Dream rebound: the return of suppressed thoughts in dreams.
Daniel M. Wegner, Richard M Wenzlaff, Megan Kozak
Psychological Science April 1, 2004 DOI: 10.1111/j.0963-7214.2004.00657.x (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Experimental study Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Population | Adults at home before sleep |
| Duration | 5 min before sleep |
| Measures | self-ratings of dreams, raters' coding of mentions of the person in written dream reports |
| Keywords | Humans Affect Dreams Thinking Adult Female Repression, psychology Surveys and questionnaires |
| Key findings | Writing about a target person before sleep generally increased dreaming about that person, and suppression instructions in particular increased such dreaming, as measured by self-ratings and raters' coding of written dream reports. The effect occurred regardless of emotional attraction to the person. |
Abstract
People spent 5 min before sleep at home writing their stream of thought as they suppressed thoughts of a target person, thought of the person, or wrote freely after mentioning the person. These presleep references generally prompted people to report increased dreaming about the person. However, suppression instructions were particularly likely to have this influence, increasing dreaming about the person as measured both by participants' self-ratings of their dreams and by raters' coding of mentions of the person in written dream reports. This effect was observed regardless of emotional attraction to the person.
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