Dreaming in Patients with Temporal Lobe Epilepsy: A Focus on Bad Dreams and Nightmares

Nightmares and bad dreams occur more frequently in patients with temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) than in normal individuals. This quantitative pilot study explored the relationship between seizure activity and dreaming in patients with TLE, compared to the dreams, bad dreams and nightmares of a control population. Groups were categorized by epilepsy variables (TLE and non-TLE) and gender. Patients with temporal lobe epilepsy completed self-report questionnaires concerning their epilepsy and dreaming, and this data was compared to dreaming data from the control group using ANCOVAs. The results showed that females have significantly higher scores than males on several variables, including dreams per week, bad dream distress and nightmare distress. However, no significant main effects or interactions were found for the variables bad dream frequency and nightmare frequency, which contradicts the study’s hypotheses. It is possible that this lack of differences was due to TLE patients being on antiepileptic drugs, which whilst controlling seizures, may have suppressed or eliminated the effects of bad dreams and nightmares.