We spend a third of our sleeping lives. And a quarter of our sleeping time has passed to dream. Thus, for the living person living in 2022, with a life expectancy 73This is made up of just over six years of dream.
However, given the central role that the dream plays in our lives, we always know so little why we dream, how the brain creates dreams, and above all, what is the meaning of our dreams for our health – especially the health of our brain.
My 2022 study, published in Lancets Hatching newspaperhas shown that our dreams can reveal a surprising amount of information on brain health.
More specifically, he has shown that having bad dreams and frequent nightmares (bad dreams that make you wake you up) at the average or higher age, can be linked to an increased risk of developing dementia.
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In the study, I analyzed the data of three major American studies on health and aging. These included more than 600 people aged 35 to 64 and 2,600 people aged 79 and over.
All the participants were without dementia at the start of the study and were followed for an average of nine years for the middle age group and five years for older participants.
At the start of the study (2002-12), the participants filled a range of questionnaires, one of which, one of which asked how frequency they experienced bad dreams and nightmares.
I analyzed the data to find out if the participants with a higher nightmare frequency at the start of the study were more likely to undergo a cognitive decline (a rapid drop in memory and reflection skills over time) and to be diagnosed with dementia.
Weekly nightmares
I found that the middle -aged participants who experienced nightmares each week were four times more likely to feel a cognitive decline (a precursor of dementia) During the following decade, while older participants were twice as likely to be diagnosed with dementia.
Interestingly, the link between nightmares and future dementia was much stronger for men than for women.
For example, older men who have made nightmares each week were five times more likely to develop dementia compared to older men not reporting any bad dream.
In women, however, the increase in risk was only 41%. I found a very similar diagram in the average age group.
Overall, these results suggest that frequent nightmares can be one of the first signs of dementia, which can precede the development of memory and reflection problems of several years, even decades, especially in men.
Alternatively, it is also possible that having dreams and regular nightmares can even be a cause of dementia.
Given the nature of this study, it is not possible to be certain which of these theories is correct (although I suspect that it is the first).
However, whatever the theory that turns out to be true-the major involvement of the study remains the same, that is to say that having bad dreams and regular nightmares at the average and older age can be linked to an increased risk of developing dementia later in life.
The good news is that recurring nightmares are treatable. And the first -line medical treatment of nightmares has already proven to decrease the accumulation of abnormal proteins linked to Alzheimer’s disease.
There was also case reports showing improvements in memory and reflection skills after treating nightmares.
These results suggest that the treatment of nightmares could help slow cognitive decline and prevent dementia from developing in some people. It will be an important avenue to explore in future research.
The next steps in my research include finding whether youth nightmares may also be linked to an increased risk of dementia. This could help determine whether the nightmares cause dementia or if it is simply an early sign of certain people.
I also plan to determine if other dream characteristics, such as the frequency to which we remember our dreams and how lively they are, could also help determine the probability that people develop dementia in the future.
Research could not only help shed light on the relationship between dementia and dream, and offer new opportunities for previous diagnoses – and possibly previous interventions – but it can also shed new light on the nature and function of the mysterious phenomenon that we call dreamer.
Abidemi OtaikuNihr academic clinical fellow in neurology, University of Birmingham
This article is republished from The conversation Under a creative communs license. Read it original article.
A previous version of this article was published in September 2022.
