Dreams during pregnancy and its relation with postpartum depression

Abstract

Numerous women experience sleep disturbances and nightmares during pregnancy. Women who perform “emotional dream work” while dreaming are less vulnerable to postpartum depression. However, earlier procedures seem subjective. Therefore, we aimed to study the relation between nightmares and depression. Eighty-four primiparous women in their third trimester of pregnancy and 84 female college students as a control group answered questions about their personality, nightmares and dream frequencies, and the contents of their dreams. Postpartum women were asked about depression 4 weeks after delivery. We classified the contents of dreams using cluster analysis as reported in response to the Typical Dreams Questionnaire according to the unpleasant dreams criteria. We compared the average NEO Five-Factor Inventory and Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale scores of mothers with vs. without unpleasant dreams. The dream contents that differed significantly between the primiparous women and female students included “eating delicious food”, “unable to find or embarrassed about toilet”, and “fire”. These dream contents were more frequent among primiparous women than among students. Students scored higher for neuroticism, whereas primiparous women scored higher for agreeableness and conscientiousness. Depression scores were significantly higher among female students. Depression were more severe among those who reported relatively frequent nightmares.