WOMEN HAVE MORE NIGHTMARES THAN MEN, STUDY FINDS
By Richard Savill
The Telegraph
January 20, 2009
Original LinkWomen suffer more nightmares than men because they find it harder to switch off their emotions at the end of the day, research has found.
They carry their worries into their dreams, and continue to process emotional concerns while they are asleep, according to the study.
The findings came from a study of 193 male and female volunteers at the University of the West of England (UWE) in Bristol.
When asked to record their most recent dream, 19 per cent of male students reported having a nightmare compared to 34 per cent of women. Their emotions were recorded in diaries.
Jennifer Parker, a psychology lecturer at the university, who carried out the study over five years, said it was the first to examine the difference between women's and men's nightmares.
She said: "From our results it appears that men and women differ in the frequency of nightmares - women have more - and women perceive those nightmares to be more emotionally intense.
"I think that women use their dreams as a subconscious coping strategy.
"I believe these results show that women carry over their waking concerns into their dream life more so than men do, and they appear to have more difficulty with 'switching off' their concerns."
Her work found women's nightmares could be divided into three categories, being chased or life threatened, losing a loved one, or confused dreams.
She said: "The interesting thing is, looking at the content of the nightmare reports, men and women are experiencing the same things, but women are experiencing them more intensely.
"Women had more unpleasant dreams than men and unpleasant dreams contained more misfortune, self-negativity and failures."
Other research found women's dreams contained more family members, more negative emotion, more indoor settings and less aggression than men's dreams.
Men's dreams contained more references to sexual activity. Men reported more actual intercourse, while women reported more kissing and sexual fantasies about other dream characters.
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NHNE On Dreams & Inner GuidanceNHNE Male/Female/Relationship Research