A new study attempts to shed light on triggers of post-trauma nightmare occurrences — a topic that has received scant study.

A new study from psychologists at the University of Kansas just published in the Journal of Traumatic Stress attempts to shed light on triggers of post-trauma nightmare occurrences — a topic that has received scant study.

The research is the first to show that having difficulty getting to sleep, along with thinking about the trauma or other negative events prior to sleep, could boost the odds of a post-trauma nightmare occurrence.

«We found both ‘sleep latency,’ or the time it takes someone to fall asleep, and ‘pre-sleep cognitive arousal,’ or worrying or ruminating prior to going to bed, were the two significant predictors of a nightmare occurring,» said lead author Westley Youngren, a doctoral student in clinical psychology at KU.

In the study, Youngren and co-authors Nancy Hamilton, KU associate professor of clinical psychology, and Kristopher Preacher of Vanderbilt University, recruited 27 female college students who reported frequent nightmares tied to sexual trauma. In addition to interviews and questionnaires to assess general depression and anxiety-related symptoms, these participants were asked to complete pre- and post-sleep diaries for six days.

«If someone took 60 or 90 minutes to fall asleep and during that time they were worrying or thinking about the trauma, they were then most likely to have a nightmare,» Youngren said. «It tended to be the interaction of the two that predicted the occurrence of a nightmare. It’s really priming the mind to have dream content of the trauma, which is then going to result in a nightmare.»

Youngren said he hoped the findings could be used in a clinical setting to help survivors of sexual trauma reduce or avoid nightmares.

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