Sleep Mentation in the Elderly

ABSTRACT Mentation reports were elicited from NREM and REM sleep in 18 normal elderly females. Transcribed reports were analyzed for word count, visual and auditory imagery, intention, and affect. Comparison with similarly analyzed data from 23 young adult women revealed no differences between young and elderly in narrative length (either REM or NREM). Both groups showed longer narratives from REM awakenings. With narrative length controlled, NREM‐REM differences in visual or auditory imagery, intention, or affect were non‐existent in the young and very small in the elderly, findings that contradict earlier results but are consistent with more recent controlled studies in young adults. The elderly subjects showed strikingly less visual imagery than young subjects in both NREM and REM reports. Further studies are required to determine whether the decreased incidence of visual imagery in the elderly results from a response bias or from differences in the mechanisms of visual imagery production in sleep, waking, or both.