It is important to measure dream anxiety in nightmare sufferers and there is a need to provide an instrument with good clinimetric properties. The purpose of this article was to describe the Van Dream Anxiety Scale (VDAS) and to examine its internal homogeneity, test-retest reliability, and validity. The VDAS was administered to two groups of subjects, patients with nightmare disorder (NA) (N=36) and healthy controls (N=40), during an 18- month study period. To evaluate the clinimetric and psychometric properties of the VDAS, Cronbach s a and Pearson correlation analysis, paired t tests, and student’s t test were performed. The thirteen questions were internally consistent. The total scores and individual responses were stable across time. The scale was also valid and could discriminate patients with nightmares from controls. The VDAS is a scale that is easy for subjects to use and for clinicians and researchers to interpret and permits the differentiation of clinical cases and controls, or anxious and nonanxious dreamers.