Abstract Index Conference Index

ABSTRACT

1. Paper, 20 minute oral presentation

2. Psychopathology and the distinction between nightmare frequency and nightmare distress

3. Mark Blagrove, PhD, Laura Farmer, and Elvira Williams
Department of Psychology
University of Wales Swansea, SA2 8PP
email m.t.blagrove@swansea.ac.uk

Mark Blagrove is President-Elect of ASD and a consulting editor of the journal Dreaming. He researches into the psychology of dreaming and also sleep deprivation at the University of Wales Swansea, where he teaches a course on sleep and dreams.

4. There have been conflicting results on whether waking stress and psychopathology affect nightmare frequency and/or distress at having nightmares. This paper reports results of a diary study into this, which assesses also effects on distress during nightmares.

5 Learning objectives: i) To recognize the difference between nightmare frequency and nightmare distress; ii) To understand how daytime stresses and waking personality may be associated with nightmare frequency and nightmare distress; iii) To recognise problems in the methods used to evaluate nightmare variables and the factors that affect them.

Evaluation questions: i) What is the difference between nightmare frequency and nightmare distress? ii) What effects do daytime stresses and waking personality have on nightmare frequency and nightmare distress? iii) What have been the methodological problems in studies of nightmare frequency and nightmare distress?

8. Abstract

Belicki (1992a) has differentiated the frequency of nightmares from the distress that people feel from having nightmares. She found that psychological adjustment, which is partially related to waking stress, correlates with nightmare distress but not frequency. There have been conflicting results on whether nightmare frequency correlates with waking stress, anxiety and psychopathology, and Chivers and Blagrove (1999) suggested that the failure to find such a correlation was partly due to studies using retrospective questionnaires to assess nightmare frequency, rather than contemporaneous daily diaries. In a study using 2 week diaries to assess nightmare frequency they found that nightmare frequency was significantly related to waking stress/psychopathology, as measured by the General Health Questionnaire. However, Levin (2000) showed that the global psychopathology - nightmare frequency correlation becomes insignificant when nightmare distress is partialled out, and that it is nightmare distress that is significantly correlated with global psychopathology. Furthermore, Zadra, Germain, Fleury, Raymond & Nielsen (2000) found that the stress-related Symptom Checklist score correlated significantly with nightmare distress but not frequency. However, these studies used retrospective questionnaires to assess nightmare frequency. In the study reported here participants were assessed for waking stress/psychopathology by the General Health Questionnaire, Neuroticism by the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire, and, if they had nightmares, they answered Belicki's (1992b) nightmare distress questionnaire. They then kept a diary for two weeks in which they recorded their incidence of dreams, of nightmares, and rated the pleasantness/unpleasantness of any dreams and nightmares. The results of the study will be discussed so as to answer whether the amount of waking stress and also neuroticism affect nightmare frequency and distress during and after nightmares.

Belicki, K. (1992a). Nightmare frequency versus nightmare distress: Relations to psychopathology and cognitive style. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 101, 592-597.

Belicki, K. (1992b). The relationship of nightmare frequency to nightmare suffering with implications for treatment and research. Dreaming, 2, 143-148.

Chivers, L. and Blagrove, M. (1999). Nightmare frequency, personality and acute psychopathology. Personality and Individual Differences, 27, 843-851.

Levin, R. (1999). Nightmare frequency, nightmare distress, psychopathology and cognitive style. Paper presented at the 17th International Conference of the Association for the Study of Dreams, July 2000, Washington, D.C.

Zadra, A., Germain, A., Fleury, F., Raymond, I., & Nielsen, T. (2000). Nightmare frequency versus nightmare distress among people with frequency nightmares. Sleep, 23 (Suppl. #2), A170.

9. Mark Blagrove.
MA (Experimental Psychology) Cambridge University, 1979-82
PhD The structuralist analysis of dream series, Brunel University, London, 1985-89.
Research Fellow, Loughborough University Sleep Laboratory, 1989-91
Lecturer in Psychology, University of Wales Swansea, 1991-present.
Consulting Editor for Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied and Dreaming
President-Elect ASD 2000-01