Unusual sleep experiences and dissociation as mediators between sleep quality and proneness to hallucinations in a nonclinical population sample: a preliminary study.

INTRODUCTION: The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship of sleep quality to proneness to hallucinations and the mediating role of dissociation and unusual sleep experiences in a nonclinical sample. METHODS: One hundred and seventy-seven participants completed a questionnaire on sleep quality, a dissociative experiences scale, an unusual sleep experiences scale and a hallucination proneness scale. RESULTS: The results showed a significant positive association between quality of sleep and hallucination proneness, dissociation and unusual sleep experiences, and that dissociation and unusual sleep experiences fully mediated between sleep quality and hallucination proneness. CONCLUSIONS: Our study highlights the importance of variables related to sleep quality and unusual sleep experiences and dissociation in understanding hallucinations, and the importance of taking these variables into consideration in designing intervention directed at reducing distress caused by hallucinations.

Self-reported sleep disturbances in patients with dissociative identity disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder and how they relate to cognitive failures and fantasy proneness.

Sleep disturbances, fantasy proneness, cognitive failures, and dissociative symptoms are related to each other. However, the co-occurrence of these phenomena has been primarily studied in non-clinical samples. We investigated the correlations between these phenomena in dissociative identity disorder (DID) patients, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) patients, and healthy controls. Both patient groups reported more sleep problems and lower sleep quality and displayed higher levels of fantasy proneness and cognitive failures than controls. However, the two patient groups did not differ with regard to these variables. Moreover, a higher level of unusual sleep experiences tended to predict participants belonging to the DID group, while specifically a lower sleep quality and more cognitive failures tended to predict participants belonging to the PTSD group.

Corrigendum: self-reported sleep disturbances in patients with dissociative identity disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder and how they relate to cognitive failures and fantasy proneness.

[This corrects the article on p. 19 in vol. 5, PMID: 24600412.].

Night-time experiences and daytime dissociation: a path analysis modeling study.

Dissociative symptoms may be the by-products of a labile sleep-wake cycle (Koffel and Watson, 2009a). This may help to explain why dissociation overlaps with fantasy proneness and cognitive failures. Using path analysis, we tested to what extent data gathered in a nonclinical, predominantly female sample (N=139) supported two conceptual models. The first model assumes that unusual sleep experiences increase fantasy proneness and cognitive failures, which in turn encourage trait dissociation and reports of trauma. The second model assumes that trauma leads to dissociative experiences both directly and through its influence on sleep. In this cross-sectional design, the data were reasonably well described by both models. Importantly, in both models, unusual sleep experiences serve as antecedents of trait dissociation. Our analysis underlines the importance of unusual sleep experiences and may inspire treatment intervention focusing on sleep normalization.

Fragmented Sleep, Fragmented Mind: The Role of Sleep in Dissociative Symptoms.

In psychopathology, dissociation typically refers to a disturbance in the normal integration of thoughts, feelings, and experiences into consciousness and memory. In this article, we review the literature on how sleep disturbances relate to dissociative symptoms and memory failure. We contend that this body of research offers a fresh perspective on dissociation. Specifically, we argue that dissociative symptoms are associated with a labile sleep-wake cycle, in which dreamlike mentation invades the waking state, produces memory failures, and fuels dissociative experiences. The research domain of sleep and dissociation can accommodate the dominant idea in the clinical literature that trauma is the distal cause of dissociation, and it holds substantial promise to inspire new treatments for dissociative symptoms (e.g., interventions that focus on normalization of the sleep-wake cycle). We conclude with worthwhile paths for further investigations and suggest that the sleep-dissociation approach may help reconcile competing interpretations of dissociative symptoms.