Human Sciences Press, Inc., New York City

Volume 6, Number 4, December 1996

Cognition and Metacognition in Dreaming and Waking: Comparisons of First and Third-Person Ratings
Tracey L. Kahan and Stephen LaBerge
Page 235

Individual Differences in Orienting Activity Mediate Feeling Realization in Dreams: II. Evidence from Concurrent Reports of Movement Inhibition
Don Kuiken, Ria Busink, T. L. Dukewich, and E. T. Gendlin
Page 251

Anxiety Dreams in School-Aged Children
Michael Schredl, Ruth Pallmer, and Alyaa Montasser
Page 265

Tracey L. Kahan, Ph.D., and Stephen LaBerge, Ph.D.
Cognition and Metacognition in Dreaming and Waking: Comparisons of First and Third-Person Ratings
Dreaming: Journal of the Association for the Study of Dreams. Vol 6(4) 235-249, Dec 1996.

ABSTRACT:
Two approaches to measuring dreaming and waking cognition were compared. Forty-three subjects wrote detailed descriptions of a dreaming and a waking experience and also used a questionnaire to evaluate the presence of particular types of cognition and metacognition in the target experience. Later, independent judges rated the subjects' narrative reports for the incidence of the same types of cognition and metacognition. A lower incidence of some types of cognition was observed when assessment was based on judges' ratings of the narrative reports than when subjects themselves assessed the incidence of these events. However, the basic relationship between dreaming and waking cognition was consistent for both measurement approaches. Subjects' and judges' evaluations of dreaming and waking experiences did not differ for internal commentary, sudden attention, focused attention, public self-consciousness, emotion, self-reflection, and thwarted intentions, although both subjects and judges attributed choice to waking experiences more often than to dreaming experiences. The value of using converging measures to compare dreaming and waking cognition is discussed, as well as whether dreaming cognition is best conceptualized as continuous or discontinuous with waking cognition.

Key Words: dreaming, self-awareness, metacognition

Don Kuiken, Ph.D., Ria Busink, T. L. Dukewich, and E. T. Gendlin
Individual Differences in Orienting Activity Mediate Feeling Realization in Dreams: II. Evidence from Concurrent Reports of Movement Inhibition
Dreaming: Journal of the Association for the Study of Dreams. Vol 6(4) 251-264, Dec 1996.

ABSTRACT:
The ineffectuality that is characteristic of existential dreams (Kuiken & Sikora, 1993) may prompt shifts in feeling that sensitize dreamers to aspects of their lives they have previously ignored. Consistent with this hypothesis, Kuiken and Nielsen (1966) found that individual differences in retrospectively reported movement inhibition during the waking orienting response predicted dream ineffectuality and dream-induced self-perceptual depth. We replicated and extended these findings using concurrently reported changes in bodily feeling during waking orienting activity. Study 1 indicated that the accentuation of feelings or sensations in stimulated emotion-related body areas (e.g., the upper chest) and the inhibition of feelings or sensations in stimulated emotion-unrelated areas (e.g., the non-dominant foot) predicted for whom dreams deepened self-perception. Similarly, Study 2 indicated that simultaneously accentuated feeling in a stimulated emotion-related area and suppressed feeling in an emotion-unrelated body area predicted for whom dreams deepened self-perception. Thus, individual differences in the activation and inhibition components of orienting activity during dreaming may mediate increased self-perceptual depth.

Key Words: dream function, orienting response, self-perception, body awareness.

Michael Schredl, Ruth Pallmer, and Alyaa Montasser
Anxiety Dreams in School-Aged Children
Dreaming: Journal of the Association for the Study of Dreams. Vol 6(4) 265-270, Dec 1996.

ABSTRACT:

A sample of 624 children who were 10 to 16 years of age reported their most recent anxiety ("bad") dream, rated how often they experienced anxiety dreams, and indicated the most threatening theme occurring in these dreams. They also completed the Angstfragebogen für Schüler (AFS), a commonly used measure of trait anxiety. Three hypotheses were tested and confirmed. First, anxiety dreams occurred more frequently among children with high levels of general anxiety. Second, there was some evidence that anxiety dreams involving school examinations were associated with high levels of examination anxiety. Third, high levels of general anxiety were associated with anxiety dreams involving realistic dream aggressors (e.g., humans) rather than unrealistic ones (e.g., monsters).

Keywords: nightmares, anxiety dreams, children, dream content