When people remember dreams they never experienced: A study of the malleability of dream recall over time.
The source-monitoring paradigm suggests that dreams could be an important source of naturally occurring false memories. However, the malleability of memories for dreams remains to be investigated. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the impact of suggestions on subsequent dream recall. Immediate dream recall collected in a sleep laboratory was compared with long-term recall 1 to 2 weeks later. Standard recall was also compared with hypnotic recall. Suggested elements were reported by 15% of the 26 participants. The hypnotic condition showed no differential effect. It was also found that between 3% and 7% of the dream...
Source: Dreaming - February 9, 2015 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Beaulieu-Prévost, Dominic; Zadra, Antonio Source Type: research
The unidirectional relationship of nightmares on self-harmful thoughts and behaviors.
Understanding the direction of the predictive relationship between nightmares and suicidal behaviors is important to model its underlying mechanisms. We examine the direction of this relationship and the mediating role of negative affect. A fixed interval diary study obtained presleep and postsleep measures of affect, nightmares, and self-harmful thoughts and behaviors (SHTBs) from 72 university students (88.9% female). The results show predictive utility of nightmares on SHTBs—indicating a fourfold increased risk of SHTBs. Additionally, results support the suggestion of a unidirectional predictive influence (of nightmar...
Source: Dreaming - January 26, 2015 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Hochard, Kevin D.; Heym, Nadja; Townsend, Ellen Source Type: research
Psychopathological symptoms as a function of trauma, dreams, and inhibitions.
This study investigates the cumulative effects of lifetime traumatization on dream activities and the extent to which potentially traumatic events, dream variables, and inhibitory functions can predict the severities of psychopathological symptoms. The sample consisted of 564 young adults, whose dream experiences, trauma history, ego functions, and symptom manifestations were assessed using the Dream Intensity Scale, Dream Motif Scale, Traumatic Experiences Checklist, and Ko’s Mental Health Questionnaires, respectively. The 2 dream scales profile an individual’s phenomenological experience of dream activities by retros...
Source: Dreaming - December 22, 2014 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Yu, Calvin Kai-Ching Source Type: research
REM sleep, dreams, and attachment themes across a single night of sleep: A pilot study.
REM has been linked with consolidation of emotional memories and therefore may influence attachment processes. We tested the hypothesis that content of EEG verified REM sleep dreams would change over the course of a single night as a function of attachment orientation, whereas content of NREM dreams would not. After a habituation night in the sleep lab, a convenience sample of 11 healthy volunteers, whose attachment orientations were measured, were awoken once every hour and then reported any dream experienced. Dreams were then analyzed for content. Content analyses revealed progressively greater interactions between dream...
Source: Dreaming - December 22, 2014 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: McNamara, Patrick; Ayala, Rafael; Minsky, April Source Type: research
What can we learn from shamans’ dreaming? A cross-cultural exploration.
Shamanism is a worldwide social phenomenon consisting of a set of practices (e.g., ritualistic drumming, sensory deprivation, the ingestion of entheogens and dream incubation) designed to obtain knowledge from alternative realities for the purpose of benefiting one’s social group. The aim of this paper is to provide a cross-cultural exploration of dreaming in the context of shamanism. We proceed by addressing 2 fundamental questions: What is meant by the terms shaman and shamanic principle, and what is the distinction between monophasic and polyphasic social groups with regards to the veridicality and cultural significan...
Source: Dreaming - December 22, 2014 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Laughlin, Charles D.; Rock, Adam J. Source Type: research
Experiencing “continuity”: A qualitative investigation of waking life in dreams.
Continuity between waking life and dreaming has typically been studied via the quantitative analysis of dream reports, which has illustrated that dreaming reflects waking-life experiences, thoughts, and emotions. However, there are currently no reliable methods of analyzing dreams for the more subjective aspects of dreams, such as those dreams that are metaphorically related to the dreamer’s waking life, which require dreamer input. We conducted a qualitative study involving in-depth semistructured interviews with 4 participants. The interview schedules were based on Schredl’s (2010) dream group technique. Using themat...
Source: Dreaming - September 22, 2014 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Malinowski, Josie; Fylan, Fiona; Horton, Caroline L. Source Type: research
The effect of time of night on wake–dream continuity.
Research has demonstrated a number of time-of-night and stage-of-sleep differences in dream content, such as that dreams from later in the night are longer, more emotional, and more bizarre. It was hypothesized that time of night may therefore demonstrate differences in the continuity of waking life into dreams. Participants (N = 16) were systematically awoken 4 times a night for 2 nights and rated their dreams for wake–dream continuity on a number of dimensions. It was found that time of night affects wake–dream continuity overall, particularly showing an increase of bizarreness over time; that there were more referen...
Source: Dreaming - September 15, 2014 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Malinowski, Josie E.; Horton, Caroline L. Source Type: research
Therapeutic effects of the dreams of nursing home residents in Poland.
The aim of this research was to test Ernest Hartmann’s hypothesis that dreams have quasitherapeutic potential. I have examined 100 elderly people from nursing homes in Poland using both quantitative (Hall/Van de Castle coding system) and qualitative analyses. The results show clearly that their dreams differ from the Hall and Van de Castle norms, especially with respect to a considerably more frequent appearance of familiar and friendly characters (usually close family members) and positive emotions. This fact, contrasting with the feeling of loneliness and failure declared by most residents, suggests that their dreams p...
Source: Dreaming - September 8, 2014 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Owczarski, Wojciech Source Type: research
What does nightmare distress mean? Factorial structure and psychometric properties of the Nightmare Distress Questionnaire (NDQ).
Nightmares are extremely dysphoric dreams. But nightmare distress, and not the mere frequency of nightmares, is associated with well-being and psychopathology. Nightmare distress has been conceptualized in different ways: (a) nightmare intensity, (b) nightmare effects, (c) nightmare related symptoms, and (d) the perception of nightmare distress. The Nightmare Distress Questionnaire (NDQ) is the most often used questionnaire to capture nightmare distress. However, there is insufficient information about its psychometric properties and it remains unclear what exactly it measures. In order to investigate the psychometric qual...
Source: Dreaming - August 25, 2014 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Böckermann, Max; Gieselmann, Annika; Pietrowsky, Reinhard Source Type: research
Normality, pathology, and dreaming.
This study provides an overview of the associations of healthy and pathological traits with dream experiences. The Dream Intensity Scale, Dream Motif Scale, and Ko’s Mental Health Questionnaire were used to assess 575 nonclinical participants’ dream experiences, healthy personality traits, and pathological tendencies. The dream scales were found to be correlated positively with empathy and negatively with counterdependence, with the effect sizes being small. Normality, ego strength, gregariousness, and independence did not show significant associations with any dream scales. By contrast, neuroticism and psychoticism, t...
Source: Dreaming - August 18, 2014 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Yu, Calvin Kai-Ching Source Type: research
Social media versus gaming associations with typical and recent dreams.
Cirucci (2013a) hypothesized that video game players would display similarities to social media users and that this relationship should be examined. This inquiry compared university students who varied in the degree to which they use social media (SMU) and play video games (VGP) on several dream indices and 1 personality inventory. Dreams have been shown to be continuous with waking mentation (Schredl, 2003) and to regulate negative emotions (Levin & Nielsen, 2009). Thus, they may offer a relatively unobstrusive measure of reactions to media use. Although there were meaningful differences between the 4 groups (high VGP/hig...
Source: Dreaming - August 18, 2014 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Gackenbach, Jayne; Boyes, Arielle Source Type: research
Are dreams of killing someone related to waking-life aggression?
Aggressive interactions are common in dreams, even aggression resulting in the death of a dream character. In different student samples, approximately 20% to 35% of the participants reported having dreamed of killing someone at least once in their lives. In nightmare sufferers, this type of dream was related to elevated waking-life aggression. The present study confirmed this relationship in an unselected student sample (N = 439). The present results indicate that continuity between waking and dreaming can take different forms, that is, the waking emotion is not reflected in a direct way in the dreams but in an exaggerated...
Source: Dreaming - August 18, 2014 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Schredl, Michael; Mathes, Jonas Source Type: research
Spontaneous lucid dreaming frequency and waking insight.
Spontaneous lucid dreaming is characterized by the realization that the currently perceived reality is in fact a dream. As this ability differs between individuals, specific cognitive abilities have been sought that might explain this variability. Here, “insight,” a key feature of spontaneous lucid dreaming, is investigated. Frequent, occasional, and nonlucid dreamers were compared on their successful performance of a compound remote associate problem-solving task, designed to measure insight. Results show that frequent lucid dreamers solve significantly more insight problems overall than nonlucid dreamers. This sugges...
Source: Dreaming - June 30, 2014 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Bourke, Patrick; Shaw, Hannah Source Type: research
Dream characters and the dream ego: An exploratory online study in lucid dreams.
Two exploratory online experiments were carried out to investigate the interaction between dream characters and the dream ego in lucid dreams. Lucid dreamers were recruited via an Internet page (http://klartraum.de). In Experiment 1, 15 participants (26.5 ± 10.2 years; 4 female, 11 male) provided 27 dream reports in which they asked dream characters 38 times to guess a number of fingers they show with their hands behind their back and then name another number of fingers that was visible to the dream characters. In Experiment 2, 7 lucid dreamers (24.3 ± 10.5 years; 2 female, 5 male) guessed 17 different numbers written do...
Source: Dreaming - June 30, 2014 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Schmidt, Steffen C. E.; Stumbrys, Tadas; Erlacher, Daniel Source Type: research
Pregnancy and postnatal dreams reflect changes inherent to the transition to motherhood.
The purpose of this study is to describe and compare the pattern of dreams of pregnant women and new mothers as an expression of the changes inherent to the transition to motherhood. Ninety-eight antenatal and 68 postnatal dreams were collected from 20 women during the third trimester of pregnancy and at 10–12 weeks’ postpartum, and dream content was coded and analyzed with the Hall and Van de Castle (1966) Coding System for dreams. Perinatal dreams were found to consistently reflect expected changes associated with the transition to motherhood, thus supporting the continuity hypothesis of dreaming. Women’s dreams re...
Source: Dreaming - June 30, 2014 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Coo, Soledad; Milgrom, Jeannette; Trinder, John Source Type: research
