Want to have a calm sleep? Try sleeping on your right side

There is so much written and researched about dreams. Yet, there is a lot that is unknown. They are a reflection of your memories, your subconscious and your everyday. There are times when you wake up feeling happy, and there are times when you wake up with dread after nightmares. But can you control that? Some researchers believe there's a sneaky factor that heavily influences how we slumber: the position we sleep in.

It turns out that your sleeping position may influence how your mind drifts and what you dream.

Here's what to know all about the study that analyses the sleep position and its affect in your dreams

Crazy nightmares for left-side sleepers?

Published in the journal Sleep and Hypnosis back in 2004, the study found that people who sleep on their left side are likely to experience more nightmares, while right-side sleepers have fewer nightmares but slightly lower sleep quality.

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The 2004 study focused on 63 volunteers who were asked to sleep on either the left or the right side. They were also asked to complete a sleep quality survey after waking up, which included questions about their dreams and nightmares, how vivid they were, and how participants felt in the morning.

Researchers believe there's another sneaky factor that heavily influences how we slumber, the position we sleep in. Image courtesy: Pixabay

The researchers found that participants who slept on their left side were far more likely to have nightmares. Around 40.9 per cent of volunteers reported disturbing dreams, compared to just 14.6 per cent of those who slept on their right side.

The right-sided group was more likely to recall dreams with feelings of safety or relief. The researchers also observed that right-side sleepers’ dreams were filled with positive emotions, including happiness, joy, excitement, hope, peace, relaxation, longing, relief, safety, and love compared to their left-side-sleeping counterparts.

However, they also sometimes reported poorer sleep quality.

"Our preliminary observations indicate that dreaming and sleep quality are associated with underlying brain functions and may be affected by body posture. It will be of interest to determine whether the patients with dreaming disturbances such as depressive disorder, nightmare disorder, and narcolepsy are able to limit symptoms," the study stated, as quoted by the Economic Times. 

Some health experts have seemed to dismiss the claims that sleeping position can affect dreams. Image courtesy: Pixabay

"Future research also needs to show how individuals who are skilful in controlling their dreams by hypnotic manipulations or lucid dreaming change their dream process by intentionally changing their posture," it added, according to Science Alert. 

What study said about belly sleepers?

In 2012, researchers at Hong Shue Yan University studied how sleeping positions affect dreams and found that those who sleep on their stomachs had the most unusual or, as they put it, strangest dreams.

The study was more detailed than the 2004 one as it involved 670 participants. They discovered that those who slept on their stomachs experienced intense, disturbing dreams.

These dreams generally include terrifying situations like being suffocated or unable to breathe, being locked up, tied up or unable to move.

Lisa Billars, MD, chief of neurology and sleep medicine at Kaiser Permanente in Atlanta, US, suspected that seeing scary dreams could be because sleeping on the stomach puts pressure on areas of the body that are sexually stimulating. “That feeling of stimulation is likely the origin of the erotic dream content," she said as quoted by Everyday Health.

What experts say about back-side sleepers?

According to Billars, back sleepers are said to be plagued with more nightmares, and this could be a response to obstructive sleep apnea (OSA).

OSA is a sleep-related breathing disorder characterised by repeated pauses in breathing throughout the night, Mayo Clinic explains.

Researchers say the right-sided group was more likely to recall dreams with feelings of safety or relief. Image courtesy: Pixabay

“For individuals with known or unknown OSA, it is common for the degree of apnea to be worse during supine (back) sleep compared to lateral (side) or prone (stomach) sleeping positions,” Everyday Health quoted Dr Billars as saying. "In people with OSA, the airway collapses or nearly collapses, and this results in a decrease in oxygen and increased carbon dioxide levels in the body.”

Experts also suggest that people who sleep on their backs find it hard to recall their dreams, which may be linked to OSA and the interrupted sleep they often experience throughout the night.

However, others have seemed to dismiss the claims that sleeping position can affect dreams. Alex Dimitriu, MD, founder of Menlo Park Psychiatry and Sleep Medicine in California and a medical reviewer for Everyday Health, rebutted the findings, saying, “Sleeping position should not affect dream content, and any research on this supports a very weak, if not absent, correlation."

With inputs from agencies