Volume 11 Issue 1
Dream Recall and Content versus the Menstrual Cycle: A Cross-Sectional Study in Healthy Women
Ioannis Ilias,Nicholas-Tiberio Economou,Anastasia Lekkou,Andrea Romigi andEftychia Koukkou
1Department of Endocrinology, Elena Venizelou Hosp, 11521 Athens, Greece
2Sleep Study Unit, Eginition Hospital, University of Athens & Enypnion Sleep Disorders—Epilepsy Center, 11521 Athens, Greece
3IRCCS Neuromed, Sleep Medicine Center, 86077 Pozzilli, Italy
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Abstract
The association between sleep and the menstrual cycle has been scarcely studied. This study aimed to investigate the association between dream recall and content and the menstrual cycle among a large sample of young women. To this aim, 944 women were asked about their day of menstrual cycle, whether they remembered the previous night’s dreams and if they did so to describe the dream content as pleasant or unpleasant. A total of 378 women recalled the previous nights’ dreams, with 199 reporting pleasant dream affect/content and 179 reporting unpleasant dream content. In women who recalled their dreams, there was an association of pleasant dream content with the luteal phase (p = 0.038). In conclusion, in women, the hormonal milieu of the luteal phase may influence dream content.
Keywords: sleep; dreams; women; menstrual cycle
