Music in dreams: A diary study
Psychology of Music June 29, 2019 DOI: 10.1177/0305735619854533 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Observational cohort Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Sample size | 425 |
| Population | Mostly psychology students |
| Duration | 14-day dream diary |
| Topics | Lucid dreaming |
| Keywords | Music education Music psychology Pedagogy Psychotherapist |
| Citations | 13 |
| Key findings | For people who play an instrument in their leisure time, playing an instrument during the day was directly linked to having more dreams including music, confirming the continuity hypothesis. Dreams including music were more positively-toned than dreams in general. |
Abstract
In every culture and nation music has been mentioned as a sort of natural language. While the existence of dreams including music in musicians has been anecdotally reported, music in dreams have been rarely studied empirically. In the present study, 425 participants, mostly psychology students, reported their dreams in a dream diary for 14 days as well as the intensity of their dream emotions and answered a questionnaire about whether they play existing music or compose new music during the day. As expected, for persons playing an instrument in their leisure time, there was a direct link between playing an instrument during the day and having more dreams including music, thus confirming the continuity hypothesis of dreaming. In addition, dreams including music were more positively-toned regarding emotions than dreams in general. Further research might investigate, for example, whether dreams including music play a role in improving music performance skills.