The effect of external stimuli on dreams, as assessed using Q-methodology
Lincoln Repository January 1, 2014 Anthony Bloxham, Simon Durrant 5 citations
External sounds can sometimes enter dreams, but whether the meaning of a sound matters is unclear. Participants improved dream recall over weeks, then took a two-hour morning nap in a lab while a meaningful or meaningless spoken language was played during REM sleep. After being woken, they reported dreams that all contained conversation or speech, but poor verbal memory for dream speech made it impossible to confirm the stimuli caused this. At least two dreams showed strong evidence of direct incorporation. Using Q-Methodology, three types of dream experience emerged: calm and emotional; emotional and understandable; unstable and unrealistic. The hypothesis that meaningful language would produce similar dreams was not fully supported, but Q-Methodology shows promise for future research.