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.
Comparable studies
Other observational and cohort studies on lucid dreaming, most cited first.
| Study | Year | Design | Participants |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lucid Dreaming: a State of Consciousness with Features of Both Waking and Non-Lucid Dreaming Student volunteers trained to become lucid and signal lucidity with horizontal eye... | 2009 | Observational study | n = 6 |
| Neural Correlates of Dream Lucidity Obtained from Contrasting Lucid versus Non-Lucid REM Sleep: A Combined EEG/fMRI Case Study Experienced lucid dreamers | 2012 | Observational cohort | n = 4 |
| Real-time dialogue between experimenters and dreamers during REM sleep. Individuals during REM sleep, including frequent lucid dreamers, a novice, and a... | 2021 | Observational study | n = 36 |
| Lucid Dreaming in Narcolepsy Consecutive patients with narcolepsy and healthy controls | 2015 | Case-control study | n = 106 |
| Metacognitive Mechanisms Underlying Lucid Dreaming Human participants split into high- and low-lucidity groups based on reported dream... | 2015 | Observational cohort |
Citations in the library
Cited by 4
- Music in dreams: Exploring the frequency and emotional dimension of music-related dreams among music professionals Psychology of Music March 10, 2026
- Clocks in Dreams: Analysis of a Long Dream Series Clocks & Sleep November 24, 2021
- Dreaming about Dogs: An Online Survey. Animals : an open access journal from MDPI October 19, 2020
- Work-Related Dreams: An Online Survey. Clocks & Sleep July 17, 2020
Cites 9
- Factors of home dream recall: a structural equation model Journal of Sleep Research May 12, 2003
- Effectiveness of motor practice in lucid dreams: a comparison with physical and mental practice Journal of Sports Sciences April 7, 2015
- Relation Between Waking Sport Activities, Reading, and Dream Content in Sport Students and Psychology Students The Journal of Psychology May 1, 2008
- Erotic dreams and their relationship to waking-life sexuality Sexologies June 25, 2008
- Relation between waking politic, music and sports related tasks and dream content in students of politics and psychology students University Library Heidelberg 2014
and 4 more in the library