The mind in REM sleep: Reports of emotional experience

Study Objectives: No consensus has been reached on the characteristics of e motional experience during rapid eye movement sleep (REM). Thus, the relati onship between the emotional brain activation and mental activity in REM re mains unclear. Our objective is to characterize emotional experience in REM in order to facilitate understanding of brain-mind correlations in this st ate. Design: We combined instrumental awakenings from REM with the subjects' own ratings of the occurrence and intensity of discrete emotion types for each line in their REM mentation reports. Setting: The study was performed in the subjects' own homes over three cons ecutive nights using ambulatory polysomnography. Participants: Nine normal healthy subjects, age 31-60 (mean=43.0). Interventions: Awakenings 5-15 minutes into REM periods across the night. Measurements and Results: Emotions were found in 74% of 88 mentation report s, with a balanced proportion of positive and negative emotions. Among the reports scored for emotions, 14% contained one emotion and 86% contained tw o or more different emotion types. Joy/elation was the most frequent emotio n, found in 36% of the reports, followed by surprise (24%), anger (17%), an xiety/fear (11%), and sadness (10%). Anxiety/fear was significantly less in tense than joy/elation, anger, and surprise. Except for surprise, no specif ic emotion type changed from the first to the second half of the night. Neg ative emotions and surprise but not positive emotions varied significantly across subjects. Conclusions: The analysis of subject reports of emotions following instrume ntal awakenings demonstrate a balanced and widespread occurrence of both po sitive and negative emotions in REM sleep dreams. Emotions in REM are likel y to be powerfully modulated by the neurobiological processes which differe ntiate REM from waking.