Sleep data were obtained on 11 patients who had survived traumatic
events and who complained of sleep disturbances. Each was awakened from REM
and non-REM sleep for dream recall. The patients had lower sleep efficiency
indices (because of prolonged sleep latency and larger amounts of "awake"
plus "movement" time within sleep periods), shorter REM time, and longer
REM latencies than did control subjects. Four of the 11 patients had REM-
and non-REM-related nightmares, which, in two sea disaster patients, were
associated with REM-related motor activity. The rest of the patients had
unusually low dream recall in spite of high eye movement density.
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