The American Foundation for Suicide Prevention shows over 42,000 people take their lives per year, which is equivalent to one suicide every 13 minutes. 
There are many different reasons people take their own lives, from depression to mourning loved ones who have died. However, a recent study conducted by Dr. Michael Nadorff discusses that nightmares can be a factor that causes suicide. A quote from vanwinkles.com stated “Those who experience nightmares, according to one recent review paper, are more than twice as likely to exhibit suicidal behavior than the nightmare-free crowd.”
Michael Nadorff, assistant professor in Mississippi State University’s department of Psychology, said he correlates nightmares to suicides.
“We have found that nightmares are associated with suicidal risk and suicide attempts independent of leading risk factors for suicide, such as insomnia, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, and anxiety,” Nadorff said.
Nadorff has studied psychology since 2003, and has been part of MSU’s faculty for four years, this year being his fifth year on staff. 
“We used statistical methods that allowed us to ‘control’ or account for the other variables so we could see whether nightmares were predictive above and beyond depression and anxiety, and they are,” Nadorff said. “More recent research by our group has found that nightmare duration, or how long you have struggled with nightmares, is also associated with suicide risk.”
Nadorff said out of what has been researched so far, the content of the nightmares that lead to suicidal tendencies include death or violence, but this research was preliminary; more work must be done to fully prove this discovery.
 “It really isn’t just one study, I have been doing this line of research for nearly a decade across two universities,” Nadorff said. “However, I have done a fair amount of it with Dr. E. Samuel Winer, who is also a professor at Mississippi State, and my grad students, but particularly Shea Golding and Katrina Speed.”
Golding, instructor of record at MSU, said it seems those who suffer from nightmares have greater risk for suicide, however they do not know for sure.
“We do not know whether the nightmare content plays a role in suicide risk,” Golding said. “It seems that the longer someone has suffered with nightmares, the greater their risk for suicide. Another one of Dr. Nadorff’s studies found that only 37.8 percent of participants with significant symptoms of nightmares discussed their nightmares with healthcare providers; a follow-up sample included 67.3 percent of nightmare sufferers surveyed who did not believe that nightmares are treatable.” 
Golding said the length someone has been having nightmares affects their suicide risk.
“Interestingly, in a study looking at a college-aged sample as well as my study with older adults, it seems that how long someone has been having nightmares predicts suicide risk even when current nightmare severity is taken into account,” Golding said.
Katrina Speed, graduate assistant and clinician of MSU Counseling Services, is working under Nadorgg in his Sleep, Suicide and Aging Lab in the Clinical Psychology PhD program at MSU. 
She said their studies compare those who non-fatally attempt suicide and those who attempt once.
“What we have found is that having nightmares differentiates individuals who non-fatally attempt suicide multiple times compared to those who are single attempters,” Speed said. “Nightmares are an independent predictor of multiple suicide attempts.”
Speed said the positive spin on their study’s findings is there are treatments known to work for treating nightmares.  
Suicide is the 10th leading cause of death in the United States. It also costs more than $44 billion dollars annually. Mississippi has been ranked 40 in the nation since 2014. 
Dr. Nadorff was also mentioned in the Scientific American, where he discussed similar topics about his study. He encourages students that would like to know more about his work to visit their website and read the article about his study, at scientificamerican.com.