The Dream Effect of Waking Thought, Experience, and Illness: A Research Proposal

: Dream imagery and frequency amongst individuals who are victims of amputation, depression, anxiety, trauma, and many mental disorders, have produced similar content results across the board of many studies. Specifics of other biological and physiological factors that contribute to such content are also examined in the data presented, along with specific case studies that have resulted in self-reported statistics that demonstrate the outcome and impact of waking-day stressors, experiences, and state/trait anxiety on sleeping individuals. Previous data has been collected on dream content recorded amongst amputees, individuals who experienced dreams while undergoing mental disorders, dreams that were supposedly induced with familiar scents, and other outside factors that contributed to the purpose of the study. Further examination of participants is proposed, along with information given on sampling methods, study techniques, and possible outcomes


STATEMENT OF PURPOSE AND HYPOTHESIS
It has been said that there is much to be discovered about the brain.This is in fact, very true.Growing up, as imagination begins to blossom, children realize how advanced and creative their dream imagery may become.Parents may address dream questions with the simple answer that you never dream of someone you have not seen or met before, or that it is just your mind remembering things you have already seen.However, researchers have a different response.
Evidence supports the influence of anxiety and other mental disorders on dreams and nightmares as well as the theory that dreams stem from certain brain structures.Through self-reports, previous case studies, and questionnaires, the goal is to identify specifics on waking experiences, current mental state, and mental health history that may contribute to dream imagery.One of the questionnaires used has been constructed by the researcher and will attempt to explore self-reported data from individuals who will be randomly selected from those who are already undergoing therapy to assist with mental disorders such as depression, anxiety, PTSD, trauma, multiple personality disorder, etc.-resulting in a total number of five hundred participants to ensure wide range of responses for comparison.Other factors that are found to contribute to dream imagery are to be recorded and reported in the conclusion portion of the research.

DREAM STUDIES Amputee Dream Content
An amputation is when an individual has a body part such as leg, arm, foot, etc. surgically removed.There have been reported cases of those who have had one or more of those limbs removed and still felt the presence of the missing limb-this became known as phantom limb (Bekrater-Bodmann, et al., 2015).Negative emotional bias, negative waking situations and otherwise unpleasant experiences while in a waking state were found to have a significant impact on dream imagery and were often displayed as negative content.Three thousand, eight hundred and sixty-two participants were recruited anonymously through state agencies and asked to complete a fifty-three-item questionnaire.This questionnaire was carefully constructed to target post-amputees, and their amputation-related dream content.Demographics of sex and age were recorded; following dream-related questions on the questionnaire were used to measure frequency of amputation in the form of seven-point scales.
Results showed age had little to no effect on dream content (Bekrater-Bodmann, et al., 2015).However, there was a significant difference when comparing results of women vs. men.When looking at dream content, nearly twenty-five percent of participants stated that their dreams consisted having a story line where their limbs have always been intact, and nearly three percent stating the exact opposite.Twenty-two percent were not able to recall if their limbs were intact or not, and nearly thirty-five percent of participants were able to recall a combination of the dream content reported.

Dissociative States and Dreams
Dissociation is a form of waking disturbance that is a little bit more intense than "dosing off" and has been shown to be a result of poor sleeping habits or having unbalanced circadian rhythms (Kloet & Lynn, 2020).The process has been identified as a defense mechanism that is often a result of childhood trauma.It was also theorized that dissociated symptoms are conjured by disruptions in memory which the brain struggles to process during REM sleep-then carrying these fragments of effected memories and experiences over to the individual's waking state.Afterwards, the sleeping individual may wake with a sense of distortion, feeling slightly delusional, or having a confused sense of self (Kloet & Lynn, 2020).Have you ever recalled an event or brief memory and could not decide whether or not it was in a dream, or if it really happened?This may clear things up a bit.

COVID-19 Dreams
Nineteen students were chosen from Trent University who were enrolled in Psychology courses 1030 or 2019 to participate in a study that evaluated the covid-19 pandemic effect on dream imagery (MacKay & DeCicco, 2020).As in incentive for participation, the students were promised a 4.25 bonus credits that would be reflected on their final grade, and were given these points in small amounts as they completed each task that was required during the study.The group of participants presented as mostly female, were predominately between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five, and seventy-four percent identified as Caucasian during the demographic aspect of a background survey they were instructed to complete.
Dream data was collected during the study by dream journals that were kept by all of the participants (MacKay & DeCicco, 2020).Each member was instructed to record his or her dreams in this journal for two weeks.After turn-in, the participants were debriefed on the purpose of the study and given contact information on all who were involved, should they have questions at a later time.
The dream journals were compared to a control group set of journals and it was found that the COVID-19 group experienced a much higher volume of dream imagery that included location changes, animals, food, and virus-related content-all of which were found to also be common amongst those who were diagnosed with waking-day anxiety (MacKay & DeCicco, 2020).

Generalized Anxiety and Adult Dreaming
Falling to the category of waking-day experiences, the effects of anxiety on bad dream occurrence was examined in older adults (Michael R. Nadorff, Ben Porter, Howard M. Rhoades, Anthony J. Greisinger, Mark E. Kunik, & Melinda A. Stanley, 2014).Participants were chosen from a secondary study that had recorded bad dream frequencies of those patients who were observed for fifteen months after receiving cognitive behavioral therapy.Patients in the secondary study were evaluated for generalized anxiety disorder; one hundred and thirty-four participants met the criteria and the remaining members were used as a control.
Results showed that those who fell into the generalized anxiety disorder category has a much higher frequency rate of bad dreams compared to the remaining amount of the secondary study participants (Michael R. Nadorff, Ben Porter, Howard M. Rhoades, Anthony J. Greisinger, Mark E. Kunik, & Melinda A. Stanley, 2014).Thus, also showing that cognitive behavior therapy was a beneficial tool that lowered bad dream frequency in those with generalized anxiety disorder.

The Negative Effect Of Familiar Scents
Of the five senses that are used daily for most individuals, one that has been linked to dream content, while in a sleeping state, is the sense of smell-more specifically, the smelling of familiar things (S., M., T., & K., 2019).In a study, the test group was exposed to a rose-like airflow while the control scent was odorless airflow during REM sleep.When they awoke, the participants were instructed to fill out a questionnaire that pertained to the content of their dreams.Participants, who claimed to be familiar with the scent, reported having more negative dream results than those who were not familiar with the scent.It was concluded that familiar scents may be perceived more heavily and impact dream content due to sensory connections to the amygdala (S., M., T., & K., 2019).

Sleep Disorders and Dreams
There are over a dozen different disorders that pertain to sleep quality, sleep disturbances, and multiple less than desirable sleeping conditions.Dream researcher, Michael Schredl, has preformed and published many studies in peer reviewed journals that go into detail about how certain disorders affect dream frequency, dream content, and further explains different types of dream states.Michael Schredl notes in "Dreams in patients with sleep disorders" that those such as patients with insomnia are more likely to have this disorder as a result of waking-day stressors (Schredl M. , 2009).He has also stated that cognitive impairment can be a contributing factor to negative dream content-further supporting the idea that waking-day experiences and stressors are carried over into dreams.

Fever Dreams
There are many jokes about how movies that have very curious, abnormal, and peculiar content were most likely a result of someone's fever dream-Michael Schredl has covered this topic as well, with partnered researchers.Through an online study, Schredl and his fellow scholars evaluated the dream content found in those who were undergoing a fever (Schredl & Erlacher, 2020).
Participating voluntarily, one hundred and sixty-four participants, made of sixty-three females and one hundred and one men, between the ages of twelve and fifty-six, were used as a sample for Schredl's study (Schredl & Erlacher, 2020).Each of the participants was asked to complete a questionnaire that contained questions pertaining to dream frequency, emotional intensity, and frequency of a fever being present during these dreams.The following results were conducted after receiving a total of one hundred reported fever dreams.Most participants had claimed to have fever dreams quite frequently.Participants also reported to have a level of emotional intensity during a fever dream that surpassed the level of those who had recalled regular dreams.

Attention Deficit Disorder (ADHD) and Dreams
Many factors are taken into consideration when diagnosing a child or adult with ADHD-sleep being one of the most researched (Schredl & Sartorius, 2010).Like other studies conducted by Michael Schredl, a questionnaire was used to support the hypothesis that waking-life is reflected in dreams.After conducting the study with one hundred and three children with ADHD, and