Elucidating nightmare proneness: Relationships with emotional dysregulation and psychological vulnerability.

Abstract

Previous research found that nightmare proneness, a personality disposition to experience frequent nightmares, independently predicted nightmare occurrences after accounting for maladjustment. However, mechanisms involved in the nightmare proneness construct are not well understood. The current study examined a model in which vulnerability and emotional dysregulation influenced nightmare proneness among 143 university students. Consistent with the model, vulnerability and emotional dysregulation independently predicted nightmare proneness after accounting for distress and gender. Only nightmare proneness accounted for unique variance in nightmare frequency, but vulnerability and emotional dysregulation influenced nightmare frequency indirectly through nightmare proneness. The results and suggestions for future research were discussed.

Revisiting trait and state predictors of nightmare frequency and nightmare distress.

“…The finding regarding nightmare proneness and nightmare frequency is not overly surprising as it replicates previous results (Kelly & Daughtry, 2022; Kelly & Mathe, 2019b). What cannot be determined from the current data is how nightmare proneness leads to nightmares.…”

“…Higher scores indicate more emotional dysregulation. Evidence of validity includes correlations with hypothetically related variables including distress, vulnerability, and nightmare proneness (Kelly & Daughtry, 2022). Internal consistency reliability has been estimated at .90 (Kelly & Daughtry, 2022).…”

“…While previous studies have been valuable in understanding influences on nightmare occurrences, they were not able to include recently identified trait variables which might contribute to nightmares. For instance, emotional dysregulation, difficulties managing or controlling emotions (Gross & John, 2003), has been identified both theoretically, that is, increased emotionality increases activation of fear memories in sleep (Levin & Nielsen, 2007), and empirically to be related to nightmare frequency (Fireman et al, 2014; Kelly & Daughtry, 2022). Emotional dysregulation also may mediate perceptions of nightmares as threatening, thus influencing nightmare distress (Akram et al, 2020).…”

“…Further, the recently identified trait nightmare proneness (Kelly, 2018) has been found to account for nightmare frequency above state factors (Kelly & Mathe, 2019b; Kelly & Yu, 2019). Nightmare proneness is an empirically derived variable that includes a combination of several nightmare-related maladjustment markers which, ostensibly, produce nightmares through underlying processes of dysregulated mentation and vulnerability (Kelly & Daughtry, 2022). Other findings indicate that ego strength accounts for nightmares above state distress (Kelly, 2020).…”

Relational nightmares: A new scale and test of the continuity hypothesis of dreams applied to nightmares in a young adult sample.

“…Nightmares, disturbing and easily recalled dreams that often awaken the sleeper (American Psychiatric Association [APA], 2013), are reportedly experienced “sometimes” by 40% and “often” by 4% of adults (Sandman et al, 2013). Whereas the etiology of nightmares among nonclinical samples has been suggested to stem largely from trait neuroticism and state psychological distress (Gieselmann et al, 2019; Levin & Nielsen, 2007; Schredl & Göritz, 2021), nightmares also have been associated with less ego strength (Kelly, 2020), more nightmare proneness, emotional dysregulation, a general sense of vulnerability (Kelly & Daughtry, 2022), worry, depersonalization, and paranoia (Rek et al, 2017). Additionally, nightmares have been associated with a wide array of psychiatric disturbances (Lemyre et al, 2019).…”