Dream Recall and Content versus the Menstrual Cycle: A Cross-Sectional Study in Healthy Women

Abstract

The association between sleep and the menstrual cycle has been scarcely studied. This study aimed to investigate the association between dream recall and content and the menstrual cycle among a large sample of young women. To this aim, 944 women were asked about their day of menstrual cycle, whether they remembered the previous night’s dreams and if they did so to describe the dream content as pleasant or unpleasant. A total of 378 women recalled the previous nights’ dreams, with 199 reporting pleasant dream affect/content and 179 reporting unpleasant dream content. In women who recalled their dreams, there was an association of pleasant dream content with the luteal phase (p = 0.038). In conclusion, in women, the hormonal milieu of the luteal phase may influence dream content.