Published on
Updated
Reading 2 mins.
in collaboration with
Liath Guetta (pulmonologist)
Medical validation:
October 31, 2022
According to a new study, listening to music and associating it with positive thoughts could reduce the number of chronic nightmares.
Between 5 and 7% of adults suffer from chronic nightmares. A disease to be taken seriously since it strongly affects the morale of the individuals concerned; sometimes pushing them to suicide. Good news, however: a new therapy, developed by researchers at the University of Geneva, could put an end to these bad dreams. The results of this study are available in the journal Current Biology.
Musical notes to influence patients’ nightmares
As part of this study, Dr. Lampros Perogamvros’ team developed a method using musical notes to modify patients’ nightmares. She then tested this technique on 36 participants.
Concretely, half of them received a conventional treatment (therapy by repetition of visual images), while the other half had to listen to piano notes during the day (a major piano chord) and associate them with a positive version of their nightmare.
Then, during the night – and more precisely during REM sleep – the volunteers had to wear a musical headband, broadcasting the same sounds as during the day.
“The goal was for this sound to be associated with the imagined positive scenario. This way, when the sound was then played again, this time during sleep, it was more likely to reactivate a positive memory in dreams.“, explain the researchers.
Results ? After benefiting from this new therapy for two weeks, the frequency of nightmares decreased in both groups, but more significantly in the second group where the positive scenario was associated with sound. Patients in the second group also saw their number of “positive dreams” increase.
Although these results are promising, the researchers point out that this new therapy will have to be the subject of further work.
“The results of this therapeutic coupling will need to be replicated before this method can be widely applied. Nevertheless, everything indicates that it is a particularly effective new treatment for nightmare disorder.“, said Perogamvros, before adding”The next step for us will be to test this method on nightmares related to post-traumatic stress..”
A very promising therapy, validated by Dr. Guetta.
“The brain is a kind of very powerful computer, which can be deprogrammed. Moreover, several existing protocols already make it possible to “condition” it, it is a kind of gymnastics to take. But in this study, what is interesting is the fact of associating sounds with a positive thought in conscious people… then repeating the exercise in their sleep, when they are unconscious. This work clearly shows that a lot of things happen during sleep and that the brain can completely reprogram itself at night..”