Who Has Nightmares? An Investigation Into the Relationship Between Personality and Nightmares

The aim of the study was to explore the relationship between personality and nightmares, particularly nightmare frequency and nightmare distress. A distinction between the two concepts has been developed to account for the clinical impact of nightmares. It is conceived that these phenomena may be influenced by personality. Specifically, we wanted to answer the question "Who has nightmares?" We also wanted to investigate how nightmare coping strategies are related to nightmare frequency and nightmare distress and if the variance in these phenomena might be explained by personality. We surveyed 225 people (Mage = 24.4) to analyze their personality, behavior, and thoughts related to nightmares. Our instruments included the Nightmare Distress Questionnaire, the Nightmare Frequency Questionnaire, a subscale from Mannheim Dream Questionnaire, a self-constructed coping strategies scale, and the Neuroticism, Extraversion, Openness-Five-Factor Inventory-30. Multiple and ordinal regression analyses were used to explain the variance in nightmare distress and frequency in terms of age, gender, personality, and coping strategies as independent variables. The results showed that openness to experience was positively associated with nightmare frequency, whereas neuroticism was positively associated with nightmare distress. We also found coping strategies to have a significant positive relationship to both nightmare frequency and distress. However, we did not find any gender effect. We discuss the findings in relation to existing literature.