Weak electromagnetic fields restore dream recall in patients with multiple sclerosis

It is now well established that dreaming is a phenomenon associated with REM sleep and that we dream far more than we can recall. Loss of dream recall has been reported in association with cerebral lesions of different sites with predilection to the posterior cerebral hemispheres. Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a chronic neurological disorder characterised by the presence of diffuse pathological lesions affecting cortical, subcortical, and brainstem areas which are implicated in the generation and maintenance of REM sleep as well as dream recall. Although MS is associated with a high incidence of sleep disturbances, little is known about the frequency of dreaming and particularly dream recall in these patients and their association with such features as the course of the disease, extent of neurological deficits, rate of progression, sites of demyelinating plaques on MRI scan, and recovery. In my experience morning dream recall and probably dreaming activity become infrequent with the onset and/or during periods of exacerbation of the disease. The present communication concerns four selected MS patients who experienced alterations in dream content and loss of morning dream recall during the course of the disease. In all patients dream recall was restored, along with improvement in neurological symptoms, following the external application of a series of treatments with weak electromagnetic fields (EMFs). These findings suggest that in MS morning dream recall may decline and cease to occur during the course of the disease. Recurrence of dream recall may be a marker of clinical recovery which can be used to assess neurologic improvement in patients undergoing treatment with experimental treatment modalities.