I have a continuing interest in the self-perceptual depth that sometimes occurs through intensive self-reflection (cf. Kuiken, Carey, & Nielsen, 1987; Kuiken & Madison, 1987), especially during self-reflection involving dreams (cf. Kuiken & Smith, 1991; Nielsen, Kuiken, & McGregor, 1989; Kuiken, Dunn, & LoVerso, 2008, in press). Dreams have long been associated with the potential for prompting intimacy and intricacy in self-perception, and the primary goal of research conducted by our group is to identify how dreams facilitate such changes.

There is evidence that dreaming combines and juxtaposes memories in a manner that accentuates felt meanings (cf. Kuiken, Rindlisbacher, & Nielsen, 1990) and metaphorically transforms those meanings (Kuiken, Miall, Bears, & Smith, 2001). In ordinary dreams, such meanings can be further accentuated through intensive self-reflection, as often happens in psychotherapy. However, in some dreams, powerful endings influence waking thoughts and feelings independently of dream reflection or interpretation. Such impactful dreams include nightmares, transcendent (archetypal) dreams, and what we have called ‘existential dreams’ (cf. Kuiken & Sikora, 1993; Busink & Kuiken, 1995). Existential dreams present a distinct profile of features, including (a) agonizing sadness; (b) separation and loss; (c) ineffectual movement; (d) spontaneously changing feelings, etc. These dreams present a seeming incongruity: they involve agonizing sadness and yet prompt valued personal insights (Kuiken, 1995; Kuiken, 1999). While transcendent (archetypal) dreams have a mytho-poetic form with spiritual significance, existential dreams have a tragic-poetic expressiveness that deepens and transforms personal meanings (Kuiken, Lee, Eng, & Singh, 2006).

We have studied individual differences in the occurrence of impactful dreams (cf. Kuiken & Nielsen, 1996; Kuiken, Busink, Dukewich, & Gendlin, 1996), hoping to identify those who most frequently are affected by them. We have found that existential dreams are relatively frequent among people who are grieving (Kuiken & Lee, in preparation). To follow this lead, we are contrasting the influence of loss and of trauma on the occurrence and effects of impactful dreams. In one study, we found that, when absorbed in expressive (rather than merely objective or emotional) writing about their impactful dreams, recently bereaved individuals were more likely to report self-perceptual depth, whereas those who had recently experienced acute trauma rehearsed alternative attributions of responsibility for their distress (Kuiken, Dunn, & LoVerso, 2008, in press). In another study (Eng, Kuiken, Temme, & Sharma, 2005), we found that the sense of a fore-shortened future following loss or trauma predicted (a) actively reconstructive forms of feeling expression during wakefulness and (b) spontaneous shifts in dream feelings of the kind that characterize existential dreams -- especially among those currently navigating cultural boundaries (e.g., Chinese-Canadians). Apparently an ‘existential’ sense of life, especially following loss, affords expressive options and initiates a form of dreaming that transforms and deepens self-perception.

 Publications: Dreams and Self-Perceptual Depth 

Kuiken, D., Dunn, S., & LoVerso, T. (2008). Expressive writing about dreams that follow trauma and loss. Dreaming, in press.

Abstract. In a study of expressive writing about impactful dreams, the effects of writing instructions (factual writing, emotional writing, experiential writing) were examined among individuals who had recently experienced either significant trauma or significant loss. Among those who had recently experienced trauma, both emotional writing and experiential writing accentuated traumatic distress. However, experiential writing distinctively facilitated the affirmation (or rehearsal) of a trauma narrative that emphasized unintentional responsibility rather than direct self-blame. In contrast, among those who had recently experienced loss, absorption in the revisualized dream predicted significant (but unspecified) shifts in self-perception, especially in the experiential writing condition. While the trauma-specific effects of expressive writing are consistent with prior research suggesting that expressive writing benefits those who have recently experienced trauma but not those who have recently experienced loss, the present results suggest the importance of examining population-specific outcomes in studies of the psychological benefits of expressive writing. [Return to Text]

Kuiken, D., Lee, M.N., Eng, T.C., & Singh, T. (2006). The influence of impactful dreams on self-perceptual depth and spiritual transformation. Dreaming, 16, 258-279.

Abstract. Two studies contrasted the short-term effects of nightmares, existential dreams, and transcendent dreams (Busink & Kuiken, 1996; Kuiken & Sikora, 1993). Results from Study 1 indicated that existential dreams were more likely than mundane dreams, transcendent dreams, or nightmares to be followed by reported self-perceptual depth; also, transcendent dreams were more likely than mundane dreams, existential dreams, or nightmares to be followed by reported spiritual transformation. Results from Study 2 replicated these findings for existential dreams, indicating also that the type of spiritual transformation associated with transcendent dreams involved an ecstatic sense of release from everyday entanglements. Both existential dreams and transcendent dreams moved the dreamer toward an unbounded sense of life in all things, as did lucid forms of all three dream types. Such unbounded enlivenment suggests an aesthetic substrate to the changes induced by each of these dream types. The contrasting short-term effects of impactful dreams may require integration into a comprehensive model of long-term dream function. [Return to Text]

Eng, T.C., Kuiken, D., Lee, M.N., & Sharma, R. (2005). Navigating the complexities of two cultures: Bicultural competence, feeling expression, and feeling change in dreams. Journal of Cultural and Evolutionary Psychology, 3, 261-279.

Abstract. Biculturally competent individuals may adopt flexible forms of emotional expression that help them address not only acculturation stress but also the forms of distress that affect bicultural and monocultural individuals alike. In a sample of 174 bicultural undergraduates, bicultural competence interacted with an “existential” aspect of depression (i.e., the sense of a foreshortened future) to predict both expressive flexibility during wakefulness and emotional flux within the content of impactful dreams. Among individuals high in bicultural competence, those who sensed a foreshortened future following loss or trauma were more likely to report: (1) feeling exploration through direct self-reflection; (2) feeling exploration through aesthetic response; and (3) spontaneous emotional flux within impactful dreams. These findings suggest that expressive flexibility among biculturally competent individuals becomes evident in their manner of identifying, understanding, and expressing emotions during a stressful life event. [Return to Text]

Kuiken, D., Miall, D.S., Bears, M., & Smith, L. (2002). Eye movement desensitization reprocessing facilitates attentional orienting. Imagination, Cognition, and Personality, 21, 3-20.

Abstract. Eye Movement Desensitization Reprocessing (EMDR) is a controversial treatment for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder that requires clients to make rapid eye movements while revisualizing a traumatic event. Although seemingly effective, the process by which EMDR exerts its effects is poorly understood. We propose that EMDR’s eye movements facilitate the orienting response, i.e., the attentional adjustment to unexpected stimuli. Since the orienting response has been implicated in spontaneous transformations of dream content during REM sleep, we reasoned that, similarly, activation of the orienting response during EMDR may facilitate content transformations in traumatic memories. To examine this hypothesis, twenty-five undergraduates completed 20 seconds of eye movements or 20 seconds of visual fixation before each of two tasks: (a) a covert visual attention task in which a cue indicated the likely position of a subsequent target, and (b) a sentence rating task, in which sentences with either metaphoric or non-metaphoric endings were rated for strikingness. Repeated measures ANOVAs indicated that the eye movement manipulation facilitated attentional adjustments to targets presented in invalidly cued locations and increased the extent to which metaphoric sentence endings were found striking. Together these results suggest that the eye movements in EMDR induce attentional and semantic flexibility, thereby facilitating transformations in the client’s narrative representation of the traumatic event. The implications of these findings for theories of dream formation and metaphor comprehension are also considered. [Return to Text]

Kuiken, D. (1999). An enriched conception of dream metaphor. Sleep and Hypnosis, 1, 112-121.

Abstract. Examination of the analogy between dreams and literature within a neoformalist perspective indicates that current accounts diminish the importance of the other major literary tropes, such as metonymy and irony, and fail to appreciate the importance of interactive theories of metaphor. By contrasting collective and composite dream images (Freud, 1900/1953), the reductionistic nature of current conceptions of dream metaphor becomes evident. An alternative, based on composite dream images, substantiates States’ (1988) characterization of the analogy between literature and dreaming. A method of dream analysis is introduced that identifies central themes within the dream, independently of dreamer associations, and specifies the expressive devices that provide defamiliarizing transformations of those central themes. Preliminary explorations using this method indicate the importance of identifying the defamiliarizing transformations of composite dream images in any attempt to understand their effects, especially as these become evident in impactful dreams. [Return to Text]

Kuiken, D.,& Nielsen, T.A. (1996). Individual differences in orienting activity mediate feeling realization in dreams: I. Evidence from retrospective reports of movement inhibition, Dreaming, 6, 201-217.

Abstract. Existential dreams, which involve ineffectuality, sadness, and separation (Kuiken & Sikora, 1993), frequently provide shifts in feeling that sensitize dreamers to aspects of their lives they have previously ignored. To better understand that phenomenon, we examined whether individual differences in movement inhibition during the orienting response (either while awake or dreaming) would predict: (a) the enactment of dreams during awakening, (b) a lingering sense of the reality of dream events, and (c) dream-induced self-perceptual depth. Three studies using retrospective questionnaires and one using dream diaries provided consistent evidence of these relationships. Also, individual differences in movement inhibition and in the preceding dream effects were consistently associated with absorption (Tellegen, 1982), a personality dimension related to openness to experience. Finally, results from one study confirmed that dream-induced self-perceptual depth is more closely associated with the occurrence of existential dreams, than with either anxiety dreams (nightmares) or transcendent (archetypal) dreams. [Return to Text]

Kuiken, D.,Busink, R. Dukewich, T.L., & Gendlin, E.T. (1996). Individual differences in orienting activity mediate feeling realization in dreams: II. Evidence from concurrent reports of movement inhibition, Dreaming, 6, 251-264.

The ineffectuality that is characteristic of existential dreams (Kuiken & Sikora, 1993) may prompt shifts in feeling that sensitize dreamers to aspects of their lives they have previously ignored. Consistent with this hypothesis, Kuiken and Nielsen (1995) found that individual differences in retrospectively reported movement inhibition during the waking orienting response predicted dream ineffectuality and dream-induced self-perceptual depth. We replicated and extended these findings using concurrently reported changes in bodily feeling during waking orientating activity. Study 1 indicated that the accentuation of feelings or sensations in stimulated emotion-related body areas (e.g., the upper chest) and the inhibition of feelings or sensations in stimulated emotion-unrelated areas (e.g., the non-dominant foot) predicted for whom dreams deepened self-perception. Similarly, Study 2 indicated that simultaneously accentuated feeling in a stimulated emotion-related area and suppressed feeling in an emotion-unrelated body area predicted for whom dreams deepened self-perception. Thus, individual differences in the activation and inhibition components of orienting activity during REM sleep may mediate increased self-perceptual depth through dreams. [Return to Text]

Kuiken, D (1995). Dreams and feeling realization. Dreaming, 5, 129-157.

Abstract. Among three different types of impactful dreams (transcendent dreams, anxiety dreams, and existential dreams), existential dreams most frequently prompt reports of deepened self-perception (Kuiken & Sikora, 1993). To understand this effect, it is useful to consider three separate aspects of dream experience, each mediated by a different component of dream psychobiology. First, in impactful dreams generally, narrative discontinuities mark mnemonic transformations that present progressively non-prototypic personal meanings. Second, in impactful dreams generally, a heightened sense of ‘reality’ emerges from accentuation of the dreamer’s felt engagement in vividly present dream situations. Third, in existential dreams particularly, the disruption of smooth engagement in dream actions initiates the realization of feelings that are tinged with sadness and that uproot superficiality. The interplay of these aspects of dream experience is required to understand how existential dreams deepen self-perception. [Return to Text]

Busink, R., & Kuiken, D. (1995). Identifying types of impactful dreams: A replication. Dreaming, 6, 97-119.

Abstract. In an attempt to replicate a classificatory study reported by Kuiken and Sikora (1993), thirty-six men and women reported a dream that was as impactful as their most impactful dream during the preceding month and then the first dream that they recalled at least four days later. Cluster analysis revealed five classes of dreams, each with a characteristic profile of emotions and feelings, goals and concerns, movement styles, sensory phenomena, self-reflectiveness, and dream endings. Four of these classes substantially correspond to the dream types identified in the original study: existential dreams (distressing dreams concerned with separation and personal integrity), anxiety dreams (frightening dreams concerned with threats to physical well-being), transcendent dreams (ecstatic dreams concerned with magical accomplishments), and mundane (unimpactful ) dreams. A fifth class of moderately impactful dreams, new to this study and referred to as alienation dreams, expressed emotional agitation and concerns about interpersonal efficacy. [Return to Text]

Kuiken, D., & Sikora, S. (1993). The impact of dreams on waking thoughts and feelings. In A. Moffitt, M. Kramer, & R. Hoffman (Eds.), The functions of dreams. Albany, New York: SUNY Press, pp. 419-475.

Summary. This chapter reports a phenomenological study that identified three types of impactful dreams: anxiety dreams (nightmares), transcendent dreams (archetypal dreams), and existential dreams. Each dream type was associated with different effects on waking activity. Of particular importance was evidence that existential dreams were more likely to prompt self-perceptual depth than other types of impactful dreams. Also discussed is the possibility that slightly different aspects of the orienting response, which is especially prominent during REM sleep, may mediate these different dream types. [Return to Text]

Kuiken, D., & Smith, L. (1991). Impactful dreams and metaphor generation. Dreaming, 1, 135-145.

Abstract.This study examined whether impactful dreaming increases the ease with which novel and apt metaphors are generated immediately after awakening. For about two weeks, 42 participants rated the impact of their spontaneously recalled dreams on thoughts and feelings during subsequent wakefulness. During those weeks, participants completed a metaphor task either immediately after a relatively impactful dream or immediately after an ordinary dream. For the metaphor task, participants were instructed to either generate metaphors using actions, persons, and places from their dream imagery or to generate metaphors using actions, persons, and places from (guided) fantasies that they created immediately after dreaming. Participants’ ratings of their own metaphors indicated that metaphors generated from actions in dream imagery were more novel than metaphors generated from actions in fantasy imagery. Also, participants’ ratings indicated that, when using dream imagery, metaphors created after impactful dreams were more easily generated and more apt than metaphors created after ordinary dreams, although, when using fantasy imagery, metaphors created after impactful dreams were less easily generated and less apt than metaphors created after ordinary dreams. [Return to Text]

Kuiken, D., Rindlisbacher, P., & Nielsen, T. (1990). Feeling expression and the incorporation of presleep events into dreams. Journal of Imagination, Cognition, and Personality, 10, 157-166.

Abstract. The expression of feelings about events occurring immediately before sleep was expected to increase the influence of remote memories on dream content and to decrease the influence of immediate presleep events on dream content. On each of two successive nights, twelve participants were asked to 1) view an emotionally involving film, 2) select the film segment that felt personally most important, and 3) rate the film segment using adjectives descriptive of affect. Participants in the feeling expression condition were then instructed to reflect on and characterize the feelings they experienced during the film, whereas participants in the no feeling condition were instructed to reflect on and analyze their impressions of the film's aesthetic quality. All participants were subsequently awakened from REM sleep and asked to 1) describe their sleep mentation and 2) rate the affect accompanying that mentation. As hypothesized, participants in the feeling expression condition were less likely than participants in the no feeling expression condition to have dreams with actions and scenes similar to those from the presleep films. They were also more likely than participants in no feeling expression condition to have dreams with affect comparable to that experienced while viewing the presleep films. [Return to Text]

Nielsen, T., Kuiken, D., & McGregor, D. (1989). Effects of dream reflection on waking affect: Awareness of feelings, Rorschach movement, and facial EMG. Sleep, 12, 277-286.

Abstract. The clinical and research literature suggests that waking dream reflection increases awareness of feelings. To examine this possibility, 16 male and 16 female participants spent a single night in the sleep laboratory while rapid eye movement (REM) sleep physiology and facial electromyogram (EMG) were monitored. Participants in the dream imagery condition were awakened from REM sleep and asked to reflect on their dreams. Participants in the fantasy imagery condition were awakened from REM sleep and asked to reflect on guided fantasies modeled on dream narratives. Unexpectedly, self-reported awareness of feelings was less common either during affective or cognitive reflection on dreams than during reflection on fantasies, especially for females. In contrast, facial EMG activity was greater during dream reflection than during fantasy reflection. Since facial EMG during REM sleep and during dream reflection was correlated with self-reported orienting during dreaming, these results are understandable as evidence of the ‘carry-over’ of REM orienting activity during dream reflection, resulting in reduced kinesthetic/affective sensitivity and reduced awareness of feelings. [Return to Text]

Kuiken, D, Carey, R & Nielsen, T (1987). Moments of affective insight: Their phenomenology and relation to selected individual differences. Imagination, Cognition, and Personality, 6, 341-364.

Abstract. Affective insight was defined as a subjective event occurring during intensive self-reflection. To study affective insight, seventy-nine individuals were presented with instructions designed to encourage intensive self-reflection. Subsequently, they completed an open-ended questionnaire and a seventy-two item true-false questionnaire describing their experience during self-reflection. Q-type factor analysis of the seventy-two-item questionnaire revealed four different types of reactions during the instructions: underdistancng, overdistancing, intellectual self-control, and apprehensive insight. An eight item Affective Insight Scale (AIS) was developed which was independent of social desirability, which differentiated these four groups of participants, and which correlated positively with a judge’s ratings of affective insight as indicated in responses to the open-ended questionnaire. Using the AIS, there was support for the hypothesis that affective insight is associated with imagery involvement, as measured by the Creative Imagination Scale, the Absorption Scale, and Rorschach M responses. There was also some support for the hypothesis that affective insight is associated with a preference for novel imagery, as measured by the Barron-Welsh Art Scale. Other trait measures predicted reactions which were conceptually and empirically independent of affective insight (e.g., intellectual self-control), indicating the importance of simultaneously studying different reactions during intensive self-reflection. [Return to Text]

Kuiken, D., & Madison, G. (1987). The effects of death contemplation on the meaning of life. Omega, 18, 99-108.

Abstract. Affective involvement during reflection on personal mortality was expected to facilitate psychological change. Twenty participants engaged in an age progression fantasy during which they imagined themselves gradually aging and eventually dying. Then one-half of the participants evaluated their fantasy experiences objectively and one-half attended to their feelings about their fantasies and attempted to find words or phrases that characterized their feelings. Compared to participants in the objective evaluation condition, participants in the affective involvement condition provided lower scores on the Purpose in Life Scale and on the rated meaningfulness of several specific activities. On the other hand, participants in the affective involvement condition tended to report that ‘inner searching and personal growth’ contributed more to life meaning than did participants in the objective evaluation condition. These results indicate that the immediate effect of affective involvement during death contemplation is a distressing disengagement from some previously meaningful pursuits. The role of this effect in long-term psychological change is discussed. [Return to Text]