Negative dream affect is associated with next-day affect level, but not with affect reactivity or affect regulation
There is increasing evidence that sleep plays an important role in affective processing. However, it is unclear whether dreaming—the subjective experiences we have during sleep—also serves an affect regulation function. Here, we investigated the within-person relationship between negative affect exp...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Frontiers Media S.A.
2022-10-01
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| Series: | Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience |
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| Online Access: | https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnbeh.2022.981289/full |
| _version_ | 1811237618150539264 |
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| author | Pilleriin Sikka Pilleriin Sikka Pilleriin Sikka Hilda Engelbrektsson Hilda Engelbrektsson Jinxiao Zhang James J. Gross |
| author_facet | Pilleriin Sikka Pilleriin Sikka Pilleriin Sikka Hilda Engelbrektsson Hilda Engelbrektsson Jinxiao Zhang James J. Gross |
| author_sort | Pilleriin Sikka |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | There is increasing evidence that sleep plays an important role in affective processing. However, it is unclear whether dreaming—the subjective experiences we have during sleep—also serves an affect regulation function. Here, we investigated the within-person relationship between negative affect experienced in dreams and next-day waking affect level, affect reactivity, and affect regulation. For 5 days, 40 participants reported their dreams and rated their dream affect and post-sleep waking affect level upon morning awakening. Thereafter, they performed an affect reactivity and regulation task which involved viewing neutral and negative pictures with the instruction either to simply view the pictures or to down-regulate the affect evoked by these pictures. Multilevel regression analyses showed that the more negative affect people experienced in their dreams at night, the more negative affect and the less positive affect they reported the next morning. However, negative dream affect was associated neither with affect reactivity to the pictures nor with the ability to down-regulate negative affect in response to these pictures. In fact, Bayesian analyses favored the null hypotheses. These findings fail to provide support for the affect regulation function of dreaming and, instead, speak for affective continuity between dreaming and post-sleep wakefulness. |
| first_indexed | 2024-04-12T12:26:24Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-8121ff09fd794c96aa8873c202c95e87 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 1662-5153 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-04-12T12:26:24Z |
| publishDate | 2022-10-01 |
| publisher | Frontiers Media S.A. |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience |
| spelling | doaj.art-8121ff09fd794c96aa8873c202c95e872022-12-22T03:33:08ZengFrontiers Media S.A.Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience1662-51532022-10-011610.3389/fnbeh.2022.981289981289Negative dream affect is associated with next-day affect level, but not with affect reactivity or affect regulationPilleriin Sikka0Pilleriin Sikka1Pilleriin Sikka2Hilda Engelbrektsson3Hilda Engelbrektsson4Jinxiao Zhang5James J. Gross6Department of Psychology, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, United StatesDepartment of Psychology, University of Turku, Turku, FinlandDepartment of Cognitive Neuroscience and Philosophy, University of Skövde, Skövde, SwedenDepartment of Cognitive Neuroscience and Philosophy, University of Skövde, Skövde, SwedenDepartment of Biomedical and Clinical Sciences, Linköping University, Linköping, SwedenDepartment of Psychology, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, United StatesDepartment of Psychology, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, United StatesThere is increasing evidence that sleep plays an important role in affective processing. However, it is unclear whether dreaming—the subjective experiences we have during sleep—also serves an affect regulation function. Here, we investigated the within-person relationship between negative affect experienced in dreams and next-day waking affect level, affect reactivity, and affect regulation. For 5 days, 40 participants reported their dreams and rated their dream affect and post-sleep waking affect level upon morning awakening. Thereafter, they performed an affect reactivity and regulation task which involved viewing neutral and negative pictures with the instruction either to simply view the pictures or to down-regulate the affect evoked by these pictures. Multilevel regression analyses showed that the more negative affect people experienced in their dreams at night, the more negative affect and the less positive affect they reported the next morning. However, negative dream affect was associated neither with affect reactivity to the pictures nor with the ability to down-regulate negative affect in response to these pictures. In fact, Bayesian analyses favored the null hypotheses. These findings fail to provide support for the affect regulation function of dreaming and, instead, speak for affective continuity between dreaming and post-sleep wakefulness.https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnbeh.2022.981289/fullemotionemotion regulationREM sleepdreamingcontinuity hypothesis |
| spellingShingle | Pilleriin Sikka Pilleriin Sikka Pilleriin Sikka Hilda Engelbrektsson Hilda Engelbrektsson Jinxiao Zhang James J. Gross Negative dream affect is associated with next-day affect level, but not with affect reactivity or affect regulation Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience emotion emotion regulation REM sleep dreaming continuity hypothesis |
| title | Negative dream affect is associated with next-day affect level, but not with affect reactivity or affect regulation |
| title_full | Negative dream affect is associated with next-day affect level, but not with affect reactivity or affect regulation |
| title_fullStr | Negative dream affect is associated with next-day affect level, but not with affect reactivity or affect regulation |
| title_full_unstemmed | Negative dream affect is associated with next-day affect level, but not with affect reactivity or affect regulation |
| title_short | Negative dream affect is associated with next-day affect level, but not with affect reactivity or affect regulation |
| title_sort | negative dream affect is associated with next day affect level but not with affect reactivity or affect regulation |
| topic | emotion emotion regulation REM sleep dreaming continuity hypothesis |
| url | https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnbeh.2022.981289/full |
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