Ransom Riggs
The Nightmare(s) of Single Womanhood
by Ransom Riggs - September 11, 2008 - 10:05 AM

Being a single woman these days can be a nightmare. Or more specifically — it can lead to them.

nightmare.jpgWe’re not making this up. Over the past few years there have been a few interesting sleep studies done on women, and one found that women are more prone to nightmares in general. When asked to describe their most recent dreams, 19% of male study participants reported a nightmare, as opposed to 30% of women. One in three! Researchers partially explained this by citing the changes in women’s body temperature throughout their monthly cycle, which can lead to more vivid and disturbing dreams; women, it seems, tend to take their emotional lives to bed with them, and their sleep tends to be more disrupted by insomnia.

Unless, that is, they happen to be sharing a bed with someone. Women with a bed partner tend to sleep more deeply than men, and are less likely to remember having nightmares.

If this is the case, then shouldn’t single women, plagued by nightmares and insomnia (OK, I’m exaggerating a little), walking zombies? According to sleep experts, the answer is no. It’s because women are pre-programmed to deal with disturbed sleep better than men. “A lot of life events that women have disturb sleep – bringing up children, the menopause and even the menstrual cycle,” explains Dr. Neil Stanley.

Any of you readers out there have corroborating evidence?

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Comments (28)

  1. how do you define a nightmare?! lately, i often have very vivid, disturbing dreams that put me in a funk all day but they are not always frightening as i would think a nightmare should be. i have remembered my vivid dreams multiple times per week, especially since getting married and sleeping in a quieter/safer neighborhood! my husband does not seem to have dreams hardly ever… so i guess i agree with this article???

    posted by sara on 9-11-2008 at 10:41 am

  2. Definitely. I’m a (sometimes) happily single 21 year old, and I have the most incredibly vivid nightmares, but I can get by on little or interrupted sleep.

    posted by Christina on 9-11-2008 at 11:01 am

  3. The study fails to address response bias. Women may more likely to admit to having a fearful dream, where as men may be less likely to admit to being scared of a dream.

    posted by Cassandra on 9-11-2008 at 11:04 am

  4. As a single woman, I used to sleep like the dead. I’d wake up rested almost every morning, even sleeping through bad dreams, though I’d remember them in the morning. Since moving in with my husband a year ago, I don’t think I’ve had a good night’s sleep since! He’s a human furnace and a fitful sleeper! Married women sleep more deeply? I don’t believe it. We just can’t stay asleep long enough to hit the dream stage.

    posted by Kande on 9-11-2008 at 11:22 am

  5. I am definitely proof that women deal with interrupted sleep better than men do. Both my 2-year-old daughter and I are battling colds, which means she’s up every two hours needing her nose wiped and therefore, I am also up every two hours. My husband, on the other hand is woken up perhaps once during my nocturnal caretaking ramblings, but HE is the one bitching like a whiny baby while my daughter and I just roll our eyes and get on with our day.

    …or it could be that he’s just a whiny baby normally. ;-)

    posted by Rachel on 9-11-2008 at 11:46 am

  6. I am a single 30-something woman, and my nightmares involve waking up convinced that there is someone in my house. Advantage to having these dreams while sharing a bed? I would get him to go check!

    posted by crovenpaver on 9-11-2008 at 11:49 am

  7. Fascinating. I actually had to go to a sleep study, because I was noticing that I had very, very interrupted sleep. Turns out I had sleep apnea. But, when I was having an apnea, if someone was there, I was more likely to fall back asleep and not wake up freaking out. (Part of my apnea involved extremely realistic dreams, because I wasn’t “sleeping” so much as “becoming some kind of unconscious and having hyper-real hallucinations”.

    posted by Lerren on 9-11-2008 at 12:16 pm

  8. I’ve been blissfully single and living on my own since I was 24. Almost as soon as my ex moved out, I started to have night terrors where I would wake up and see or hear some evil, awful thing (spiders, snakes, a cat with a baby’s head on it, you get the idea..::shudders::) in my room and I would bolt out of bed and into another room where I “come to” and realize it was just a hallucination. It’s been happening for about 4 years now. I’ve gotten used to them, but they’re still creepy. I’ve often wondered if it’s a result of being single or living alone. Whenever I have shared a bed with someone I don’t have these night terrors, but I get horrible sleep anyway. Guess I can’t win. :)

    posted by Rowan on 9-11-2008 at 12:18 pm

  9. @crovenpaver

    I too, until recently was a single 30-something, and repeatedly had the dream where I wake up to a strange man in my room…then would realize I’m dreaming and force myself awake…to the same strange man in my room! This cycle would continue numerous times, until I actually did wake up. Once I woke up I would wait at least an hour before trying to sleep again.
    On the other hand, I am now living with my boyfriend, and am still plagued with nightmares from time to time. I also remember all my dreams (as strange as some of them are) with vivid detail. Most of them are fun. It’s a tradeoff, and I’ll take the nightmares every time. :)

    posted by christie on 9-11-2008 at 12:21 pm

  10. I have nightmares but typically only remember them if I’m worried about something (contents can usually trace back to something heavy on my mind). My husband tends to be the insommniac when he has too much on his mind.

    It takes me a long time to fall asleep, while my husband is gone in about two seconds, but I definitely think the quality of sleep I get is better than his.

    posted by andrea on 9-11-2008 at 12:31 pm

  11. i have recurring nightmates about tsunamis. and about having to fight off would-be attackers. and about preparing for the end of the world.
    i usually do sleep better when sharing a bed with my boyfriend, but i still have terribly disturbing dreams from time to time with him there. having him there helps when i wake up crying/yelling/fighting.
    i also have highly vivid nonfrightening dreams. there was one a few months ago about giant barbecued chicken wings. odd, but not scary.

    posted by m on 9-11-2008 at 12:39 pm

  12. Just relating what has been told to me by my wife.

    When at home, a semi truck could crash through our house and not even disturb her. She seems to sleep through anything. However, she complains about not being able to sleep well when either one of us is away on business.

    To be honest, I feel I have trouble sleeping if she’s not by my side…

    posted by Jason! on 9-11-2008 at 12:49 pm

  13. I have been sleeping terribly ever since I came home for a visit and left my fiance in England. Nightmares and tossing and turning and everything.
    I seem to remember dreams more often than my fiance as well, I wonder if it’s just that women are more prone to remembering dreams and nightmares. We always attributed it to me being much younger than him though.

    posted by Julie on 9-11-2008 at 12:56 pm

  14. You betcha – every month I go through a sleep pattern which grows and wanes with nightmares and disturbed sleep. It took a while to match the pattern of sleep but when I did it was matching my menstrual cycle.

    turning on the electric blanket and sleeping warmer then usual seems to help.

    posted by kate on 9-11-2008 at 1:07 pm

  15. i wonder how the researchers account for the many married women who sleep separately from their husbands?? restless leg syndrome, sleep apnea, snoring, all sorts of reasons why sleeping with a partner might not mean a restful night for the wife…

    posted by mojojojo on 9-11-2008 at 1:10 pm

  16. ps – once a month of course I get too hot to share a bed with myself!

    posted by kate on 9-11-2008 at 1:11 pm

  17. I don’t generally remember much (if anything) about my dreams. I’m a fairly sound sleeper, sleeping completely through the night about half of the time, and waking up only once or twice a night the other half. When I had a boyfriend, though, my sleep was much more interrupted (he snored) and my dreams were worse, which I chalk up to being more emotional when we were together.

    I’m also wondering if women dreaming more has anything to do with the way we communicate and process things. Such as, I’m more likely to dream if I’ve had many conversations during a day. If I’m by myself or left alone to work, my dreams are less vivid.

    posted by nutmeag on 9-11-2008 at 1:15 pm

  18. i just moved in with my boyfriend 9 months ago after living alone and being single for 2 years. i slept much better alone. my boyfriend snores and moves around. i had nightmares then and i still have nightmares now and getting back to sleep after a nightmare IS easier now because i have someone there to comfort me back to sleep.

    posted by kat on 9-11-2008 at 1:18 pm

  19. I’m a single, never been married 44-year-old woman. I can report that, with a bed partner, I sleep like the dead. However, the poor man usually can’t sleep in the same bed with me due to hot flashes! Without someone in bed, which is the norm, I have vivid, strange and disturbing dreams. Menopause doesn’t help with it’s curse of the hot flashes (internal combustion). This past year I have had some of the strangest, scariest and most disturbing dreams I’ve ever had.

    posted by Lisa on 9-11-2008 at 1:52 pm

  20. 30% is not 1 in 3 people. You’re leaving out an entire 10% if you use that logic.

    posted by justin on 9-11-2008 at 2:42 pm

  21. I don’t remember my dreams at all, but I sure do have insomnia!

    posted by Miss Cellania on 9-11-2008 at 5:44 pm

  22. I sleep better if I’m alone in bed. I snore like a semi down-shifting on the highway, and if a guy is next to me I become hyper-aware and can’t relax. I can’t remember the last time I had a nightmare.

    Recaptcha: radio naivete :)

    posted by Orange on 9-11-2008 at 5:58 pm

  23. That is so true. Near that time of the month, I tend to have terribly vivid dreams that leave me feeling sleepy all day. Like right now, I’m dizzy as all hell because I had that one railroad dream again. Bah, damn moon and its phases.

    posted by NicoNicoNico on 9-11-2008 at 6:06 pm

  24. @ crovenpaver… Yeah, but you can usually only get by with waking him up once or twice to check on those false alarms before he starts to doubt you & tell you to go back to sleep.

    In the past month I’ve woken up from dead sleeps thinking that someone was trying to break into my house or my bf’s house…sometimes many times in one night. And this is sleeping in the same bed as my bf every night. But I trace my “crazies” (as we call it) back to kids in the street dumping trash cans one early morning & my fire alarm battery dying and talking to me (that was fun to explain after I called 911).

    Aside from the recent crazies, I do remember having vivid nightmares more when I was single. Now when I do sleep, it’s pretty soundly with the aforementioned exceptions.

    posted by Christi on 9-11-2008 at 9:47 pm

  25. OK, so it is 1:39 am and I have woken up out of a sound sleep – and I am a married woman so I don’t think I sleep deeper than when I was single. Of course I am 50 and have been having bad sleep for several years now. During the day on the weekend I can go to sleep for 6 hours – my husband is golfing so I’m alone except for the cat. And I have such bad nightmares some nights that I wake my husband up with my screaming. I think it is the hormones and will be more than glad when these nasty things subside long enough to let me sleep at night again. I average 4 hours a night during the week so by Friday I don’t need to be making many decisions at the office!

    posted by Carol on 9-12-2008 at 1:43 am

  26. For me it´s a trade-off. I usually do have very vivid nightmares (usually involves being chased by all manner of badies) and wake up feeling completely drained. On the nights I do sleep with my fiance, I cant remember any bad dreams. HOWEVER, I usually do wake in the night to check the time and getting back to sleep with him snoring next to me is not easy…

    posted by GTT on 9-12-2008 at 9:53 am

  27. I agree, when I was younger and my parents first got divorced I use to have the same nightmare almost every month for a while. I would dream that my parents got back together and forced me to move into a tiny cramped apartment with them above the old movie theatre in town. To top it off I would freak out and run out to my car to leave and the auto repair place, which was right across the parking lot, would mistake my car for one of their customers and it would always be missing something like a driver’s door so that I couldn’t drive it. A little wierd!

    posted by D on 9-12-2008 at 11:08 am

  28. No boyfriend = Nightmares. I actually googled single and nightmares to see if any other woman has this same problem. Not that I was even living with the dude.. Its just that when I dont have a significant other (male) to focus my daily attention on… I think my own reality catches up to me at night. HATE IT!!! Happens instantly after a breakup and stops instantly once my focus starts to turn to someone who shows intrest.

    posted by Heather on 2-19-2010 at 2:56 pm

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