شخصیت، آسیب شناسی روانی و کابوس در افراد جوان

The current study investigated the relationship between nightmare experience, psychopathology and personality in a sample of 148 Australian school students aged between 12 and 18 years. In this sample, adolescents who experienced high levels of nightmare sleeping distress also tended to experience high levels of nightmare waking distress. Adolescents who experienced higher frequency of nightmares also tended to experience higher levels of nightmare waking distress. Frequency of nightmares was not associated with nightmare sleeping distress. No significant difference for gender was found on any of the nightmare measures. All psychopathology scores intercorrelated strongly and psychopathology was associated with all three nightmare measures. Anxiety was the most commonly reported correlate of all three nightmare measures. The hypothesis that nightmare sleeping distress was predicted by personality and psychopathology was partially supported. Nightmare sleeping distress was more likely to be associated with high levels of neuroticism and with lower levels of psychoticism, but not with extraversion. However, other hypotheses predicting a mediational model for personality and psychopathology with nightmare frequency and nightmare waking distress were not supported.

Nightmares are typically frightening and lengthy dream sequences which depict physical or other threats to the dreamer (DSM-IV: American Psychological Association (APA), 1994, p. 580). While it is not always possible to determine the cause of nightmares in individuals (Belicki & Cuddy, 1991), prior research has suggested that nightmares appear to be caused by the experience of some form of traumatic life event (Anders and Eiben, 1997 and Hearne, 1991), genetic predisposition (Erman, 1987 and Murray, 1990) or personality factors (Claridge, Davis, Bellhouse, & Kaptein, 1998). Whatever their cause, their frightening content usually provokes high levels of anxiety and disturbs the sleep of the dreamer (DSM-IV: APA, 1994, p. 580). The observed pattern for nightmares is of a higher incidence among young children which decreases as they become more autonomous. Nightmares increase again over time with the stressors of adolescence associated with puberty, school, relationships and taking on greater adult responsibility (Kashani, Rosenberg, & Reid, 1989). With increasing age through adulthood, it appears fewer dreams are reported (Giambra, Jung, & Grodsky, 1996). There are inconsistent findings as to whether females recall more nightmares than males (Chivers and Blagrove, 1999, Schredl, 2000 and Zadra and Donderi, 2000). 1.1. Nightmares and distress In previous literature on distress associated with nightmares, most often the focus has been on nightmare waking distress (reactions and concerns of the dreamer during waking hours relative to experiencing nightmares) and nightmare frequency, rather than nightmare sleeping distress (emotions experienced by the dreamer during the dream itself). Studies comparing nightmare waking distress and nightmare frequency have generally shown only a slight relationship between the two variables (Belicki, 1992a, Levin and Fireman, 2002 and Wood and Bootzin, 1990). Where nightmare sleeping distress has been studied, it has tended to be in the context of past traumatic events, such as sexual abuse or combat, and in that context a connection has been found between nightmare sleeping distress and nightmare frequency (Belicki, 1999, Belicki and Cuddy, 1996 and Van der Kolk et al., 1984). 1.2. Psychopathology Previous research has commonly found psychopathology to be associated with nightmare experience. Frequent nightmares have been shown to be associated with higher levels of waking anxiety and related distress (Cuddy and Belicki, 1991, Levin and Fireman, 2002 and Zadra and Donderi, 2000). Additionally, frequent nightmares are also likely to be associated with depression (Bilici et al., 2002, Kashani et al., 1989, Levin and Fireman, 2002 and Zadra and Donderi, 2000), and with a combination of depression and anxiety (Agargun et al., 1998 and Levin and Fireman, 2002). 1.3. Personality Studies into the relationship between nightmare experience and the personality factors of neuroticism, psychoticism and extraversion have yielded varying results. While some studies have found nightmare and dream experience to be related to neuroticism (Berquier and Ashton, 1992 and Zadra and Donderi, 2000), one study found no correlation between nightmare frequency and neuroticism, psychoticism or extraversion (Chivers & Blagrove, 1999). Whilst other personality factors also appear to be involved in nightmare experience (Belicki, 1991 and Levin and Fireman, 2002), space does not permit a review of these here. For the purpose of the current study, personality is restricted to considering the dimensions provided by Eysenck’s typology. In line with the literature it was hypothesised that all three nightmare measures would intercorrelate and girls would report higher frequency of nightmares and more nightmare distress than boys. It was also hypothesised that psychopathology measures would correlate with higher nightmare frequency and more nightmare distress. It was hypothesised that personality measures would also be correlated with nightmare incidence and nightmare distress. Finally, it was hypothesised that the relationship between psychopathology and nightmares would be mediated by personality, specifically neuroticism, psychoticism and extraversion. 2. Method The study recruited 148 student participants, comprising 40 girls and 107 boys. One participant did not record their gender. The ages of participants ranged from 12 to 18 years. Seventy-four (60%) of the subjects were aged between 12 and 13 years, a further 39 (26%) were aged either 14 or 15, with the remaining 35 ranging in age between 16 and 18 years. The mean age for girls (14.23 years, s.d. = 2.30) appeared to be higher than the mean age for boys (13.88 years, s.d. = 1.66), but the difference was not significant (F(1,145) 1.013, p = .316). The age range is the same for boys and girls (minimum = 12, maximum = 18).

Overall, the research indicates that nightmares remain a distressing event for a group of young people in our sample. Nightmares were associated with various forms of emotional distress. In addition, proneness to experience anxiety (as defined by neuroticism) may mediate this relationship. It seems that our results are sufficiently different from other studies to warrant some comment. Our sample was not evenly comprised of boys and girls and was biased to a younger age than commonly reported in the literature. The bulk of the sample were aged under 16 (81%). Research with the EPQ-Jr. has revealed specific age and gender effects (Canals, Vigil-Colet, Chico, & Marti-Henneberg, 2005). Whilst gender effects were largely not significant in this study, it was possible that if the under 16’s only were analysed, results might have been different. To test for this, correlations between all variables were computed between the under 16’s on all variables and compared to that of the whole sample (data available from the authors). The pattern of correlations were all in the same direction for both samples, but some significance levels were lost, we believe simply as a function of sample size reduction. That is, despite the observation that the pattern of response by children on the EPQ-Jr. does alter as a function of age, the broad thrust of the findings here are not different despite the skewed sample. Nonetheless, future research should correct for such unintentional biases. Following from this observation, it is possible that developmental and gender influences may be present that account for some of the variations from previous results.