Confirmed: Night owls more likely to experience nightmares

The scientists, led by Yavuz Selvi at the Yuzuncu Yil University in Van, Turkey, used a measure known as the Van Dream Anxiety Scale to assess the rate of bad dreams. Specifically, study participants were asked to rate their frequency of experiencing nightmares on a scale from zero to 4, corresponding to never and always, respectively.

On average, individuals who described themselves as evening types had a score of 2.10, whereas their morning-type equivalents averaged 1.23 on the scale, a significant difference according to the authors of the study…

Experts are intrigued by the idea that a person’s daily body cycle, known as the circadian rhythm, might be linked to nightmares. “I think it’s certainly of interest,” says Russell Rosenberg, director of the Atlanta School of Sleep Medicine & Technology and chairman of the National Sleep Foundation. “There’s certainly not a lot of research in this area.”