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Your intense nightmares might point to one common and depressing issue
Though you might be certain that your late-night cheese snacking is causing your intense, frequent, nightmares, a new study suggests you could just be lonely.
Sleep is one of the most important bodily functions, despite only 15% of Americans getting the recommended amount of rest a night. Even if you do manage to fall asleep with your viral sweatshirt pillow, the potential for disturbances and nightmares is always an ever-present fear.
Intense nightmares could point to loneliness
If you’re not one of the lucky few to be dreaming about random snakes, you might find your dreams are plagued by horror figures, embarrassing moments, and nightmares you spend days thinking about.
But while a lot of research has been conducted on nightmares and where they come from, we are guessing you didn’t have loneliness on your 2024 bingo card. Well, that’s exactly what a new study in the Journal of Psychology has revealed.
Around 18% of people report having nightmares frequently, and while most are harmless beyond mental distress, some people’s nightmares qualify them for a clinical sleep disorder.
Though the researchers understood that extreme loneliness could spark increased nightmares, they wanted to know why. To do this, they employed the evolutionary theory of loneliness which theorists that feelings of loneliness are an evolutionary alert system that tells us when social interactions are lacking.
Interpersonal relationships are very much a core human need, explains Colin Hesse, director of the School of Communication at Oregon State University, in a statement. When peoples need for strong relationships goes unmet, they suffer physically, mentally, and socially. Just like hunger or fatigue means you havent gotten enough calories or sleep, loneliness has evolved to alert individuals when their needs for interpersonal connection are going unfulfilled.
Bad dreams are created by feelings deeper than loneliness
Though scientists know that loneliness plays a part in frequent and intense nightmares, the emotion of loneliness goes deeper than simply needing human interaction.
Polling 1,600 U.S. adults aged 18 to 81, researchers identified that loneliness is comprised of stress, rumination or persistent worrying, and hyperarousal, a state of heightened alertness.
Both hyperarousal and rumination explained the link as lonely people tend to experience these nightmare-inducing emotions more.
