Lusignan Félix-Antoine, Zadra Antonio, Dubuc Marie-Josée, Daoust Anne-Marie, Mottard Jean-Pierre, Godbout Roger
Centre de Recherche Fernand-Seguin, Neurodevelopmental Disorders Program, Hôpital Rivière-des-Prairies, 7070 boulevard Perras, Montréal, Québec, Canada.
Schizophr Res. 2009 Jul;112(1-3):164-73. doi: 10.1016/j.schres.2009.03.032. Epub 2009 May 5.
Many clinical, laboratory and non-laboratory studies have examined dream content reported by patients with schizophrenia but findings have been variable and inconsistent. Using both questionnaire-based measures and laboratory REM sleep awakenings, we investigated dream content in 14 patients with schizophrenia (mean age=25.5+/-3.2 years) under atypical antipsychotic medication and 15 healthy controls (mean age=22.3+/-4.2 years). The relationship between eye movement density during REM sleep and dream content was also explored. Questionnaire data revealed that when compared to controls, patients with schizophrenia report experiencing a greater number of nightmares but no significant differences were found on other measures including overall dream recall, presence of recurrent dreams, and frequency of specific emotions. 39 dream reports were collected from each group following awakenings from REM sleep. Laboratory dream narratives from the patients were shorter and, after controlling for report length, most significant differences in dream content between the two groups disappeared with the exception of a greater proportion of unknown characters in the participant group. Patients with schizophrenia spontaneously rated their dream reports as being less bizarre than did controls, despite a similar density of bizarre elements as scored by external judges. Finally, both groups had a comparable density of rapid eye movements during REM sleep but a significant positive correlation between eye-movement density and dream content variables was only found in controls. Taken together, the findings suggest that dream content characteristics in schizophrenia may reflect neurocognitive processes, including emotional processing, specific to this disorder.
许多临床、实验室及非实验室研究都对精神分裂症患者报告的梦境内容进行了考察，但研究结果存在差异且不一致。我们采用基于问卷的测量方法和实验室快速眼动睡眠唤醒技术，对14名正在服用非典型抗精神病药物的精神分裂症患者（平均年龄=25.5±3.2岁）和15名健康对照者（平均年龄=22.3±4.2岁）的梦境内容进行了调查。同时还探讨了快速眼动睡眠期间的眼动密度与梦境内容之间的关系。问卷数据显示，与对照组相比，精神分裂症患者报告的噩梦数量更多，但在其他测量指标上未发现显著差异，包括总体梦境回忆、反复出现梦境的情况以及特定情绪的出现频率。从快速眼动睡眠唤醒后，每组收集到了39份梦境报告。患者的实验室梦境叙述较短，在控制报告长度后，两组之间梦境内容的大多数显著差异消失，但患者组中未知角色的比例更高。尽管外部评判者对精神分裂症患者梦境报告中奇异元素的评分与对照组相似，但患者自评其梦境报告的奇异程度低于对照组。最后，两组在快速眼动睡眠期间的快速眼动密度相当，但仅在对照组中发现眼动密度与梦境内容变量之间存在显著的正相关。综合来看，这些发现表明精神分裂症患者的梦境内容特征可能反映了该疾病特有的神经认知过程，包括情绪加工。
