Scarpelli Serena, Alfonsi Valentina, D'Anselmo Anita, Gorgoni Maurizio, Musetti Alessandro, Plazzi Giuseppe, De Gennaro Luigi, Franceschini Christian
Department of Psychology, Sapienza University of Rome, Rome, Italy.
IRCCS Fondazione Santa Lucia, Rome, Italy.
Front Psychol. 2021 May 26;12:681569. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.681569. eCollection 2021.
Some studies highlighted that patients with narcolepsy type-1 (NT1) experience high lucid dream frequency, and this phenomenon has been associated with a creative personality. Starting from the well-known "pandemic effect" on sleep and dreaming, we presented a picture of dream activity in pharmacologically treated NT1 patients during the Italian lockdown. Forty-three NT1 patients completed a web-survey during Spring 2021 and were compared with 86 matched-controls. Statistical comparisons revealed that: (a) NT1 patients showed greater sleepiness than controls; (b) controls showed higher sleep disturbances than NT1 patients, and this result disappeared when the medication effect in NT1 was controlled; (c) NT1 patients reported higher lucid dream frequency than controls. Focusing on dreaming in NT1 patients, we found that (a) nightmare frequency was correlated with female gender, longer sleep duration, higher intrasleep wakefulness; (b) dream recall, nightmare and lucid dream frequency were positively correlated with sleepiness. Comparisons between low and high NT1 lucid dreamers showed that patients more frequently experiencing lucid dreams reported a greater influence of dreaming during wakefulness, especially concerning problem-solving and creativity. Overall, our results are consistent with previous studies on pandemic dreaming carried out on healthy subjects. Moreover, we confirmed a link between lucidity and creativity in NT1 patients. Considering the small sample size and the cross-sectional design, our findings cannot provide a causal relationship between lucid dreams and the COVID-19 lockdown. Nevertheless, they represent a first contribution to address future studies on this issue, suggesting that some stable characteristics could interact with changes provoked by the pandemic.
一些研究强调，1型发作性睡病（NT1）患者清醒梦的频率较高，且这一现象与创造性人格有关。从众所周知的睡眠和梦境的“大流行效应”出发，我们呈现了意大利封锁期间接受药物治疗的NT1患者的梦境活动情况。43名NT1患者在2021年春季完成了一项网络调查，并与86名匹配的对照组进行了比较。统计比较结果显示：（a）NT1患者比对照组表现出更强的嗜睡感；（b）对照组比NT1患者表现出更高的睡眠障碍，而当控制NT1患者的药物作用时，这一结果消失；（c）NT1患者报告的清醒梦频率高于对照组。聚焦于NT1患者的梦境，我们发现：（a）噩梦频率与女性性别、更长的睡眠时间、更高的睡眠中觉醒程度相关；（b）梦境回忆、噩梦和清醒梦频率与嗜睡感呈正相关。NT1清醒梦频繁组与不频繁组的比较显示，清醒梦体验更频繁的患者报告称梦境在清醒时的影响更大，尤其是在解决问题和创造力方面。总体而言，我们的结果与之前对健康受试者进行的关于大流行期间梦境的研究一致。此外，我们证实了NT1患者清醒度与创造力之间的联系。考虑到样本量较小和横断面设计，我们的研究结果无法提供清醒梦与新冠疫情封锁之间的因果关系。尽管如此，它们为解决该问题的未来研究做出了初步贡献，表明一些稳定特征可能与大流行引发的变化相互作用。
