Dream Recall and Dream Content in Obsessive-Compulsive Patients

Abstract

Very little is known about dreams in patients with obsessive compulsive disorder, especially regarding changes over the course of treatment with stimulus exposure and response prevention. By use of dream content analysis, 40 dreams of 9 obsessive compulsive (OC) inpatients were compared with 84 dreams of 10 matched OC outpatients and 63 dreams of 11 healthy control participants. Dream protocols of inpatients were collected at the beginning of treatment and after the first exposure exercises. Controls filled in dream protocols in respective intervals. Before treatment, dreams of patients showed significantly less positive contents than dreams of healthy controls. Under treatment with exposure, a significant reduction of OC themes was observed. The findings support the continuity hypothesis of dreaming by showing a link between day-time symptoms and OC symptoms in dreams. Contrary to expectations, however, exposure treatment does not intensify dreams.

Nightmares in mental disorders: A review.

“…However, another study (Stein, Chartier, & Walker, 1993) reports no difference on the risk of experiencing weekly nightmares between individuals suffering from a panic disorder and controls. Besides, in three studies (Cavallotti et al, 2016; Kuelz, Stotz, Riemann, Schredl, & Voderholzer, 2010; Sauteraud, Menny, Philip, Peyré, & Bonnin, 2001), individuals suffering from an OCD and controls completed a dream diary for 1 week. Dream reports were self-rated or rated by independent evaluators.…”

Cognitive-Behavior and Narrative Therapy in Obsessive- Compulsive Disorder

“…These characteristics are not modified after CBT treatment, except the trend to show less negative emotions during dreams. Exposure does not seem to have traumatizing effect [16].…”

Do dreams really guard sleep? Evidence for and against Freud's theory of the basic function of dreaming

“…Since this pressure deriving from unconscious contents is thought to be typically increased in neurotic patients (Fenichel, 1946), the psychoanalytic theory predicts that these would display increased dreaming (Grünbaum, 1993). In two questionnaire studies (Schredl et al, 2001; Kuelz et al, 2010), DRF was significantly higher, compared to healthy controls, in patients with panic disorder and in psychotherapeutically-untreated patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder, respectively. Here again, several limits must be mentioned: (1) most patients were under medication, which effects on sleep mentation could eventually be incriminated 3 ; (2) sleep discontinuity, which is associated with increased DRF (Schredl, 2007) and a frequent condition in mental disorders, was not controlled; and (3) the same limits of questionnaire-measured DRF as mentioned in the preceding paragraph, regarding their limited reflection of nighttime dreaming as a whole, apply to these studies.…”