Women suffer more nightmares than men because they find it harder to switch off their emotions at the end of the day, research has found.
Women carry their worries into their dreams, and continue to process emotional concerns while they are asleep, according to the study.
The findings came from a study at the University of the West of England (UWE) in Bristol.
When asked to record their most recent dream, 19 per cent of male students reported having a nightmare compared to 34 per cent of women. Their emotions were recorded in diaries.
Jennifer Parker, a psychology lecturer at the university, who carried out the study over five years, said it was the first to examine the difference between women’s and men’s nightmares.
She said: “From our results it appears that men and women differ in the frequency of nightmares – women have more – and women perceive those nightmares to be more emotionally intense.”
Her work found women’s nightmares could be divided into three categories, being chased or life threatened, losing a loved one, or confused dreams.
Other research found women’s dreams contained more family members, more negative emotion, more indoor settings and less aggression than men’s dreams.
