Citation

Gauchat A, Zadra A, El Hourani M, Parent S, Renaud J, Tremblay RE, Séguin JR. Dreaming 2021; 31(1): 32-43.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2021, Educational Publishing Foundation, Publisher Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1037/drm0000157

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Disturbing dreams and recurrent dreams have both been linked to a wide range of psychological difficulties in children. There is growing evidence that the experience of frequent disturbing dreams is associated with suicidal ideation in adults, but studies in young adolescents have been limited and the results inconsistent. In addition, the possible relationship between suicidal ideation and recurrent dreams has yet to be studied. We thus investigated the relation between disturbing dreams, recurrent dreams, and suicidal ideation in a sample of young adolescents. Self-report measures of disturbing dream frequency, recurrent dream frequency, and suicidal ideation were collected at the age of 12 years and again at the age of 13 years from 170 children from a prospective population-based birth cohort. Although the rate of disturbing dreams and recurrent dreams dropped between ages of 12 and 13, the rate of self-reported suicidal ideation increased between the ages of 12 and 13 years. Analyses taking sex and age into account revealed that young adolescents who reported having had suicidal thoughts over the past year had significantly greater frequencies of disturbing dreams and of recurrent dreams than adolescents who had not thought about suicide. These findings highlight the potential clinical value of assessing disturbing and recurrent dreams as part of the screening process for suicidal ideation in young adolescents. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved) © 2021 American Psychological Association

Language: en

Keywords

adolescence; suicidal ideation; dreaming; nightmares; recurrent dreams