You may assume that children have nightmares about monsters under the bed, while adults dream about stressful events like deadlines. But is there any scientific evidence showing that dreams change as we age?
Although there are plausible mechanisms for how aging could cause dreams to change over time, very little research has explored the topic.
“Dreaming depends on neural systems involved in imagination, memory and emotion, all of which develop and reorganize with age,” Dr. Giulio Bernardi, head of the Sleep, Plasticity, and Conscious Experience (SPACE) research group at the IMT School for Advanced Studies Lucca in Italy, told Live Science. However, “surprisingly few studies have systematically examined how dreams change across the lifespan.”
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