The study, conducted on 170 volunteers at the British University of the West of England, suggests that the reason behind females having more terrifying nightmares than men is to be found in the changes in their body temperatures (caused by monthly cycle).
Lead author of the study, Dr Jennie Parker, a lecturer in psychology, said, “We found that women reported significantly more nightmares than men."
A nightmare is a terrifying dream where the person experiences feelings of helplessness, extreme anxiety, fear, horror or sorrow and if you wake up during such a dream you generally remember it for a long time.
The scientists asked the volunteers about their recent dreams and found that almost 30% of females reported having a terrifying nightmare while on the other hand only 19 percent males reported the same. The subjects were asked to record all their dreams or thoughts which they had upon waking.
Also, the nightmares of females were more emotional. Other researches have shown that females tend to have more disturbed sleep than males.
According to the study author, the terrifying nightmares actually helps in preparing brain for the emotionally distressing events that may happen in near future.
Dr. Parker said, “One of the things that people do is put all these dreams under the umbrella term nightmares. But there are different types of nightmares and women report more of them.”
On the basis of her study, she categorized nightmares into 3 different types: a) being chased or hunted b) death of a child, parent or spouse c) weird and new environments.
The psychologists feel that changes in the female’s body temperature during periods (temperature rises after ovulation
define and dips at the start of the period) lead to increasing numbers of scary and disturbing nightmares.
Dr Parker said, "Women who are premenstrual tend to dream more aggressively, and they are also more likely to remember the dreams."
While on the other hand some dream experts says that females don’t have more nightmares but are simply better at remembering and talking about them.
Dr Chris Idikowski, Director of the Edinburgh Sleep Centre, said, "Women always remember dreams more than men. They end up talking more about their mental life than men do so there's more ability to remember.”
He goes on to add, “This fits in with what's in the literature. Women's sleep tends to be more disrupted and they have more insomnia. And more frequent wakening could cause them to pick up on the dream.”
Dreaming is a natural and normal process and sometimes it is very difficult to understand dreams as they are formed by the irrational unconscious mind. Nearly 96 percent of reported nightmares are dreams occurring in REM (rapid eye movement) sleep. In spite of shutting down, the brain actually stays just as active during REM sleep as it is when it is awake.
Past research shows that nightmares’ rate increases through adolescence, peaks in young adulthood and then begins to drop.
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