Dream Diary Research Articles

Lucid dreaming and ventromedial versus dorsolateral prefrontal task performance

Activity in the prefrontal cortex may distinguish the meta-awareness experienced during lucid dreams from its absence in normal dreams. To examine a possible relationship between dream lucidity and prefrontal task performance, we carried out a prospective study in 28 high school students. Participants performed the Wisconsin Card Sort and Iowa Gambling tasks, then for 1 week kept dream journals and reported sleep quality and lucidity-related dream characteristics. Participants who exhibited a greater degree of lucidity performed significantly better on the task that engages the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (the Iowa Gambling Task), but degree of lucidity achieved did not distinguish performance on the task that engages the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (the Wisconsin Card Sort Task), nor did it distinguish self-reported sleep quality or baseline characteristics. The association between performance on the Iowa Gambling Task and lucidity suggests a connection between lucid dreaming and ventromedial prefrontal function.

Amygdala and hippocampus volumetry and diffusivity in relation to dreaming

Microstructural analyses by MRI brain scans and by DTI analysis of MR images were used to investigate the possible relationship between deep gray matter structures (amygdala and hippocampus) and dreaming in healthy subjects. Thirty-four subjects ranging in age 20s to 70s underwent to a MRI protocol for the assessment of volume and mean diffusivity (MD) in the amygdala and hippocampus and were asked to fill out a dream diary via audiotape recording upon morning awakening for two weeks. Multiple regression analyses evaluated the relationships between anatomical measures and quantitative and qualitative measures of the reported dreams. The main result points to a dissociation between some quantitative and qualitative aspects of dream reports. While the mean number of dreams recalled per day did not show any significant relationship with the neuroanatomical measures, significant associations with some qualitative features of the recalled dreams (emotional load, bizarreness, and vividness) and, to some extent, with the length of dream reports were observed. Particularly, a higher MD of the left amygdala, reflecting a decreased microstructural integrity, was associated with shorter dream reports and lower scores on emotional load. Bizarreness of dream reports was negatively correlated with the left amygdala volume and positively correlated with the right amygdala MD. Some specific, although weaker, relationships were also found between bizarreness and hippocampal measures. These findings indicate some direct relationships between volumetric and ultrastructural measures of the hippocampus-amygdala complex and specific qualitative features of dreaming.

A replication of the 5–7day dream-lag effect with comparison of dreams to future events as control for baseline matching

The dream-lag effect refers to there being, after the frequent incorporation of memory elements from the previous day into dreams (the day-residue), a lower incorporation of memory elements from 2 to 4 days before the dream, but then an increased incorporation of memory elements from 5 to 7 days before the dream. Participants (n=8, all female) kept a daily diary and a dream diary for 14 days and then rated the level of matching between every dream report and every daily diary record. Baseline matching was assessed by comparing all dream reports to all diary records for days that occurred after the dream. A significant dream-lag effect for the 5-7 day period, compared to baseline and compared to the 2-4 day period, was found. This may indicate a memory processing function for sleep, which the dream content may reflect. Participants' and three independent judges' mean ratings also confirmed a significant day-residue effect.

Dream bizarreness and waking thought in schizophrenia

Dream diaries and reports of daytime waking thought were collected from five schizophrenia patients and matched controls. It was more difficult for blind judges to differentiate the patients' than the controls' dream reports from reports of waking thought, and patients reported shorter but more bizarre dreams than did the controls.

Content analysis on the potential significance of color in dreams: A preliminary investigation

The potential significance and stimulus of color in dreams was postulated from a content analysis of color in spontaneously recalled dream reports. The analysis was performed on 15,245 dream reports in the DreamBank.net database, plus 12,841dream reports from long-term dream journals. One objective was to determine, to the degree possible from content analysis, whether dream color reports simply reflect our waking visual experience or if the colors reported are influenced by physiological or psychological factors or both. The conclusion from the observed data was that the color recalled from dreams is neither a direct reflection of the waking visual experience nor does it reflect personal associations alone, but rather dream color appears to align with common neurological or physiological mechanisms involved in the human perception of or reaction to color, which may in turn be influenced strongly by individual emotional or psychological factors.

Nightmares and bad dreams in patients with borderline personality disorder: Fantasy as a coping skill?

ABSTRACT – Background and Objectives: Previous studies reported a high prevalence of nightmares and dream anxiety in Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) and the severity of dream disturbances correlated with daytime symptoms of psychopathology. However, the majority of these results are based on retrospective questionnaire-based study designs, and hence the effect of recall biases (characteristic for BPD), could not be controlled. Therefore our aim was to replicate these findings using dream logs. Moreover, we aimed to examine the level of dream disturbances in connection with measures of emotional instability, and to explore the protective factors against dream disturbances. Methods: 23 subjects diagnosed with BPD, and 23 age and gender matched healthy controls were assessed using the Dream Quality Questionnaire, the Van Dream Anxiety Scale, as well as the Neuroticism, Assertiveness and Fantasy scales of the NEO-PI-R questionnaire. Additionally, subjects were asked to collect 5 dreams in the three-week study period and to rate the emotional and phenomenological qualities of the reported dreams using the categories of the Dream Quality Questionnaire. Results: Dream disturbances (nightmares, bad dreams, night terror-like symptoms, and dream anxiety) were more frequent in patients with BPD than in controls. Dream disturbances correlated positively with Neuroticism, while Fantasy proved to be a negative correlate of dream disturbances.

028 POLYSOMNOGRAPHY FINDINGS IN SLEEP DISORDERS IN MEN AND WOMEN AT A SLEEP CLINIC IN NORDESTE

Depression Inventory (BDI), the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI) (Y form) and the dream diary. The dreamdiary involved awritten narration of dreams over the course of an uninterrupted 30-day period. The EVN-pain and the FIQ protocolswere only applied to the study group. The dream reports were selfanalyzed by the subjects, using coding to represent different emotions. Emotionswere defined according to Damasio: primary emotions, such as sadness, fear, rage or joy; deep emotions, such as feelings of well-being; and other conditions, including pain, fatigue, incapacity or failure. Results: The most frequent emotions in the dreams of the fibromyalgia patients were sadness, fear and incapacity. The most frequent emotions in the dreams of the controls were well-being, fear and rage. The dreams of the fybromialgia patients involved significantly more pain and fatigue than those of the controls. On average, pain represented 11±0.07% and fatigue represented 7±0.07%.of all the scored emotions. In contrast, these two emotions were rare in the dreams of the control group, with pain representing 1±0.0% and fatigue representing 3±0.02%. Emotions with respect to feelings of incapacity were found to a similar degree in the dreams of fibromyalgics (14±0.09%) and controls (12±0.11%). All other scored emotions also appeared at similar levels the dreams of both patients and controls, despite the significantly different psychopathological profiles. Conclusion: These results support the proposed hypothesis that the emotional process that is associated with daily experiences occurs not only during the awake state, but also during the dream state, as dream activity establishes itself as a continuation of the waking experiences, which is an observation that is in accordance with the continuity hypothesis (Hall, 1953; Domhoff, 1996; Strauch e Meier, 1996; Schedule, 1999).

A combined group treatment for nightmares and insomnia in combat veterans: A pilot study

Insomnia and nightmares are hallmarks of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Sleep disturbances in PTSD negatively impact clinical course and functioning. In this open clinical trial, the preliminary effects of a combined treatment for insomnia and nightmares in combat veterans with PTSD were assessed. Ten combat veterans participated in a 10-session group treatment combining cognitive-behavioral therapy for insomnia with exposure, rescripting, and relaxation therapy. Participants maintained daily sleep and dream diaries and completed self-report measures of sleep quality and PTSD symptoms pre- and posttreatment. Participants reported improvements in sleep and nightmares following treatment. Future research using controlled designs to evaluate this treatment is warranted.

The self and dreams during a period of transition

The content of dreams and changes to the self were investigated in students moving to University. In study 1, 20 participants completed dream diaries and memory tasks before and after they had left home and moved to university, and generated self images, “I am…” statements (e.g. I am an undergraduate), reflective of their current self. Changes in “I ams” were observed, indicating a newly-formed ‘university’ self. These self, images and related autobiographical knowledge were found to be incorporated into recent dreams but not into dreams from other periods. Study 2 replicated these findings in a different sample ( N = 55). We suggest that these data reflect a period of self-consolidation in which new experiences and self images are incorporated into autobiographical memory knowledge structures representing personal goals during sleep.

Adaptation of imagery rehearsal therapy for nightmares in children: A brief report.

This study investigated the effectiveness of a psychotherapeutic treatment for nightmares that was adapted for 6- to 11-year-old children from imagery rehearsal therapy. Ten child-mother dyads took part in a 3-session, 8-week treatment protocol. Participation in the study (contact with clinician, keeping a prospective dream log) was associated with decreases unpleasant dreams frequency, nightmare distress, and manifest anxiety. Providing educational information about nightmares did contribute to this positive effect. Results also suggest that drawing modified versions of nightmares for 1 month was associated with further reductions in nightmare distress and anxiety, but with no changes in unpleasant dreams frequency. Follow-ups at 3 and 6 months posttreatment suggest that the intervention had maintained effects. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved).

The Religious Content of Dreams: A New Scientific Foundation

Dream content is meaningfully related to waking life religiosity, so much so that reading a person’s dream reports “blindly,” without any other personal information or associations from the dreamer, can reveal with surprising accuracy his or her basic waking attitude toward religion and spirituality. Two long-term dream journals are analyzed in this manner, and the results demonstrate that dream content is an accurate reflection of a person’s religious beliefs, practices, and experiences. The significance of this for pastoral psychologists lies not in specific new techniques of dream interpretation but more fundamentally in supporting the practice of paying attention to dreams in the first place. The goal of the article is to build a bridge between pastoral psychological interest in dreams and the latest findings in the scientific study of dreaming. Contrary to the assumption that religion and science inevitably conflict with each other, dreaming offers an area of potential religion–science convergence.

Dream Content in a Representative German Sample: Gender Differences and the Effects of other Socio-Demographic Variables

The present study investigated the effects of socio-demographic variables on dream content in a representative sample. The analyses of 380 most recent dreams showed that almost none of the socio-demographic variables like age, gender, marital status, education, income, nor town (or city) of residence size was significantly related to general dream characteristics like dream length, bizarreness, and intensity of dream emotions, thus indicating that dreaming is a universal phenomenon shared by all humans and is experienced in similar ways. On the other hand, dream content—in contrast to the general dream characteristics—is determined by waking-life experiences. This is clearly shown by the gender differences found in the present study: more work-related themes and physical aggression in men's dreams. In order to generalize these findings, it will be necessary to apply other dream collection methods like dream diary or laboratory awakenings in large, representative samples in order to obtain and analyze the dream reports of persons who do not often recall their dreams and who are not able to report their most recent dream to an interviewer.

Contextualized emotional images in children's dreams: Psychological adjustment in conditions of military trauma

This study examines the impact of military trauma on contextualized emotional images in children's dreams, and the function of the intensity and valence of the emotional images in protecting mental health from negative trauma impact. Participants were 345 Palestinian children and adolescents (aged 5—16 years) belonging to high trauma (Gaza) and non-trauma (Galilee) groups. They reported nocturnal dreams using a seven-night dream diary. The results show, as hypothesized, that the dreams of children exposed to severe military trauma incorporated more intense and more negative emotional images. High intensity and low negative, and high positive emotional images in dreams may protect children's mental health. Children in the trauma group showed relatively fewer post-traumatic symptoms if their dreams incorporated intensive and positive emotional images. Similarly, personal exposure to military trauma was not associated with anxiety and aggressiveness among children whose dreams had low negative valence, or with lower anxiety when dreams had intensive emotional images. The emotional qualities of dreams are discussed as possible indicators of children processing their traumatic experiences.

Spoken and written dream communication: Differences and methodological aspects

Based on structural differences between spoken and written language, the purpose of this paper was to investigate whether spoken and written communication imply a different representation in reporting an experienced dream. In fact, the clausal-dynamic quality of the former and nominal-synoptic quality of the latter, with the consequent differences in length, cohesion and density, could enhance/reduce the perceptual character and narrative structure of report features often considered in order to assess sleep mentation. In particular, we wondered whether, after eliminating all the elements responsible for the more conspicuous quantitative differences across the two forms (false starts, repetitions, digressions, redundancies), we would obtain two equivalent ways of reporting dreams. Three hundred and two (101 males and 201 females) subjects, raging in age from 18 to 40 years, participated as volunteers in the study and were asked to complete a dream diary daily for 14 days, by tape-recording their own dreams and putting them down in writing. The reports were analyzed by a psycholinguistic system. Results indicated that the report modality is able to affect the dream experience representation, conditioning the figurative (re)translation carried out by the tester: written forms show a loss of hallucinatory information and a non-complete correspondence also of the bizarreness features with respect to the spoken texts. Partialling out for length eliminated any difference between spoken and written dream reports on bizarreness; on the other hand, controlling the sequence effect of the report did not introduce changes. Methodological and theoretical implications were discussed.

Perceived change in the affect associated with dreams: The fading affect bias and its moderators.

Eighty-two undergraduate participants kept dream diaries for a month. Five dreams were randomly selected from each diary and were returned to participants. They rated the affect produced by the dream at its occurrence and at its recall, as well as a number of other characteristics of the dream and characteristics of the context in which the dream occurred. Results revealed that, like memories for real autobiographical events, the negative affect associated with dreams generally faded faster than the positive affect associated with dreams (a Fading Affect Bias, or FAB). The data also showed that the FAB did not occur for: (a) dreams that were remembered to contain information that dreamers believed came true at a later date, (b) dreamers who had reportedly taken recreational drugs prior to their dream, (c) dreams remembered as lacking sound, and (d) dreams remembered as very quiet.

A Preliminary Study on English and Welsh “Sacred Sites” and Home Dream Reports

This article discusses preliminary data on advancing what we know about “sacred sites” and their effects on dreaming. Thirty‐five volunteers spent between one and five nights in one of four unfamiliar outdoor sacred sites in England and Wales. Another volunteer awakened them following the observation of rapid eye movement and asked for dream recall. The same volunteers monitored their own dreams in familiar home surroundings, keeping dream diaries. Equal numbers of site dreams and home dream reports were obtained for each volunteer. The 204 dream reports had previously been subjected to inspection for bizarre and paranormal content, with no significant differences. This analysis used the Hall—Van de Castle Scale, and several differences were found, most notably more aggressive content in site dreams and more friendly content in home dreams. In addition, home dream reports contained more incidences of failure, striving, and success. A number of explanations were proposed for these differences, including expectancy, suggestion, the effect of unfamiliar surroundings, and possible anomalous properties of the sacred sites.

Avant-Garde Films: Teaching Wavelength

Avant-garde films are, in some ways, the very apotheosis of difficult films. Whether emphasizing the aesthetic or the political dimensions of the term, truly avant-garde films are defined by the ways they challenge prevailing patterns of form and rhetorical address (the heart of the avant-garde's political intervention). Through innovative modes of visual and aural articulation, they change the ways we make meaning in cinema. At their best, avant-garde films are meant to blow your mind-which, not surprisingly, can prompt resistance in the classroom. If avant-garde films are meant to be difficult, then part of the pedagogical challenge consists both in maintaining the films' inherent difficulty and in finding ways for students to find points of engagement with the work. It is important not simply to reduce avant-garde films to their difficulty. That approach invites students (and many academics!) to dismiss the work as intractable, obscure, hermetic, or simply weird. There is an element of seduction involved in teaching any challenging film, and the avant-garde offers just as many pleasures as any other cinema. Those pleasures are simply (or not so simply) unfamiliar versions of cinematic pleasures like narrative play, where narrative is broadly defined in Hollis Frampton's sense of stable pattern of energy through which an infinity of personages may pass, ourselves included; or intensity of affect, where that affect can be more kinesthetic than representational; or pleasures of the mind, where radical form or rhetorical address -as in the multiple ironies of Godard's or Trinh's voices forge insights for students who do the work of breaking their expectations of what cinematic form and political formulation can look and sound like.1 In the classroom, the tension between estrangement and seduction is tested when instructors and students attempt interpretation. In the case of a film like Su Friedrich's Gently Down the Stream (1981), a film derived from the filmmaker's dream journals, I first ask for students' affective responses to the film, asking them to describe their emotions and associations, positive and negative, before moving on to interpretation and meaning. I have found that when students learn that Friedrich is lesbian and a lapsed Catholic, they often jump to overliteral or symbolic readings of the film's early images of looming Madonnas and nuns in negative. Such readings miss the ambivalence that Friedrich retains in the poetics of her dream processing. The imagery of Catholicism retains power and beauty. Sexual identity seems to open up in the film's movement towards images of and free-flowing rhythm-but remains fraught as nature is still bounded by culture. As is true for the interpretation of any complex work of art, readings tend to project the viewers' values and expectations in search of easy, reassuring answers

Absorption, psychological boundaries and attitude towards dreams as correlates of dream recall: two decades of research seen through a meta‐analysis

Many studies have reported positive correlations between dream recall frequency (DRF) and measures of absorption, psychological boundaries and attitude towards dreams. A majority of these studies, however, have relied exclusively on retrospective measures of DRF even though daily dream logs are generally considered to be more direct and valid measures of DRF. The first goal of the present meta-analysis was to evaluate the effect sizes of three variables (absorption, psychological boundaries and attitude towards dreams) as correlates of DRF. The second goal was to evaluate if these effect sizes varied as a function of how DRF was operationalized (i.e. retrospective measure versus dream log). Data from 24 studies were included in the analyses. For each of the three variables investigated, correlations with retrospective measures of DRF were of greater magnitude than those obtained with daily logs. These results indicate that scores on measures of absorption and psychological boundaries are not related to DRF per se, but rather to people's tendency to retrospectively underestimate or overestimate their DRF, while attitude towards dreams is related both to DRF per se and to people's retrospective estimation bias. Implications of these findings for dream research are discussed.

Last night I had the strangest dream: Varieties of rational thought processes in dream reports

From the neurophysiological perspective, thinking in dreaming and the quality of dream thought have been considered hallucinatory, bizarre, illogical, improbable, or even impossible. This empirical phenomenological research concentrates on testing whether dream thought can be defined as rational in the sense of an intervening mental process between sensory perception and the creation of meaning, leading to a conclusion or to taking action. From 10 individual dream journals of male participants aged 22–59 years and female participants aged 25–49 years, we delimited four dreams per journal and randomly selected five thought units from each dream for scoring. The units provided a base for testing a hypothesis that the thought processes of dream construction are rational. The results support the hypothesis and demonstrate that eight fundamental rational thought processes can be applied to the dreaming process.

Mood and Sleep in Parkinson's Disease

To determine whether severity of depression and severity of anxiety were associated with particular types of sleep disturbance in patients with Parkinson's disease. 120 patients with a diagnosis of idiopathic Parkinson's disease were consecutively recruited from a movement disorders clinic from July 2004 to May 2005. Idiopathic Parkinson's disease was diagnosed by a board-certified neurologist (J.H.F) and defined by the presence of 3 of the 4 cardinal signs of Parkinson's disease: resting tremor, rigidity, bradykinesia, and postural instability. Patients were administered the Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression, Hamilton Rating Scale for Anxiety, Covi Anxiety Scale, Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI), and Epworth Sleepiness Scale (ESS). Patients were assessed for nightmares and rapid eye movement (REM) sleep behavior disorder (RBD) using a structured questionnaire and dream log. Multivariate analyses evaluated whether severity of depression and severity of anxiety correlated with the sleep outcome measures (PSQI, ESS, nightmares, and RBD). The mean +/- SD age of the patients was 71 +/- 10.8 years with a mean Parkinson's disease duration of 7.3 +/- 4.7 years. Thirty-eight percent were female, 41.7% had a psychiatric history, 53.3% had nightmares, and 30% had clinically defined RBD. Severity of depression and severity of anxiety significantly correlated with poor sleep quality, daytime somnolence, and nightmares. Severity of depression contributed significantly to the overall variance in poor sleep quality and nightmares. Severity of anxiety contributed significantly to the overall variance in daytime somnolence. Depressive and anxiety symptoms were associated with sleep disturbances in patients with Parkinson's disease. It is important to examine for the presence of depression and anxiety in patients presenting with sleep disorders, as depression and anxiety impair quality of life and are treatable conditions.