Does dreaming affect the quality of our sleep?

Go back to sleep...


Asked by: Ashley Martin, Hampshire

There’s research to suggest that having frequent nightmares is associated with poorer subjective sleep quality. Nightmares can cause anxiety, making it more difficult to fall back to sleep, or nod off in the first place. However, the link between dreaming and sleep quality goes both ways. We are more likely to remember a dream when we’re woken from it, so if we sleep badly and have multiple wakings during the night, we may be more likely to recall the content of our dreams.

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