CoChat
Sign Up
Cited by 285Sleep and related disordersSleep and Wakefulness ResearchPsychoanalysis and Psychopathology Research

Nightmare Prevalence, Nightmare Distress, and Self-Reported Psychological Disturbance

Ross Levin, Gary D. Fireman·2002·Sleep
DOI 10.1093/sleep/25.2.205
Open this paper in CoChat — free account

Abstract

STUDY OBJECTIVES: The relationship between nightmare prevalence, nightmare distress, and self-reported psychological disturbance was assessed prospectively. DESIGN: Differences in self-reported psychological disturbance as a function of nightmare prevalence was investigated by MANCOVA's with non-nightmare dreams as the covariate as well as Pearson correlations. The relative contribution of nightmare prevalence and distress to the prediction of psychological disturbance was investigated through multiple regression analyses. SETTING: N/A. PARTICIPANTS: 116 participants (mean age = 20 years) completed self-report indices of depression, anxiety, dissociation, psychosis-proneness, and a psychiatric symptom checklist and kept a nightmare log for 21 consecutive nights. INTERVENTIONS: N/A. MEASUREMENTS AND RESULTS: Frequent nightmares were associated with higher levels of psychological disturbance. Individuals who reported 3 or more nightmares across the 3 weeks reported more dissociation, psychosis-proneness and psychiatric symptoms than participants reporting 2 nightmares or less. However, nightmare prevalence and distress were not significantly correlated and differentially predicted to different types of waking psychological disturbance. Multiple regressions further indicated that nightmare distress accounted for much of the unique explanatory variance in predicting clinical states associated with high negative affect (anxiety and depression). Last, there was no evidence for a specific relationship between nightmares and psychosis-proneness. CONCLUSIONS: The findings suggest that it is not the incidence of nightmares which is associated with poorer waking psychological functioning, especially anxiety and depression states, but the reported distress associated with the nightmare experience which is the critical variable in predicting higher psychological disturbance.

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1093/sleep/25.2.205

Cites

4 of 4 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Claims the paper makes

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

  • Distress associated with nightmares in a student sample was associated with increased paranoia, anxiety, and depression, as well as poorer occupational functioning.

    “Distress associated with nightmares in a student sample was associated with increased paranoia, anxiety, and depression (as well as poorer occupational functioning) (Levin & Fireman, 2002).”

    From The role of sleep dysfunction in the occurrence of delusions and hallucinations: A systematic review (2015) · cites this paper as Levin & Fireman, 2002

    Table 3 (p. 209) reports associations between nightmare distress and paranoia, anxiety, and depression scores, and the Methods describe a student sample. The paper does not report poorer occupational functioning; its measures concern psychological symptoms rather than work performance. (LLM, conf=0.90)

    Experimental — accuracy not yet measured

Self-check

Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.

The self-check needs the paper’s full text.

Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

Research works printed but not linked: 5

  1. Nielsen T, Zadra A. Dreaming disorders. In: Kryger M, Roth T, Dement W, eds. Principles and practice of sleep medicine. 3rd edition. Philadelphia, PA: W.B. Saunders, 2000.
  2. Halliday G. Direct psychological therapies for nightmares: a review. Clin Psychol Rev, 1987;7;501-523.
  3. Bleuler, E.P. Dementia praecox or the group of schizophrenias, Zinkin, J. Trans. New York: International Universities Press, 1950, Original work published 1911.
  4. Spielberger C, Gorsuch R, Lushene R. Manual for the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory. Consulting Psychologists Press, 1983.
  5. Levin R, & Fireman G. Phenomenal qualities of nightmare experi- ence in a prospective study of college students. Dreaming, In press.

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Authors
Levin, R., & Fireman, G. D.
Affiliations
  • Albert Einstein College of Medicine (US)
  • Texas Tech University (US)
Corresponding author
Ross Levin
ORCID
Gary D. Fireman
Venue
Sleep
Publisher
Oxford University Press (OUP)
Published
2002-01-01
Volume
25
Issue
2
Pages
205-12
ISSN
  • 0161-8105 (ISSN-L)
  • 1550-9109
DOI
10.1093/sleep/25.2.205
OpenAlex
W2405724943
Cited by
285
References
4
Citations by year
2026: 1 · 2025: 5 · 2024: 15 · 2023: 10 · 2022: 15 · 2021: 13 · 2020: 23 · 2019: 23 · 2018: 11 · 2017: 17 · 2016: 14 · 2015: 18 · 2014: 10 · 2013: 14 · 2012: 11
FWCI
6.24
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
closed
Locations
  • SLEEP (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Sleep and related disorders
  • Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Sleep and Wakefulness Research
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Psychoanalysis and Psychopathology Research
Keywords
nightmares, nightmare distress, mental illness, anxiety, depression, dissociation, psychosis proneness, psychiatric symptoms, negative affect
MeSH terms
Depression, Dreams, Female, Humans, Male, Prospective Studies, Self-Assessment, Sleep Wake Disorders, Body Mass Index

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review