Do you enact your dreams and end up injuring yourself or others? This could be an early sign of brain diseases like Parkinson’s and Diffuse Lewy Body disease. All you want to know.
Is your dream life turning more adventurous with each passing day with scenes of chasing and fighting becoming more common as you sleep? Do you hurl a pillow or a nearby object at your partner or falling from bed as the scene in your dream turns more dramatic or frightening? Acting out dreams may seem harmless at first and you may attribute your high stress levels for these episodes, but if scientific data is to be believed, this could be an early sign of brain disease. Enactment of dreams is one of the symptoms of REM sleep behaviour disorder which affects 0.25-1.25 of the general population and is more common in elderly, especially men. According to a recent article in Scientific American, RBD may foreshadow neurodegenerative disease, primarily synucleinopathies—conditions where the protein alpha-synuclein forms toxic clumps in the brain.
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Why some people enact their dream
“It is being seen that certain people start enacting their dreams in sleep. This means they will start calling people, they seem to be fighting enemies or snakes. This is called REM sleep behaviour disorder. This happens because in REM sleep or rapid eye movement sleep, we usually dream. But in REM or rapid eye movement phase, our body and muscles are paralysed by the brain so that we see the dreams but don’t enact them. REM sleep is very important for long term memory formation and consolidation of brain memories. However, in certain people this paralysis of muscles is not enforced so they start enacting their dreams. This can become difficult because these people can shout, hit their bed partners while in dreams or sometimes while trying to enact their dreams they can injure themselves,” Dr Praveen Gupta, director-neurology, Fortis Memorial Research Institute, Gurugram told HT Digital in a telephonic conversation.
Link of enacting dreams with brain diseases
Dr Gupta says the bigger problem is that sometimes, it has been seen that these increased occurrences of REM sleep disorder predict neurodegenerative diseases like Parkinson’s disorder. This occurrence of REM sleep disorder may antedate occurrence of degenerative diseases by 10-15 years in some cases.
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Signs of brain diseases in your dreams
There are three basic brain degenerative disorders where increased incidence of REM sleep behaviour is seen. Dr Gupta shares in detail.
1. Parkinson’s disease
Parkinson’s disease is a movement disorder where a patient is not able to control their movement, and report symptoms like body stiffness and tremor. The progressive disease affects the nervous system and the parts of the body controlled by the nerves.
2. Diffuse lewy body disease
The second most common cause of dementia, the diffuse lewy body disease is a neurodegenerative disorder where people have fluctuations in mental status, hallucinations, and parkinsonism. In this condition, a patient has memory decline, cognitive decline, abnormal jerky movements, sleep disturbances and movement disorder of stiffness, slow movement and trembling. The condition of patient fluctuates significantly in diffuse lewy body disease where they may be very well one day but may not be so well in a week’s time.
3. Multiple system atrophy (MSA)
The third disorder is multiple system atrophy (MSA) where as the person ages, the brain is not able to control the body movements. It leads to quick decline of autonomic system that is responsible for many important functions like heart rate, blood pressure, breathing, digestion, bladder control.
So if a person is suffering from persistent REM sleep behaviour disorder, it could be a harbinger of a degenerative neurological disease which may manifest recently or very late in life.
