Nightmares could be a sign of mental health problems, says new study

“The results of the original study were vindicated and now we have a more reliable understanding that nightmares increase, albeit slightly, risk for suicide,” researcher Sandman said

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Many of us tend to brush off and dismiss nightmares as something we can’t account for and by that logic, shouldn’t pay any attention to.

However, if you are frequently sleeping uneasy, it could be a warning sign of more serious mental health issues, according to a new study by psychologists at the University of Turku.

Their findings suggest nightmares should be considered an early warning sign of mental health disorders.

“The risk is not very large, most nightmare sufferers do not become suicidal, but the take home message is that frequent distressing nightmares should be taken seriously and help for them should be sought,” author of the study Nils Sandman told PsyPost, a psychology news website.

The results were obtained by analysing the Finnish National Finrisk surveys of 71,068 participants, conducted every five years from 1972 to 2012.

But why did the Turku team choose to study the suggested correlation? The results from scientific studies “need to be replicated several times before we can state them as scientific facts,” Sandman told PsyPost.

In 2001, a study of the Finrisk surveys by Tanskanen suggested that nightmares can increase the risk of suicide. Sandman’s team wanted to re-test this finding because it “failed to notice that data used in the study contained war veterans that could have influenced the results,” he said.

In the new study, the 3,139 war veterans included were compared with the general population. They were shown to experience more nightmares than the general population but their suicide risk was not shown to be stronger.

“The results of the original study were vindicated and now we have a more reliable understanding that nightmares increase, albeit slightly, risk for suicide,” Sandman said.

The study defines nightmares as “intensive dreams with negative emotional tone”. It was found that these frequent distressing nightmares can increase the risk for mood disorders and suicide both amongst the general population and frontline World War II veterans.

However, Sandman also noted limitations to the study. The team did not have data about the themes or contents of the nightmares which would have given a more precise analysis.

The team also found that nightmares appear to increase the suicide risk among both genders, though in the data, women were found to have more nightmares while men had a considerably higher risk for suicide.

The psychologists noted that while there must be other stronger risks for suicide, nightmares are a “potentially modifiable risk factor” in suicide prevention.

“There is mounting evidence that nightmares are related to many problems of well-being. In the future they should receive more clinical attention as they might have value as an early warning sign of more serious problems,” Sandman added.