Sleeping Position affecting your dreams?

Factual Questions
1

This is actually a question asked by Mrs Smurf. “Can you ask this question on that straight dope place you hang around” I believe were her exact words :smiley:

Anyway, she is convinced that when she sleeps on her right hand side, she has more bad dreams then when she sleeps on her left side.

I’m not ready to just dismiss it out of hand, as I could see how theoretically the pressure of a particular side of her head on the pillow could cause differences in blood flow to different area of the brain, maybe stimulating more or less dreams in total? (Maybe I’m stretching there).

The fact that it is apparently more bad dreams is odd, but maybe that in itself is just confirmation bias, where you more often remember having had a bad dream, than when you have an unremarkable or pleasant dream.

Anyone got any data, facts, research, personal anecdotes that are relevant?

2

Which side of her do you sleep on?

3

Here’s a link to a study that found that “rate of nightmar[e] sufferers was significantly higher in left-side sleepers.”

4

How does she know whether she was sleeping on her right or left side while having the dream in question? She could have had a bad dream and then flipped over before waking up.

5

On the right! :smiley:

6

Presumably because its bad dreams that wake her up part of the way through the dream, and that’s how she’s lying when she wakes up? Presumably?

7

What kind of bad dreams?

I have bad ‘dreams’ when I sleep on my back.

8

My dreams seem to be more vivid, or at least memorable, when I sleep on my back. I have a hard time even recalling dreams while sleeping in any other position.

It might not have anything to do with the effects your sleep position has on the brain directly; it could be that you are more comfortable in a given position and so you are able to achieve a deeper, less-interruptable sleep.

9

CitizenPained, your link leads to a mysterious, but useless Wikipedia quasi-page.

I was most comfortable for a long time on my right side. Since my right shoulder joint started talking rudely to me, I can sleep only briefly on my right. I wake up saying, “Ouch,” and I turn over. It’s a case of shoulder vs. brain, and the shoulder wins. :eek:

10

Totally converse to CitizenPained (but not perverse to him, I hope!) I only suffer from nightmares (specifically, hypnogogic paralysis events – the “Night Hag” effect) when lying on my tummy!

I had a lovely flying dream last night, while lying on my back. But I snore like a 747 on its take-off roll!

Trinopus (I also snore in 4:5 time!)

11

Same here. I almost never have “bad dreams,” but when I do, I almost exclusively wake up on my stomach.

12

I’m guessing your link was meant to go here.

13

I remember when I was about eleven reading in one of my mother’s books, possibly by an Indian Guru type of person, that sleeping on your left side would contribute to nightmares. I can’t remember the supposed reason; smooshing your spleen or something? Anyway, that was intriguing and disturbing to me since I’d always been plagued by bad dreams and I went years taking care to sleep on my right side (or at least start out that way) and always found I woke up on my left when I had a nightmare. Classic confirmation bias I’m sure, but I subscribed to that theory for many years. Funny, I haven’t thought about it in the longest until this thread.