A presleep consideration of an intrusive thought enhances the possibility of dreaming of it.

Abstract

This study investigated whether focusing on an intrusive thought before sleeping led to an increased likelihood of dreaming of the thought. A total of 150 participants were randomly assigned to three different kinds of conditions: an expression condition (focus on an intrusive thought for 5 min before sleeping), a suppression condition (suppress an intrusive thought for 5 min before sleeping), and a control condition (think about anything for 5 min before sleeping). Also, they completed a dream diary upon waking. Of them, 126 participants provide valid data for further analysis (40 from the expression condition, 43 from the suppression condition, and 43 from the control condition). The correlation between intrusive thoughts and dream content was rated by participants (self-rating) and two independent judges (external rating). The external rating showed that both a presleep suppression of an intrusive thought and a presleep focusing on an intrusive thought increased the possibility of dreaming of content related to the thought. These results may support the current-concern theory of dreaming, and they may, to some degree, support Carl Jung's compensation theory of dreaming.

Presleep focusing on positive spontaneous thoughts enhanced the possibility of dreaming of them

“…Yet in Wang et al 's (2022) study, the self-rating method did not find the dream rebound effect, whereas the external-rating method did. The inconsistent results between Wegner et al (2004) and Wang et al (2022) implied that the external-rating method was more suitable for group comparisons. Yet still, there was a need for more research to explore this idea.…”

“…To our knowledge, most of this kind of evidence was correlational in nature, because there was a difficulty to manipulate dream content directly (for a talk, see Schredl, 2003 ). Yet still some studies showed a causal relationship for this topic (e.g., Nikles et al, 1998 ; Wegner et al, 2004 ; Taylor and Bryant, 2007 ; Kröner-Borowik et al, 2013 ; Malinowski et al, 2019 ; Feng and Wang, 2022 ; Wang et al, 2022 ). These studies can be divided into two kinds.…”

“…These studies can be divided into two kinds. One suggested that presleep suppressing a target thought enhanced the possibility of dreaming of the thought (e.g., Wegner et al, 2004 ; Taylor and Bryant, 2007 ; Bryant et al, 2011 ; Kröner-Borowik et al, 2013 ; Malinowski et al, 2019 ; Wang et al, 2022 ), and the other indicated that presleep focusing on a target thought increased the possibility of dreaming of the thought (e.g., Nikles et al, 1998 ; Wang et al, 2022 ). Yet evidence for the latter kind of finding was inconsistent, because Wegner et al (2004) did not find that presleep focusing on a target thought increased the possibility of dreaming of the thought, so there was still a need to repeat the finding.…”

“…Yet evidence for the latter kind of finding was inconsistent, because Wegner et al (2004) did not find that presleep focusing on a target thought increased the possibility of dreaming of the thought, so there was still a need to repeat the finding. Wang et al (2022) found that presleep focusing on an intrusive thought enhanced the possibility of dreaming of the thought. As stated above, in addition to negative spontaneous thoughts (intrusive thoughts), there are also positive spontaneous thoughts It has been found that the emotional intensity of a waking-life experience, rather than the emotional valence of a waking-life experience, could affect the possibility of dreaming of the experience (e.g., see Malinowski and Horton, 2014 ).…”

Dreaming and Sleep-Related Metacognitions in Patients with Sleep Disorders

“…In addition, thought suppression is also related to poorer sleep quality [ 18 , 19 ]. Intrusive thoughts, whether suppressed or focused upon, are also followed by more negatively toned dreams [ 20 ]; that is, pre-sleep rumination also affects dreams in a negative way [ 21 ]. Taken together, these empirical data would predict that dysfunctional sleep-related metacognitions are associated with negatively toned dreams.…”