Dream affect

We experience affect—emotions and mood—not only when we are awake but also during dreaming. Despite considerable research, existing theories and empirical findings disagree about the frequency, nature, and correlates of dream affect. In this thesis, I discuss the conceptual and methodological issues that underlie these discrepancies. I present five empirical studies, the overall aim of which was to investigate the phenomenology and correlates of dream affect and how results regarding these are influenced by study methodology. Studies I–III focused specifically on methodological issues, by comparing self- and external ratings of dream affect (Studies I–II) or the affective content of home and laboratory dream reports (Study III). Studies IV and V investigated the waking well-being and neural correlates of dream affect, respectively. These studies show that results and conclusions regarding dream affect are very different, even contradictory, depending on whether dream reports have been collected using sleep laboratory awakenings or home dream diaries (Study III) or whether dream affect has been measured using self- or external ratings (Studies I–II). Self- and external ratings of dream affect are also differently correlated with waking well-being (Study IV). Together, these results caution against making broad generalizations about affective dream experiences from findings obtained with one type of methodology only. The studies also demonstrate that dream affect is related to aspects of waking well-being and illbeing (Study IV) and that certain affective states experienced in dreams, specifically anger, rely on similar neural processes as in wakefulness (Study V). These findings suggest that the phenomenology and neural correlates of affective experiences are, at least to some extent, continuous across sleep and wakefulness. Overall, this thesis shows how the conceptual and methodological issues in the study of dream affect may limit the validity, generalizability, and replicability of findings and, consequently, pose challenges to theory building and theory testing. It contributes to dream research by highlighting the need, and suggesting ways, to enhance the conceptual clarity and methodological rigour of research on dream affect. Due to the interdisciplinary nature of the thesis, the theoretical discussion and novel empirical findings also have implications for emotion research, sleep research, well-being research, consciousness research, and affective neuroscience.</p

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.</p

What is an altered state of consciousness?

‘‘Altered State of Consciousness’’ (ASC) has been defined as a changed overall pattern of conscious experience, or as the subjective feeling and explicit recognition that one’s own subjective experience has changed. We argue that these traditional definitions fail to draw a clear line between altered and normal states of consciousness (NSC). We outline a new definition of ASC and argue that the proper way to understand the concept of ASC is to regard it as a representational notion: the alteration that has happened is not an alteration of consciousness (or subjective experience) per se, but an alteration in the informational or representational relationships between consciousness and the world. An altered state of consciousness is defined as a state in which the neurocognitive background mechanisms of consciousness have an increased tendency to produce misrepresentations such as hallucinations, delusions, and memory distortions. Paradigm examples of such generally misrepresentational, temporary, and reversible states are dreaming, psychotic episodes, psychedelic drug experiences, some epileptic seizures, and hypnosis in highly hypnotizable subjects. The representational definition of ASC should be applied in the theoretical and empirical studies of ASCs to unify and clarify the conceptual basis of ASC research.</div

EEG Frontal Alpha Asymmetry and Dream Affect: Alpha Oscillations over the Right Frontal Cortex during REM Sleep and Presleep Wakefulness Predict Angerin REM Sleep Dreams

Affective experiences are central not only to our waking life but also to rapid eye movement (REM) sleep dreams. Despite our increasing understanding of the neural correlates of dreaming, we know little about the neural correlates of dream affect. Frontal alpha asymmetry (FAA) is considered a marker of affective states and traits as well as affect regulation in the waking state. Here, we explored whether FAA during REM sleep and during evening resting wakefulness is related to affective experiences in REM sleep dreams. EEG recordings were obtained from 17 human participants (7men) who spent 2 nights in the sleep laboratory. Participants were awakened 5minafter the onset of every REM stage after which they provided a dream report and rated their dream affect. Two-minute preawakening EEG segments were analyzed. Additionally, 8 min of evening presleep and morning postsleep EEG were recorded during resting wakefulness. Mean spectral power in the alpha band (8 –13 Hz) and corresponding FAA were calculated over the frontal (F4-F3) sites. Results showed that FAA during REM sleep, and during evening resting wakefulness, predicted ratings of dream anger. This suggests that individuals with greater alpha power in the right frontal hemisphere may be less able to regulate (i.e., inhibit) strong affective states, such as anger, in dreams. Additionally, FAA was positively correlated across wakefulness and REM sleep. Together, these findings imply that FAA may serve as a neural correlate of affect regulation not only in the waking but also in the dreaming state.</p

COVID-19-pandemian vaikutukset suomalaisten elämään - COVIDiSTRESS-hankkeen väliraportti

Tämä väliraportti käsittelee COVID-19-pandemian psykologisia vaikutuksia suomalaisille. Tulokset pohjautuvat yli 20 000 vastaukseen ja tarjoavat ainutlaatuisen näkökulman suomalaisten pandemianaikaisiin mielensisältöihin. Keskeisimmät löydökset viittaavat kuormitustason Suomessa olevan verrattain alhaista ja suomalaisten olevan 20 Euroopan maasta neljänneksi vähiten stressaantuneita. Eniten suomalaisia huolettavat kansantalous sekä oma ja läheisten terveys. Suomalaiset ovat muita eurooppalaisia huolestuneempia kansantaloudesta, yksinäisyydestä ja alle 12-vuotiaiden lasten kanssa selviytymisestä poikkeustilanteessa. Muiden muuttujien suhteen suomalaiset kokivat muita eurooppalaisia vähemmän huolta. Suomessa luotetaan hallitukseen enemmän kuin muissa Euroopan maissa, sekä pidetään hallituksen koronavirustoimenpiteitä tarkoituksenmukaisina ja oikein mitoitettuina. Aiempia tutkimuslöydöksiä mukaillen suomalaisilla on korkea luottamus instituutioihin. Yllättäen suomalaiset kuitenkin raportoivat hieman muita eurooppalaisia alhaisempaa mukautuvuutta rajoitustoimenpiteiden noudattamiseen. Yhteenvetona voidaan todeta Suomen reaktion COVID-19pandemiaan näyttäytyvän varsin hyvänä muihin Euroopan maihin verrattuna, joskin tietyt asiat painavat suomalaisten mieltä. Suomalaisten verrattain positiivisilta vaikuttavia psykologisia reaktioita voidaan lähestyä korkean luottamuksen ja selkeän tiedon ja ohjeiden välittämisen kautta. Viiden itselleen merkittävimmän selviytymismekanismin joukossa suomalaiset listaavatkin hallituksen välittämän tiedon ja tilanteeseen liittyvät selkeät toimintaohjeet. </p

How You Measure Is What You Get: Differences in Self- and External Ratings of Emotional Experiences in Home Dreams

This study demonstrates that different methods for measuring emotional experiences indreams — self-ratings of dreams using emotion rating scales versus external ratings in the formof content analysis of narrative dream reports — can lead to strikingly different results andcontradicting conclusions about the emotional content of home dreams. During 3 consecutiveweeks, every morning upon awakening, 44 participants (16 men, 28 women, average age 26.9± 5.1 years) reported their dreams and rated their emotional experiences in those dreams usingthe modified Differential Emotions Scale. Two external judges rated emotional experiences inthe same 552 (M= 12.55 ± 5.72) home dream reports using the same scale. Comparison ofthe 2 methods showed that with self-ratings dreams were rated as more emotional and morepositive than with external ratings. Moreover, whereas with self-ratings the majority of dreamswas rated as positively valenced, with external ratings the majority of dream reports was ratedas negatively valenced. Although self- and external ratings converge, at least partially, in themeasurement of negative emotional experiences, they diverge greatly in the measurement ofpositive emotional experiences. On one hand, this discrepancy may result from different biasesinherent in the 2 measurement methods highlighting the need to develop better methods formeasuring emotional experiences. On the other hand, self- and external ratings may capturedifferent phenomena and should thus be considered complementary and used concurrently.Nevertheless, results suggest that negative emotional experiences can be measured in a morevalid and reliable manner than positive emotional experiences.</p

Event-related potential correlates of learning to produce novel foreign phonemes

Learning to pronounce a foreign phoneme requires an individual to acquire a motor program that enables the reproduction of the new acoustic target sound. This process is largely based on the use of auditory feedback to detect pronunciation errors to adjust vocalization. While early auditory evoked neural activity underlies automatic detection and adaptation to vocalization errors, little is known about the neural correlates of acquiring novel speech targets. To investigate the neural processes that mediate the learning of foreign phoneme pronunciation, we recorded event-related potentials when participants (N 19) pronounced native or foreign phonemes. Behavioral results indicated that the participants’ pronunciation of the foreign phoneme improved during the experiment. Early auditory responses (N1 and P2 waves, approximately 85–290 ms after the sound onset) revealed no differences between foreign and native phonemes. In contrast, the amplitude of the frontocentrally distributed late slow wave (LSW, 320–440 ms) was modulated by the pronunciation of the foreign phonemes, and the effect changed during the experiment, paralleling the improvement in pronunciation. These results suggest that the LSW may reflect higher-order monitoring processes that signal successful pronunciation and help learn novel phonemes.</p

The dynamics of affect across the wake-sleep cycle: From waking mind-wandering to night-time dreaming

Affective experiences occur across the wake-sleep cycle—from active wakefulness to resting wakefulness (i.e., mind-wandering) to sleep (i.e., dreaming). Yet, we know little about the dynamics of affect across these states. We compared the affective ratings of waking, mind-wandering, and dream episodes. Results showed that mind-wandering was more positively valenced than dreaming, and that both mind-wandering and dreaming were more negatively valenced than active wakefulness. We also compared participants’ self-ratings of affect with external ratings of affect (i.e., analysis of affect in verbal reports). With self-ratings all episodes were predominated by positive affect. However, the affective valence of reports changed from positively valenced waking reports to affectively balanced mind-wandering reports to negatively valenced dream reports. These findings show that (1) the positivity bias characteristic to waking experiences decreases across the wake-sleep continuum, and (2) conclusions regarding affective experiences depend on whether self-ratings or verbal reports describing these experiences are analysed.</p

The Existence of a Hypnotic State Revealed by Eye Movements

Hypnosis has had a long and controversial history in psychology, psychiatry and neurology, but the basic nature of hypnotic phenomena still remains unclear. Different theoretical approaches disagree as to whether or not hypnosis may involve an altered mental state. So far, a hypnotic state has never been convincingly demonstrated, if the criteria for the state are that it involves some objectively measurable and replicable behavioural or physiological phenomena that cannot be faked or simulated by non-hypnotized control subjects. We present a detailed case study of a highly hypnotizable subject who reliably shows a range of changes in both automatic and volitional eye movements when given a hypnotic induction. These changes correspond well with the phenomenon referred to as the ‘‘trance stare’’ in the hypnosis literature. Our results show that this ‘trance stare’ is associated with large and objective changes in the optokinetic reflex, the pupillary reflex and programming a saccade to a single target. Control subjects could not imitate these changes voluntarily. For the majority of people, hypnotic induction brings about states resembling normal focused attention or mental imagery. Our data nevertheless highlight that in some cases hypnosis may involve a special state, which qualitatively differs from the normal state of consciousness.</div