Sleeping in a warm room may give you nightmares

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After the sun set on yet another sweltering summer day in New York City, some people were lucky to get to sleep with cool air blasting from their air conditioners.

But if the room where you catch those Zs is too hot, you could suffer nightmares. Dr. Neil Stanley, a former chairman of the British Sleep Society, made that assertion to The Daily Mail because a warm room can disturb your sleep. He said that causes your dreams to be more vivid.

"And, unfortunately, that goes for nightmares, too, which can be intense," Dr. Stanley said.

Dr. Allen Towfigh, the medical director of New York Neurology and Sleep Medicine, told Fox 5 that the nightmare claim could make sense.

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"If it's too warm, you may end up having a greater amount of what's called R.E.M. sleep, which is the part of sleep when you're having a lot of dreaming occur," Dr. Towfigh said. "If you're having more R.E.M. sleep, one could imagine that you're going to have more nightmares—if you're prone to getting those."

The ideal sleeping temperature, according to Dr. Stanley, is between 61 and 64 degrees.

If you don't have AC, the UK Sleep Council has this tip: Put a tray of ice cubes in front of an electric fan.