Dream Self-Reflectiveness as a Learned Cognitive Skill

Abstract

This research was directed toward the contradiction sustained by cognitive dream psychology, which on the one hand regards dreaming as higher symbolic activity and, on the other, sees its organizational and functional characteristics as derivative and/or inferior to those of waking consciousness. Study 1 evaluates the degree of self-reflective meta-cognition in dreams from different sleep stages. Subjects were 24 college students selected such that half were self-reported high-frequency dream recallers and half were low-frequency recallers. Both groups were composed equally of men and women. Greater self-reflectiveness (SR) was found in REM dreams as compared with those from stages 2 and 4, which did not differ. High-frequency recallers showed more dream SR than did low-frequency recallers. Study 2 assessed the extent to which self-reflective and lucid dreaming can be learned as a cognitive skill by varying levels of intention and attention paid to dreaming. After 3 weeks of home dream collection, results showed that four experimental groups had greater dream SR than did a baseline group. The most effective treatment was the mnemonic, wherein attention patterning schemas learned in waking resulted in more self-reflective and lucid dreaming than did either baseline or attention-control conditions. These results provide evidence that dreaming is not single-minded but variable along a self-reflective process continuum, and suggest functional and organizational levels that are consistent with the conception of dreaming as higher order cognitive activity.

Testing the involvement of the prefrontal cortex in lucid dreaming: A tDCS study

“…Lucid dreams are often initiated by observing an oddity within the dream environment (Purcell, Mullington, Moffitt, Hoffmann, & Pigeau, 1986); metacognitive activities with external focus might therefore play a more important role in lucid dreaming.…”

Induction of lucid dreams: A systematic review of evidence

“…Reflection / reality testing was employed in one sleep laboratory experiment (Dane, 1984), but was not used as an experimental condition, and in eight field studies (LaBerge, 1988;Levitan, 1989;Purcell, 1988;Purcell, Mullington, Moffitt, Hoffmann, & Pigeau, 1986;Reis, 1989;Schlag-Gies, 1992). …”

“…Reflection / reality testing seems to increase frequency of lucid dreams (Levitan, 1989;Purcell, 1988;Purcell, Mullington, Moffitt, Hoffmann, & Pigeau, 1986;Schlag-Gies, 1992), although one study did not find any relation between reality testing practice and lucid dream frequency (LaBerge, 1988). There are some indications that reflection / reality testing might be more effective than other cognitive techniques, such as autosuggestion (Levitan, 1989;Schlag-Gies, 1992), posthypnotic suggestion (Purcell, Mullington, Moffitt, Hoffmann, & Pigeau, 1986) or intention (Schlag-Gies, 1992).…”

“…There are some indications that reflection / reality testing might be more effective than other cognitive techniques, such as autosuggestion (Levitan, 1989;Schlag-Gies, 1992), posthypnotic suggestion (Purcell, Mullington, Moffitt, Hoffmann, & Pigeau, 1986) or intention (Schlag-Gies, 1992). Comparison with MILD is ambiguous: in one study (LaBerge, 1988) reality testing seemed to be somewhat less effective than MILD, while other study (Levitan, 1989) yielded opposite results.…”

“…This method was used in two sleep laboratory experiments (Dane, 1984;Galvin, 1993) and two field studies (Galvin, 1993;Purcell, Mullington, Moffitt, Hoffmann, & Pigeau, 1986). The overall quality of these studies was fair (mean 13.3).…”