Contextualising imagery in dreams following a September 11 video from television news

Abstract

The aim of the study was to examine the impact of a traumatic video in producing dream imagery that contextualises emotion. Participants were 24 psychology undergraduates and members of the public. They completed the Empathy subscale of the Eysenck Impulsivity Scale, and watched two videos at least 3 days apart. One reported the September 11 terrorist attack and the other was a first‐year psychology lecture. Twenty‐four hours after viewing each video participants completed an Impact of Event Scale–Revised. They recorded dreams during the 3 nights following each video. As predicted, there was significantly more intense contextualising dream imagery following the September 11 video. Intensity was significantly related to impact ratings but not to empathy.

Multiple text analysis in narrative research: visual, written, and spoken stories of experience

“…Recent studies on the effects of repeated viewing of trauma events on television find significant psychological and emotional repercussions (i.e., development of trauma symptoms such as increased arousal, recurrent dreams, and psychological distress) (see Davidson et al, 2005;Hamblen, 2001;Pfefferbaum et al, 1999;Propper et al, 2007). If this type of repercussion is evident for exposure to a single medium, what would the experience be if people observed video, spoke with survivors or members of surviving families, engaged in formal and informal conversation with others about what they were seeing, participated in memorials, and looked at artifacts in forms such as photographic images, materials, or buildings?…”

Mental Health Consequences of September 11: A Five-Year Review of the Behavioral Sciences Literature

“…A small study (Davidson et al 2005) used 24 college students and members from the general public in Tasmania, Australia. Participants were evaluated to determine the intensity of contextualizing imagery in dreams impacted by watching traumatic videos.…”

Psychopathological symptoms as a function of trauma, dreams, and inhibitions.

“…Terminal illness and death-that is, the most severe forms of trauma, according to Pietrzak et al (2011aPietrzak et al ( , 2012-are ipso facto unavoidable. Likewise, traumatization and its concomitant impacts on dreams can take effect through vicarious conditioning (Davidson et al, 2005;Propper et al, 2007). This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.…”

“…Terminal illness and death—that is, the most severe forms of trauma, according to Pietrzak et al (2011a, 2012)—are ipso facto unavoidable. Likewise, traumatization and its concomitant impacts on dreams can take effect through vicarious conditioning (Davidson et al, 2005; Propper et al, 2007). [T]he development of characteristic symptoms following exposure to an extreme traumatic stressor involving direct personal experience of an event that involves actual or threatened death or serious injury, or other threat to one’s physical integrity; or witnessing an event that involves death, injury, or a threat to the physical integrity of another person; or learning about unexpected or violent death, serious harm, or threat of death or injury experienced by a family member or other close associate.…”