Association Between Dreams, Anxiety, and Depressive Symptoms Among Japanese Adolescents: A Cross-Sectional Study

TL;DR

This study explores how dream content relates to anxiety and depression in Japanese high school students, finding that certain types of dreams and bedtime thoughts may signal mental health issues.

Contribution

The study identifies specific dream characteristics and bedtime rumination as potential early indicators of anxiety and depressive symptoms in adolescents.

Findings

Frequent 'rumination at bedtime' and 'unpleasant dreams' are strongly linked to higher odds of anxiety and depressive symptoms.

Dreams with emotional carryover, frightening content, or recurring themes are associated with worsening mental health.

Pleasant dreams do not show a significant association with anxiety or depressive symptoms.

Abstract

Worsening adolescent mental health is a significant social issue. Although dreams may reflect one’s mental state, few studies have focused on adolescents. Therefore, this study investigated the relationship between dream content and mental health, specifically anxiety disorder and depressive symptoms, among Japanese adolescents. This cross-sectional study obtained data on gender, grade, age, lifestyle habits, weekday sleep duration, anxiety disorder symptoms, depressive symptoms, and dreams from Japanese high school students. The data were analyzed via multiple logistic regression analyses. The prevalence of anxiety and depressive symptoms increased with the frequency of “rumination at bedtime”, “memory of dreams”, “emotional carryover”, and “awakening by frightening”, “unpleasant”, “film-like”, “fantastical”, and “recurring” dreams. However, this was not the case for “pleasant dreams”. Furthermore, “rumination at bedtime” (anxiety disorder symptoms: adjusted odds ratio: 10.60; 95% confidence interval: 5.92–18.97; depressive symptoms: 8.79, 5.58–13.87) and “unpleasant dreams” (anxiety disorder symptoms: 5.25, 2.86–9.64; depressive symptoms: 10.13, 5.57–18.44) exhibited particularly high odds ratios. “Rumination at bedtime” and “unpleasant dreams” may serve as early indicators of declining mental health. School- and parent-led interventions aimed at improving mental well-being may help prevent the progression or exacerbation of anxiety and depressive symptoms among adolescents.