Negative Dream Affect Predicts Stronger Affect Reactivity and Weaker Affect Regulation in Wakefulness

Abstract

Sleep is assumed to play an important role in waking affective processing and affect regulation. Dreaming—the subjective experiences one has during sleep—has been further theorized to reflect, or even contribute to, the regulation of affect in the waking state. However, the role of dream affect in waking affect regulation has rarely been studied directly. Here, we investigated how dream affect relates to waking affect reactivity and regulation at a between-person level