PressTV...A team of researchers at the Canadian University of Montreal asked over 300 men and women to write down the content of their dreams after waking up for up to five weeks.
According to the study, diary entries on nightmares, in which a person wakes up mid-dream, were longer than those for bad dreams, which while still disturbing, are less intense, and women wrote longer descriptions of their bad dreams than men.
The dream journals of women also indicated that their disturbing dreams tend to focus on social conflicts, friendships and romances, as they are more likely to have nightmares about rows, broken friendships and relationship fears, including infidelity.
In contrast, the men studied were twice as likely to have nightmares or bad dreams about disasters, including fires, floods and wars, the researchers said.
Images of infestations of insects also plagued men’s bad dreams.
“Dreams of interpersonal conflicts may elicit a more intense emotional response in women, leading to a greater proportion of such dreams ending in a nightmare awakening,” said the authors of the study which was published in the journal Sleep.
They also noted that their research was especially informative as it used diary entries rather than tick list-type questionnaires to record the content of people's dreams.
Meanwhile, researcher Antonio Zadra warned that nightmares can have negative impacts on people’s health, saying, “Nightmares are not a disease in themselves but can be a problem for the individual who anticipates them or who is greatly distressed by their nightmares.”
“People who have frequent nightmares may fear falling asleep – and being plunged into their worst dreams,” Zadra added.
MR/NN/HMV