here, we outlined that dreaming during REM sleep may have a pivotal role in the emotional regulation and emotional memory consolidation, accordingly with some previous works (e.g., Cartwright et al., 1998; Desseilles et al., 2011).”
From The Functional Role of Dreaming in Emotional Processes (2019) · cites this paper as Cartwright et al., 1998
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“More recently, under the emotional information processing theory, some researchers have suggested that certain aspects of the dreaming state may be more beneficial than others ( Cartwright, Young, Mercer, & Bears, 1998 ).”
BackgroundInfluentialJones, B. J., Fitzroy, A. B., & Spencer, R. M. C. (2019) · Frontiers in Psychology · doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2019.00500 · Cited by 17 · see citing works
“Collecting dream reports from healthy adults upon awakening from REM sleep indicated a decline in negative dream emotion throughout the night, which corresponded to an overnight reduction in negative mood (Cartwright et al., 1998).”
BackgroundThe Effects of Sleep Quality on Dream and Waking Emotions
Conte, F., Cellini, N., Rosa, O. D., Rescott, M. L., Malloggi, S., Giganti, F., & Ficca, G. (2021) · International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health · doi:10.3390/ijerph18020431 · Cited by 17 · see citing works
“Indeed, several models propose that dreaming actively participates in the regulation of prior daytime emotions by facilitating the resolution of emotional conflicts [11,12], enhancing fear-extinction processes [3], and depotentiating the affective tone initially associated with waking events [1].”
BackgroundDreaming as a Mood Regulation System
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Self-citationSleep in rheumatic diseases and other painful conditions
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“, 2015), sleep is now recognized for its emotion processing/ emotion regulation (Ben Simon et al., 2020; Cartwright et al., 1998; Krause et al., 2017; van der Helm & Walker, 2011; Walker & van der Helm, 2009) and social functions (Gordon et al.”
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Normality, pathology, and dreaming.
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Schlafstörungen nach traumatischen Erfahrungen in Kindheit und Jugend: ein Überblick
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Sleep Promotes Generalization of Extinction of Conditioned Fear
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“53 Since sleep disruption is extremely common in anxiety disorders,54 the current results suggest 2 additional strategies for maximizing the generalization of extinction mem(F(1,26) = 8.”
BackgroundResultInfluentialDream differences in psychiatric patients
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Posttraumatic nightmares of traumatized refugees: Dream work integrating cultural values.
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Relationship between Dreaming and Memory Reconsolidation
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“Many aspects of subjects’ daily life have been found to influence the dream content, including news events [67], musical practice [68], religious beliefs [69], chronic pain [70], mood [71], or a violent living environment [72].”
BackgroundDreams and nightmares during the pandemic
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“In a similar vein, in several empirical studies (Cartwright, 1991; Cartwright et al., 1998; Cartwright et al., 2006), Cartwright and colleagues have suggested that negative emotions in REM dreams need to be integrated with other autobio-graphical memories for the dream to have a beneficial…”
Dream Contents in Patients with Major Depressive Disorder
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Kempe, S., Köpp, W., & Wittmann, L. (2024) · Brain Sciences · doi:10.3390/brainsci14050489 · Cited by 4 · see citing works
“For instance, REM dreaming is considered to have a “quasi-therapeutic adaptive function” [2] (p. 235) or to “actively moderate mood overnight” [3] (p. 1).”
BackgroundMasochistic dreams: A gender-related diathesis for depression revisited.
Bears, M., CARTWRIGHT, R. D., & Mercer, P. (2000) · Dreaming · doi:10.1023/a:1009480907418 · Cited by 3 · see citing works
Self-citationSleep and psychiatric diseases
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Exploring the relationship between mindfulness in waking and lucidity in dreams
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- Authors
- Cartwright, R., Luten, A., Young, M., Mercer, P., & Bears, M.
- Affiliations
- Rush University Medical Center (US)
- Illinois Institute of Technology (US)
- Corresponding author
- Cartwright, Rosalind
- ORCID
- Young, Michael
- Venue
- Psychiatry Research
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 1998-10
- Volume
- 81
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 1-8
- ISSN
- 0165-1781 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2093447035
- Cited by
- 142
- References
- 24
- Citations by year
- 2026: 3 · 2025: 3 · 2024: 2 · 2023: 4 · 2022: 7 · 2021: 4 · 2020: 2 · 2019: 5 · 2018: 7 · 2017: 9 · 2016: 9 · 2015: 13 · 2014: 5 · 2013: 9 · 2012: 4
- FWCI
- 0.84
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Psychiatry Research (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Funders
- National Institutes of Health (5r01mh050471-07)
- National Institute of Mental Health (MH 50471)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Sleep and Wakefulness Research
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Sleep and related disorders
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Psychoanalysis and Psychopathology Research
- Keywords
- REM sleep, negative mood, depression, dream recall, sleep and emotion, Profile of Mood States
- MeSH terms
- Adult, Affect, Circadian Rhythm, Depression, Dreams, Female, Humans, Male, Sex Factors, Sleep, REM
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