Psychopathology And Nightmares: A Current Study

Defining a nightmare and distinguishing its characteristics is essential when measuring nightmares. The ability to study nightmares in depth is restrained since there are various definitions for what delineates a nightmare from a bad dream. Some researchers identify a nightmare by waking criteria. By using waking criterion, the researchers assume people wake from a nightmare because of the heightened emotions experienced. Therefore, researchers evaluate the severity of emotions experienced after having a nightmare as insight into nightmare intensity. Conflicting research does not support using waking criterion as a form of measurement because some nightmares do not always provoke an awakening. In the current study, the researchers define a nightmare as a “very disturbing dream that awakens the sleeper” and a bad dream as “a very disturbing dream that does not awaken the sleeper” (Zadra and Donderi, 2000). Some studies have found a relationship between nightmares and psychopathology, while others have not. The different populations included within the previous research may account for the
One major limitation of this study is that the dream logs were completed by a self-report method at home. This measuring technique is unlikely to yield high validity results because the researchers cannot determine if the instructions were properly followed by the participants. One distinguishing strength of the current study is that different types of dreams were recorded instead of only unpleasant dreams. Furthermore, bad dreams and nightmares were assessed separately. The current study has brought insight into the differences between bad dreams and nightmares and how these relate to one’s well-being and psychopathology. A correlation was found between well-being and nightmare frequency. To establish a clear connection between the relation of nightmares and psychopathology, more research is