Depression And Insomnia May Be Turning Happy Dreams Into Nightmares

What might depression or insomnia say for our dreams? They may tell us that they could be unpleasant or scary. Nightmares, even. 

Now, a new study looks at how our mental health can affect sleep and the subconscious. 

"Our study shows a clear connection between well-being and nightmares," said lead author Nils Sandman, a researcher in the Centre for Cognitive Neuroscience at the University of Turku in Finland, in a news release. "This is most evident in the connection between nightmares and depression, but also apparent in many other analyses involving nightmares and questions measuring life satisfaction and health."

The new study was a joint effort between the University of Turku and the Finnish National Institute of Health and Welfare where researchers analyzed information from two independent cross-sectional surveys of the Finnish general adult population that were conducted in 2007 and 2012. Participants were 13,922 adults between the ages of 25 and 74, 53 percent of whom were women.

Researchers asked participants to complete a survey and a health examination at their local primary health care center.

Just about 3.9 percent of participants had frequent nightmares within the past 30 days, with 4.8 percent being women and 2.9 percent being men. Frequent nightmares were reported among 28.4 percent of participants with severe depression symptoms and 17.1 percent of those seemed to deal with frequent insomnia, as well. 

However, researchers noted that as this is a cross-sectional study, it did not allow for an examination of causality, suggesting that the results raise intriguing possibilities to look at for the future. 

"It might be possible that nightmares could function as early indicators of onset of depression and therefore have previously untapped diagnostic value," researchers concluded. "Also, because nightmares, insomnia and depression often appear together, would it be possible to treat all of these problems with an intervention directed solely toward nightmares?"