Dimensions of repetition and negative affect in dreams and their relation to psychological well-being
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Case study Case report |
|---|---|
| Population | Recurrent dreamers, past-recurrent dreamers, non-recurrent dreamers, people with recurrent dream themes, people with frequent nightmares, people with frequent bad dreams, control subjects, and five recurrent nightmare sufferers |
| Intervention | Lucid dreaming |
| Citations | 4 |
| Key findings | Recurrent and negative dreams are linked to lower well-being: recurrent dreamers scored lower on well-being and reported more negative dream content than past-recurrent and non-recurrent dreamers, and frequent nightmare sufferers scored lower than frequent bad-dream sufferers, who scored lower than controls. Five recurrent nightmare sufferers were treated successfully with lucid dreaming. |
Abstract
Six studies are presented whose combined goals were to investigate the relationship between the dimensions of repetition and negative affect in dreams, dream content measures, and measures of well-being. Study 1 presents the results of a content analysis of childhood and adult recurrent dreams. Study 2 showed that recurrent dreamers score lower on measures of well-being and report more negative dream content than both past-recurrent dreamers and non-recurrent dreamers. Study 3 showed that people who experience recurrent dream themes report low levels of well-being and negative dream content, but not to the extent shown by people with recurrent dreams. Underlying assumptions of commonly proposed definitions for nightmares were tested in Study 4. Study 5 showed that people with frequent nightmares score lower on indices of well-being than people with frequent bad dreams, who score lower than control subjects. Study 6 presents five cases of recurrent nightmare sufferers who were treated successfully with lucid dreaming.