Effect of personality and presleep mood on dream recall.
Journal of Abnormal Psychology April 1, 1974 DOI: 10.1037/h0036461 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Observational study Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Population | Dream recallers, including infrequent and frequent recallers, some described as habitually low self-confident and "sensitizer" subjects |
| Duration | Five-day recording period |
| Topics | Dreaming |
| Key findings | Infrequent dream recallers were more likely to recall dreams when presleep self-confidence was lowest than when it was highest, which the author says contradicts the repression hypothesis. For habitually low self-confident and "sensitizer" subjects only, the lowest self-confidence rating during a five-day period was associated with unpleasant dream affect and the highest with pleasant dream affect. The author argues that state and trait factors together predict dream reporting and affect better than either alone. |
Abstract
The present investigation confirms and extends previously reported evidence of a predictable association between presleep mood and dream recall. Infrequent (but not frequent) dream recallers were more likely to recall dreams when presleep self-confidence was lowest than when it was highest for an individual subject. This result directly contradicts the repression hypothesis of dream recall. In addition, for habitually low self-confident and "sensitizer" subjects only, the lowest self-confidence rating during a five-day recording period was associated with unpleasant dream affect; the highest self-confidence rating was associated with pleasant dream affect. These findings support the hypothesis that the relationship between presleep mood and dream affect is modified by enduring subject characteristics that reflect coping effectiveness. The purpose of the present study was to obtain additional evidence that dream reporting and dream affect can more effectively be predicted from both situational (state) and dispositional (trait) factors than from either factor alone. The following results were obtained in a previous study of female subjects (Cohen, 1974a): For infrequent (but not frequent) dream recallers, home dream recall was more likely to occur when presleep selfconfidence was lowest compared to when selfconfidence was highest. The finding supported the hypothesis that the effect was due to an increase in the salience (vividness, emotionality) of dreams which for infrequent recallers is normally low (Cohen & MacNeilage, in press). The finding contradicts the repression hypothesis that predicts less dream recall, especially for infrequent recallers ("repressers"), when presleep experiences are distressing (Witkin, 1969). There is evidence from recent home and laboratory dream research that the dream recall of infrequent, but not frequent, recallers is markedly affected by presleep and postsleep conditions and by stage of sleep from which awakening occurs (Cohen & MacNeilage, in press; Cohen & Wolfe, 1973). In particular, any event which increases the salience of normally low salient dreams of infrequent
Comparable studies
Other observational and cohort studies on 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 |
| Nightmare Prevalence, Nightmare Distress, and Self-Reported Psychological Disturbance Young adults with a mean age of 20 years | 2002 | Prospective observational study | n = 116 |
| Long-term effects of extreme situational stress on sleep and dreaming Survivors of traumatic events who complained of sleep disturbances, compared with... | 1987 | Case-control study | n = 11 |
| The relationship of nightmare frequency and nightmare distress to well‐being Adults who reported dreams | 2004 | Observational cohort | n = 147 |
| The prevalence of nightmares and their independence from anxiety. Undergraduates | 1990 | Observational study using daily dream logs | n = 220 |
Citations in the library
Cited by 5
- The Continuity between Waking Mood and Dream Emotions: Direct and Second-Order Effects Imagination, Cognition and Personality March 1, 2010
- Dream Recall: State or Trait Variable? Part II: State Factors, Investigations and Final Conclusions Imagination, Cognition and Personality March 1, 1997
- Trait and neurobiological correlates of individual differences in dream recall and dream content. International review of neurobiology 2010
- Emotions in diary dreams. Consciousness and Cognition December 1998
- Coping effectiveness and dreams as a function of personality and dream recall. Journal of Clinical Psychology April 1, 1978