CURRENT CONCERNS AND REM-DREAMS - A LABORATORY STUDY OF DREAM INCUBATION

This study investigated the prevalence of people's waking concerns in their REM-dreams, the form in which such concerns are represented in d reams, and the effects of reflecting on (''incubating'') a particular concern prior to sleep. Eight male Ss spent three consecutive nights i n the laboratory, with awakenings during the first and each subsequent REM period. At the beginning of the second night, current concerns we re assessed using Cox and Klinger's (1988) Motivational Structure Ques tionnaire. prior to sleep on incubation nights, Ss formulated and refl ected on a question related to their most significant current concerns . Prior to sleep on relaxation nights, Ss were guided through a standa rd autogenic technique. A total of 105 dream reports was collected fro m 118 REM awakenings. Dream reports were scored for incorporation usin g two techniques: a matching procedure and a content analysis of conce rn categories. The presleep incubation of a specific concern increased the frequency of dream references to that concern category, although this effect was not reliable when dream length was controlled Incubati on also increased the range of different concern categories that were represented each night. Over all, reference to at least one concern ca tegory, usually direct (70.7% of references) but often transformed (26 .3% of references), occurred in 98.1% of dream reports, with an averag e of 2.4 categories per report.