Summary: According to researchers, people with higher levels of peace of mind have more positive dream emotions. By contrast, those who feel anxious report more negative dreams.
Source: University of Turku.
It has long been assumed that the content of dreams can tell us something about the person’s well-being. However, so far dream researchers have mostly studied the dreams of people suffering from various disorders and we know very little about the positive side of well-being: do happier people have happier dreams? Well-being researchers, on the other hand, have specifically studied happiness, but have neglected an important aspect of well-being – peace of mind.
“We wanted to address these important gaps in both dream and well-being research and to study how dream emotions are related to not only different aspects of waking ill-being, but also to different aspects of waking well-being, including peace of mind. In fact, this is the first study to look at how peace of mind relates to dream content,” says Pilleriin Sikka, Doctoral Candidate in Psychology at the University of Turku and Lecturer in Cognitive Neuroscience at the University of Skövde, and lead author of the article published in the Nature group journal Scientific Reports.
“Peace of mind is a state of inner peace and harmony, a more complex and durable state of well-being traditionally associated with happiness in the Eastern cultures,” Sikka continues.
“Even though it has rarely been directly measured in studies of well-being, in several philosophical traditions and spiritual approaches, peace of mind has always been regarded as central to human flourishing,” adds co-author Antti Revonsuo, Professor of Psychology at the University of Turku and Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience at the University of Skövde.
The researchers asked healthy participants to fill in a questionnaire that measured their waking ill-being and well-being. Then, during the following three weeks the participants kept a daily dream diary in which, every morning upon awakening, they reported all their dreams and rated the emotions they experienced in those dreams. Results showed that individuals with higher levels of peace of mind reported more positive dream emotions, whereas those with higher levels of anxiety reported more negative dream emotions.
These findings show that if we want to understand how dream content is related to waking well-being, it is not enough to measure only the symptoms of mental ill-being but we should measure well-being in its own right. Surprisingly, those aspects that are typically considered and measured as ‘well-being’ were not related to dream content. So there seems to be something unique about peace of mind and anxiety, Sikka explains.
The researchers propose that individuals with higher levels of peace of mind may be better able to regulate their emotions not only in the waking state but also during dreaming, whereas the opposite may be true for those with higher levels of anxiety.
In future studies we should explore whether better emotion regulation capacity, and self-control in general, is indeed something that characterises people with higher levels of peace of mind, and whether improving such skills can also lead to more peace of mind, Sikka concludes.
Source: Pilleriin Sikka – University of Turku
Publisher: Organized by NeuroscienceNews.com.
Image Source: NeuroscienceNews.com image is in the public domain.
Original Research: Open access research for “Peace of mind and anxiety in the waking state are related to the affective content of dreams” by Pilleriin Sikka, Henri Pesonen & Antti Revonsuo in Scientific Reports. Published August 24 2018.
doi:10.1038/s41598-018-30721-1
[cbtabs][cbtab title=”MLA”]University of Turku”Sweeter Dreams in a Peaceful Mind.” NeuroscienceNews. NeuroscienceNews, 24 August 2018.
<https://neurosciencenews.com/dreaming-peaceful-9736/>.[/cbtab][cbtab title=”APA”]University of Turku(2018, August 24). Sweeter Dreams in a Peaceful Mind. NeuroscienceNews. Retrieved August 24, 2018 from https://neurosciencenews.com/dreaming-peaceful-9736/[/cbtab][cbtab title=”Chicago”]University of Turku”Sweeter Dreams in a Peaceful Mind.” https://neurosciencenews.com/dreaming-peaceful-9736/ (accessed August 24, 2018).[/cbtab][/cbtabs]
Abstract
Peace of mind and anxiety in the waking state are related to the affective content of dreams
Waking mental well-being is assumed to be tightly linked to sleep and the affective content of dreams. However, empirical research is scant and has mostly focused on ill-being by studying the dreams of people with psychopathology. We explored the relationship between waking well-being and dream affect by measuring not only symptoms of ill-being but also different types and components of well-being. Importantly, this is the first time peace of mind was investigated as a distinct aspect of well-being in a Western sample and in relation to dream content. Healthy participants completed a well-being questionnaire, followed by a three-week daily dream diary and ratings of dream affect. Multilevel analyses showed that peace of mind was related to positive dream affect, whereas symptoms of anxiety were related to negative dream affect. Moreover, waking measures were better related to affect expressed in dream reports rather than participants’ self-ratings of dream affect. We propose that whereas anxiety may reflect affect dysregulation in waking and dreaming, peace of mind reflects enhanced affect regulation in both states of consciousness. Therefore, dream reports may possibly serve as markers of mental health. Finally, our study shows that peace of mind complements existing conceptualizations and measures of well-being.
