Dream Psychology

Cognition and metacognition in dreaming and waking: Comparisons of first and third–person ratings.

“…The present findings are consistent with the proposition that dreaming and waking cognitive and metacognitive processes are more similar than different (e.g., Cartwright, 1981; Foulkes, 1985; 1995; Kahan & LaBerge, 1994; Moffitt, 1995; Moffitt et al, 1988). Our data indicate, for example, that internal commentary and self-reflection are often associated with dreaming experiences, consistent with claims that dreaming and waking involve the same types of high-order cognition (e.g., Kahan & LaBerge, 1994; Moffitt et al, 1988; Moffitt, 1995). Further, for both internal commentary and self-reflection, there was a reliable within-subjects association between ratings of the dreaming and waking reports, whether the ratings were first-person (by the subjects themselves) or third-person (by the judges).…”

Self-awareness in dreaming.

“…During the phase of working with reflective awareness statements, it became obvious that we also collected statements describing “intentionality” (Kahan & LaBerge, 1994, p. 259) in which participants described their mental or behavioral efforts to change the direction of the dream or to just simply end the dream. These statements describe the final effect in the form of “intentional action within the dream” or behavior (Moffitt et al, 1988, p. 437). Mental and behavioral intentionality was reported by 42.8% of the men and 64.2% of the women.…”

“…To investigate the conditions that might initiate the reflective awareness/consciousness within dreams, we created a distinct operational definition of reflective awareness. This definition is related to Ossorio’s (1981) “Person Concept,” Farthing’s (1992) definition of self-awareness, and Moffitt et al’s (1988) concept of “self-reflectiveness” (p. 431) explicated by Kahan and LaBerge (1994). With additional insight by R. Stickgold (personal communications, June 29, 2000, and February 20, 2001), our operational definition of reflective awareness states Self-awareness in the mode of reflective awareness refers to instances in dreaming or waking in which an individual verbalizes assessive or evaluative thoughts about ongoing internal events (perceptions, feelings, memories, images, hallucinations, and such) and/or external events (actions, behaviors, situations, environments).…”

Frameworks for understanding lucid dreaming: A review.

“…The second edition of Ernest Rossi’s Dreams and the Growth of Personality (1972/87) was dedicated to the founders of REM sleep (Aserinsky & Kleitman, 1953) and the person most associated with the scientific credibility of lucid dreaming in North America (LaBerge, 1985). In that volume Rossi underscores the value of lucid dreaming noting, “it would be difficult to overestimate the significance of this new method of studying the psychology of dreaming.” As Moffitt and colleagues (1988) note “the function of lucid dreaming for the waking state…is to render our understanding of what it means to be awake relative rather than absolute (p. 435).”…”