Sleep architecture and sleep-related mentation in securely and insecurely attached people
Open accessAbstract
Based on REM sleep's brain activation patterns and its participation in consolidation of emotional memories, we tested the hypothesis that measures of REM sleep architecture and REM sleep-related mentation would be associated with attachment orientation. After a habituation night in a sleep lab, a convenience sample of 64 healthy volunteers were awakened 10 minutes into a REM sleep episode and 10 minutes into a control NREM sleep episode in counterbalanced order, then asked to report a dream and to rate themselves and a significant other on a list of trait adjectives. Relative to participants classified as having secure attachment orientations, participants classified as anxious took less time to enter REM sleep and had a higher frequency of REM dreams with aggression and self-denigrating themes. There were no significant differences across attachment groups in other measures of sleep architecture or in post REM-sleep awakening ratings on PANAS subscales reflecting mood and alertness. Selected aspects of REM sleep architecture and mentation appeared to be associated with attachment orientation. We suggest that REM sleep plays a role in processing experiences and emotions related to attachment, and that certain features of sleep and dreaming reflect attachment orientations.
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Participants with anxious attachment styles had shorter REM sleep latencies and more frequent REM dreams containing aggression and self-denigrating themes than participants with secure attachment.
“In a second study (180), participants with anxious attachment styles had shorter REM sleep latencies and more frequent REM dreams containing aggression and self-denigrating themes than did participants with secure attachment.”
From The Stress Acceleration Hypothesis of Nightmares (2017) · cites this paper as [180]
The Sleep Architecture results report significantly shorter REM latency for anxious participants than for secure participants. The Discussion and Sleep-Related Mentation results compare aggression and self-negativity in REM dreams primarily with the avoidant group, not the secure group; the self-negativity difference is reported as a trend. Thus the claimed secure-group comparison for dream themes is not supported by those findings. (LLM, conf=0.88)
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Research works printed but not linked: 2
- Nishida M Pearsall J Buckner RL Walker MP 2009 REM sleep, prefrontal theta, and the consolidation of human emotional memory Cerebral Cortex 19 1158 1166 18832332 PMC2665156
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Cited by
Sorted by citations
The Stress Acceleration Hypothesis of Nightmares
Nielsen, T. (2017) · Frontiers in Neurology · doi:10.3389/fneur.2017.00201 · Cited by 63 · see citing works
“In a second study (180), participants with anxious attachment styles had shorter REM sleep latencies and more frequent REM dreams containing”
Background
- Authors
- McNamara, P., Pace-Schott, E. F., Johnson, P., Harris, E., & Auerbach, S.
- Affiliations
- Boston University (US)
- Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (US)
- Corresponding author
- McNamara, Patrick
- Venue
- Attachment & Human Development
- Publisher
- Informa UK Limited
- Published
- 2011-03
- Volume
- 13
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 141-154
- ISSN
- 1461-6734 (ISSN-L)
- 1469-2988
- PMC
- PMC3060050
- OpenAlex
- W2038061350
- Cited by
- 47
- References
- 47
- Citations by year
- 2026: 1 · 2025: 1 · 2024: 2 · 2023: 2 · 2022: 3 · 2019: 20 · 2018: 1 · 2017: 4 · 2015: 3 · 2014: 4 · 2013: 3 · 2012: 2
- FWCI
- 1.62
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Locations
- Attachment & Human Development (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (acceptedVersion)
- PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
- Funders
- School of Medicine, Boston University
- Georgia Clinical and Translational Science Alliance
- National Institutes of Health
- National Institute of Mental Health (R21MH076916)
- National Center for Research Resources (UL1RR025771)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Sleep and Wakefulness Research
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Sleep and related disorders
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Attachment and Relationship Dynamics
- Keywords
- REM sleep, sleep architecture, attachment orientation, insecure attachment, dream content, emotional memory consolidation, REM latency, anxiety, alertness
- MeSH terms
- Adolescent, Adult, Analysis of Variance, Anxiety, Cognition, Female, Health Status Indicators, Humans, Intelligence Tests, Male, Medical Records, Middle Aged, Models, Psychological, Object Attachment, Psychological Theory, Psychometrics, Reading, Risk Factors, Sleep, Sleep Stages, Sleep, REM, Polysomnography, REM Sleep Behavior Disorder, Young Adult
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