Did you know that you spend a third of your life sleeping? Additionally, we spend a quarter of our sleep time dreaming. This means that a person alive today will spend around six years of an estimated 73-year life span dreaming. Yet, even though we spend such a large portion of our lives dreaming, there is still very little we understand about them. For example, we don’t fully understand why we even dream, how they are created by the brain, and how they affect our health. Doctors are now realizing that our dreams may even reveal an early sign of dementia.
The Study on Dreams and Dementia
A study published in The Lancet’s eClinicalMedicine journal in 2022 revealed that your dreams can impart a significant amount of information regarding your brain health. It specifically proved that regularly experiencing bad dreams or nightmares that wake you up is an early sign of dementia. For the study, the data from three US studies on aging and health was analyzed. This database included more than 600 individuals aged between 35 and 64 and 2,600 people who were 79 or older.
Analyzing the Regularity of Patients’ Dreams
At the start of the study, none of the participants had any form of dementia. The middle age group was followed for nine years and the older participants were followed for a five year period. All of the participants were required to fill out a range of questions at the start of the study. One of the questions asked participants how regularly they had nightmares and bad dreams. The data was then analyzed to determine how many of those who frequently had nightmares developed cognitive decline later in life.
Results of the Study on Nightmares as an Early Sign of Dementia
The study found that the middle-aged participants who experienced weekly nightmares were four times more likely to eventually experience cognitive decline. The people in the older group who experienced weekly nightmares were twice as likely to be diagnosed with dementia. Additionally, they found that this early sign of dementia was far more prevalent in the male subjects than the females. For instance, the older males who experienced weekly nightmares had a five times greater risk of developing dementia compared to those who had no bad dreams. For the older women, though, the increased risk was only around 41%. A similar pattern was recorded in the middle-aged female participants.
The Meaning of These Results
Overall, these findings suggest that recurrent nightmares may be one of the early signs of dementia that precede the development of memory issues by several years or even decades – particularly in males. On the other hand, though, recurrent nightmares may actually be a cause of dementia. Given the scope of the present research, it is not possible to determine which of these theories is right. However, irrespective of which theory is eventually proven correct, the study’s basic conclusion stays the same.
The Good News
There is some light at the end of the nightmare, though. The good news is that bad dreams can be treated now. In fact, the first-line treatments for bad dreams have already been proven to decrease abnormal protein build-up associated with Alzheimer’s disease. Additionally, after having their nightmares treated, some people have reported improvements in their thinking skills and memory. These findings indicate that treating bad dreams may reduce cognitive decline as well as prevent dementia in certain individuals. This will be a vital subject to investigate in future studies.
The Next Step in the Research
The researchers’ next steps will be to find out whether nightmares in young people are similarly associated with an increased risk of dementia. This could potentially help identify whether dreams cause dementia or are only an early warning indication in certain individuals. They also intend to study whether other dream attributes, such as how frequently we remember and how intense our dreams are, can help predict how likely individuals are to develop dementia in the future.
The Bottom Line on Nightmares and Dementia
That concludes our look at nightmares as a potential early sign of dementia. This groundbreaking research may hopefully offer insight into the association between dementia and dreaming, opening up new avenues for earlier diagnoses and, potentially, therapies. Additionally, it may also cast a necessary light on the nature and function of the mysterious phenomena known as dreaming.