Why do we have nightmares?
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What exactly is a nightmare and why do we remember it so vividly?
The Claire Burns Show on News Talk. With Aviva Insurance.
Now, do you or have you ever suffered from nightmares? Well, a new study suggests that nightmares could be stopped by using a psychoactive compound found in cannabis. The Berlin University found that more than half of patients responded to THC treatment in reducing nightmares, with some people being completely cured of them. Physicist, engineer, and broadcaster Phil Smith is here, and you can always find Phil at Phil of Science, if you want to know more. Let's start, I suppose, at the very beginning here, because I think we use the phrase nightmare quite loosely sometimes. What actually is a nightmare?
Yeah, it's one of those words that we often throw in, like legend, which is someone who comes back from the bar with crisps. Um, a nightmare as opposed to a bad time is uh it's a vivid, disturbing dream. And I suppose it it produces strong emotions. Yeah, normally the usual ones that you'd expect, like fear, panic, and distress. And it's sufficiently intense to wake you up. And that's the fact I suppose that you're waking up is partly why you often Remember it so clearly.
Why do nightmares happen – what are the leading scientific theories?
Uh, it's often associated with REM sleep, rapid eye movement sleep. So that's the stage where your brain is highly active, and our dreams tend to move into that more emotionally charged kind of space. Dreams can happen at other stages during sleep, but this is kind of your dreams in full cinematic um IMAX production mode at the time. Uh, and your brain is kind of taking over the night shift in a prototype. appointed itself as director of a horror film. So unfortunately there's no strict script or budget, but you're just scared and sweating and going, What the hell just happened?
And is it one of those things that everybody will experience at some point over their lifetime?
Yeah, I I think it it is something that'll happen. And often it happens, particularly maybe in younger kids, when they're trying to figure it out what's going on, because we we actually really don't have a definitive explanation of why we dream or why some dreams become frightening. One theory and possibility is that we're dreaming to kind of process memories and emotions, which is why when you're kind of younger and you're only learning how to deal with them, you're more likely to get them. But another is that nightmares actually act. act as kind of a threat simulation allowing you to to practice dangerous uh situations and get through it. But these are kind of theories rather than than facts. And sometimes a nightmare can simply be the product of just an emotional, highly active brain stitching together kind of recent experiences, old memories, anxieties.
So These kind of things can be triggered by stress, trauma, illness, exhaustion, all those types of things, or just maybe the three coffees you had at lunchtime or later in the day that you potentially shouldn't have.
Let's look at this study that has come from Berlin University.
How was the Berlin study on THC and nightmares designed and who were the participants?
Okay. Who were they examining? What type of nightmares were their Patience experiencing.
Sure. Yeah, and I suppose the important qualification of this is this is not a study of just ordinary bad dreams. And it was not a study of people people uh casually smoking cannabis before bed and just seeing what happened. What they did is they took 170 adults with PTSD, so post-traumatic stress disorder, uh, who experienced frequent severe trauma-led and related nightmares. So they received either a prescription which is uh the prescription was uh dronabinodol uh which is a medication that contains this THC and they were given the drops before bed and then or the or the control group was given an identical looking cannabis free uh flavored placebo so no one knew what was going on so neither professionals nor the health or the patients knew who was receiving it uh the medication and then they did this for 10 weeks so making
A kind of a double diamond or double blind controlled, which is really what you want to see in some kind of a test like this. Now, what they saw, the results were actually genuinely promising.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What exactly is a nightmare and why do we remember it so vividly?
0:01–1:14
2
Why do nightmares happen – what are the leading scientific theories?
1:14–2:50
3
How was the Berlin study on THC and nightmares designed and who were the participants?
2:50–4:19
4
What were the key results of the THC‑treatment trial for PTSD‑related nightmares?
4:19–5:59
5
How does THC (dronabinol) work to reduce nightmare frequency and intensity?
5:59–7:34
6
What are the limitations of the study and what questions remain unanswered?
7:34–8:55
7
How might controlled cannabis‑based meds fit into broader PTSD and sleep‑disorder treatments?
8:55–10:44
8
What does the research suggest about psychedelics and other natural compounds for trauma‑related disorders?
10:44–11:43