Research study Williams et al

• study into bizarreness in dreams and fantasies: implications for the activation synthesis hypothesis
• The strange nature of some dreams correlates with the neurobiology of REM sleep
• In REM sleep the activated a disconnected brain sends random signals which will result in bizarre dreams
• There are contradictions to the idea that REM sleep causes bizarre dreams


  Many children lack bizarreness in their dreams
• Reinsel et al. (1992) claimed that while REM dreams are bizarre they are no more so than reports of either non-REM dreams or waking fantasy
• Researchers believed that REM sleep and being awake were so different physiologically that they must be different cognitively
• Researchers predicted that the bizarre content of dreams would be different from the bizarre content of fantasies because of the activity associated with REM sleep
• Aim

  to assess the bizarreness in dreams and fantasies as a way of showing support for the activation-synthesis hypothesis of dreaming.
• Design


  natural experiment.  Using the self-report method.      
• IV

  comparing people’s experiences of dreams and fantasies  
• Participants

  12 students on a biopsychology course at Harvard University. 2 males and 10 females (23 – 45 years).   
• Materials


  writing materials for participants to record their experiences and a scale for measuring bizarreness of experiences.
• Procedure

  1. Participants asked to keep a written journal

  2. Record any and all dreams remembered (whether waking in the night or in the morning)

  3. Record mental activity while awake if related to fantasising (something that pops into your head without having an obvious connection to what is happening at the time)
• 60 dreams and 60 fantasies (120 were selected for quantitative analysis) reports were selected from the sample based on length (no longer than five lines)
• Scoring system for bizarreness

  1. Describe the locus of bizarre item (plot, thoughts of dreamer/character, emotion of dreamer/character and Ad Hoc)

  2. Describe the type of bizarreness (discontinuity, incongruity, uncertainty, not bizarre)

  3. Sentences got more than one score if they contained more than one bizarre element

  4. A unit that had no bizarreness got a score of 0
• Bizarreness density


  Calculated by dividing the number of bizarre items scored by the total number of units
• Total densities for each type of bizarreness were determined for both categories – dreams and fantasies
• Scoring procedure

  1. Three judges scored all reports for bizarreness

  2. Judges worked independently to ensure inter-rater reliability

  3. Didn't know if they were scoring a dream or fantasy
• Inter-rater reliability

  • Agreed 80% of the time on bizarre and non-bizarre items
• Difference between dreams and fantasies

  • Most significant on plot discontinuity
  • Also differences on plot incongruity, though incongruity and uncertainty, but not on the other measures
• 7/12 participants had dreams with significantly higher bizarreness scores than their scores for fantasies
• Judges could assess whether a report was a dream or fantasy with 88.7% accuracy
• Dreams


  • Always set in remote times or places
• Fantasies


  • Equally divided between remote or current environments (6/12)
  • Involved the first person in only 4/12 reports
• Dreams


  • Always involved more than one character (12/12)
  • One involved more than eight characters
• Particular brain activity shown in REM sleep

  Is associated with dreams being considered bizarre
• Dreams contain more bizarreness compared to fantasies
• Both trained and untrained judges could distinguish dreams from fantasies suggesting they are two substantially different types of cognitive activity
• There are parallels in brain activity in REM sleep and the wake-sleep boundary where neither register external stimuli so that parts of the brain become sensorially disconnected and fire randomly