ABSTRACT

Reading preferences and lucid dreaming.

Mark Blagrove, PhD 
Department of Psychology, 
University of Wales 
Swansea, SA2 8PP, UK.

I lecture and research on the experimental psychology of sleep and dreaming. I am a past-president of ASD, a member of the editorial board of the Journal of Sleep Research, and a consulting editor of the journal Dreaming.

m.t.blagrove@swansea.ac.uk

Summary of Presentation

People who have had a lucid dream are more open to experience than are non-lucid dreamers, are more likely to keep a daily diary, and to read fiction and fantasy books, but not thrillers or biographies. The two groups’ most recent dreams did not differ in bizarreness or word length.


Learning Objectives.

• Attendees will learn about the continuity hypothesis, which addresses the relationship between waking and dreaming cognition.

• Attendees will appreciate the use of various measures of waking personality, the behavioral measure of preference for book genres, and the Most Recent Dream method for the study of dream content characteristics.

• Attendees will appreciate the importance of the scientific study of lucid dreaming to the psychology of consciousness and self-awareness.

Evaluation questions:

• What is the continuity hypothesis of the relationship between waking and dreaming cognition?

• How do the results of this study show a relationship between preference for certain book genres and experience of lucid dreams?

• How do the results of this study fit with previous explanations of how lucid dreams are caused?

Abstract 

The results are presented of 671 adults (77% female, 23% male) who answered a questionnaire on their book genre reading preferences and dreams. Those who had had at least one lucid dream (n=411) were found to score higher on the Big-5 personality dimensions of open to experience and emotional instability/neuroticism than those who had not (n=260). Lucid dreamers were significantly more likely to keep a daily diary, and to read fiction and fantasy books, than were non-lucid dreamers, but not more likely to read thrillers or biographies. Lucid dreamers were also marginally more likely to read self-help books, but the groups did not differ on total amount of books read each month. The latter results indicate lucid dreamers have waking involvement with matters of self-reflection and the imagination of real/unreal worlds, and thus support the continuity hypothesis of the relationship between waking and dreaming cognition. Most recent dreams were collected from the two groups: these did not differ in bizarreness or word length or the presence of contextualising images, suggesting that these formal characteristics of dreams may not be causes of dreams becoming lucid, but lucid dreamers did sleep longer than non-lucid dreamers, which suggests that lucid dreams may result from longer REM sleep periods. I acknowledge the financial and logistical support for this study from the Chartered Institute for Library and Information Professionals, and Frontiers: Science in Libraries, and the UK Science Year. I acknowledge also the original idea from the (UK) Libraries Association for investigating links between reading and dreaming.

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