Abstract
While material from waking life is often represented in dreams, it is less clear whether and how dreams impact waking life. Here, we assessed whether dream mood and content from home diaries predict subsequent waking mood using both subjective self-reports and an objective automated word detection approach. Subjective ratings of dream and morning mood were highly correlated within participants for both negative and positive valence, suggesting that dream mood persists into waking. Text analyses revealed similar relationships between affect words in dreams and morning mood. Moreover, dreams referencing death or the body were related to worse morning mood, as was first-person singular pronoun usage (e.g., “I”). Dreams referencing leisure or ingestion, or including first-person plural pronouns (e.g., “we”), were related to better morning mood. Together, these results suggest that subjective experiences during sleep, while often overlooked, may be an important contributor to waking mood.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
References
Bakdash, J. Z., & Marusich, L. R. (2017). Repeated measures correlation. Frontiers in Psychology, 8. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.00456
Barnes, C. M., Watkins, T., & Klotz, A. (2020). An exploration of employee dreams: The dream-based overnight carryover of emotional experiences at work. Sleep Health. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sleh.2020.11.001
Blagrove, M., Farmer, L., & Williams, E. (2004). The relationship of nightmare frequency and nightmare distress to well-being. Journal of Sleep Research, 13(2), 129–136. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2869.2004.00394.x
Bulkeley, K., & Graves, M. (2018). Using the LIWC program to study dreams. Dreaming, 28(1), 43–58. https://doi.org/10.1037/drm0000071
Carr, M., Haar, A., Amores, J., Lopes, P., Bernal, G., Vega, T., Rosello, O., Jain, A., & Maes, P. (2020). Dream engineering: Simulating worlds through sensory stimulation. Consciousness and Cognition, 83, 102955. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.concog.2020.102955
Carr, M., Summers, R., Bradshaw, C., Newton, C., Ellis, L., Johnston, E., & Blagrove, M. (2020). Frontal brain activity and subjective arousal during emotional picture viewing in nightmare sufferers. Frontiers in Neuroscience, 14. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnins.2020.585574
Fireman, G. D., Levin, R., & Pope, A. W. (2014). Narrative qualities of bad dreams and nightmares. Dreaming, 24(2), 112–124. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0035791
Hawkins, R. C., II., & Boyd, R. L. (2017). Such stuff as dreams are made on: Dream language, LIWC norms, and personality correlates. Dreaming, 27(2), 102–121. https://doi.org/10.1037/drm0000049
Konkoly, K., & Burke, C. T. (2019). Can learning to lucid dream promote personal growth? Dreaming, 29(2), 113–126. https://doi.org/10.1037/drm0000101
Köthe, M., & Pietrowsky, R. (2001). Behavioral effects of nightmares and their correlations to personality patterns. Dreaming, 11(1), 43–52. https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1009468517557
Lee, M.-N., & Kuiken, D. (2015). Continuity of reflective awareness across waking and dreaming states. Dreaming, 25(2), 141–159. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0039147
Nielsen, T. A., Zadra, A. L., Simard, V., Saucier, S., Stenstrom, P., Smith, C., & Kuiken, D. (2003). The typical dreams of Canadian university students. Dreaming, 13(4), 211–235. https://doi.org/10.1023/B:DREM.0000003144.40929.0b
Paquet, C., Cogan, C. M., & Davis, J. L. (2020). A quantitative text analysis approach to describing posttrauma nightmares in a treatment-seeking population. Dreaming, 30(1), 54–67. https://doi.org/10.1037/drm0000128
Pennebaker, J. W., Boyd, R. L., Jordan, K., & Blackburn, K. (2015). The development and psychometric properties of LIWC2015. https://repositories.lib.utexas.edu/handle/2152/31333
Robert, G., & Zadra, A. (2014). Thematic and content analysis of idiopathic nightmares and bad dreams. Sleep, 37(2), 409–417. https://doi.org/10.5665/sleep.3426
Schredl, M. (2000). The effect of dreams on waking life. Sleep and Hypnosis, 2(3), 120–124.
Schredl, M. (2009). Effect of dreams on daytime mood: The effects of gender and personality. Sleep and Hypnosis, 11(2), 51–57.
Schredl, M., & Göritz, A. S. (2018). Nightmare themes: An online study of most recent nightmares and childhood nightmares. Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine, 14(03), 465–471. https://doi.org/10.5664/jcsm.7002
Schredl, M., & Reinhard, I. (2010). The continuity between waking mood and dream emotions: Direct and second-order effects. Imagination, Cognition and Personality, 29(3), 271–282. https://doi.org/10.2190/IC.29.3.f
Stocks, A., Carr, M., Mallett, R., Konkoly, K., Hicks, A., Crawford, M., Schredl, M., & Bradshaw, C. (2020). Dream lucidity is associated with positive waking mood. Consciousness and Cognition, 83, 102971. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.concog.2020.102971
Stoet, G. (2017). PsyToolkit: A novel web-based method for running online questionnaires and reaction-time experiments. Teaching of Psychology, 44(1), 24–31. https://doi.org/10.1177/0098628316677643
Vallat, R. (2018). Pingouin: Statistics in Python. Journal of Open Source Software, 3(31), 1026. https://doi.org/10.21105/joss.01026
Vandekerckhove, M., & Cluydts, R. (2010). The emotional brain and sleep: An intimate relationship. Sleep Medicine Reviews, 14(4), 219–226. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.smrv.2010.01.002
Walker, M. P., & van der Helm, E. (2009). Overnight therapy? The role of sleep in emotional brain processing. Psychological Bulletin, 135(5), 731–748. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0016570
Yu, C.K.-C. (2007). Emotions before, during, and after dreaming sleep. Dreaming, 17(2), 73–86. https://doi.org/10.1037/1053-0797.17.2.73
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank Ashwini Ashokkumar and the rest of the Pennebaker Language Lab for helpful discussion.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Funding
This work was funded by the Mind & Life Europe Francisco J. Varela Award (MC) and the National Institute of General Medical Sciences grant: K12 GM106997 (MC).
Conflict of Interest
The authors declare no competing interests.
Data Availability
Data and materials are available in an OSF repository: https://osf.io/2xy5p/
Code Availability
Analysis code is available in an OSF repository: https://osf.io/2xy5p/.
Ethical Approval
Ethical approval was granted by the Swansea University Department of Psychology Research Ethics Committee.
Consent to Participate
Informed consent was obtained from all participants included in the study.
Additional information
Handling Editor: Aric Prather
Supplementary Information
Below is the link to the electronic supplementary material.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Mallett, R., Picard-Deland, C., Pigeon, W. et al. The Relationship Between Dreams and Subsequent Morning Mood Using Self-Reports and Text Analysis. Affec Sci 3, 400–405 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s42761-021-00080-8
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s42761-021-00080-8