General Dreaming > The Science and Psychology of Dreams and Sleep

Dream rebound following thought suppression

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johnb:
This study found that people who consciously attempted to avoid thinking about someone while writing down their stream of thought for 5 minutes before going to sleep were more likely to dream of that person:

http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/40063960?sid=21105844811971&uid=4&uid=3739808&uid=3739256&uid=2

So it might be a good way to induce dreams about a particular person, place, thing, situation, or whatever.

Boadicea:
I've noticed that about my dreams.
The other day I went to a party and had a great time. When leaving, I had one thought about parallel parking, but I didn't really pay attention to it and went on thinking about something else. That night I dreamt not about the party, but about the thing I thought about least: Parallel parking.

So yeah it makes sense that if you try to avoid thinking about something that it would be processed mostly by the SC, which is what drives the dream. Pretty cool.

"What if I said to you, 'don't think about elephants?' Now what are you thinking about?"
"...Elephants."

johnb:

--- Quote from: Boadicea on April 03, 2015, 11:14:19 PM ---I've noticed that about my dreams.
The other day I went to a party and had a great time. When leaving, I had one thought about parallel parking, but I didn't really pay attention to it and went on thinking about something else. That night I dreamt not about the party, but about the thing I thought about least: Parallel parking.

So yeah it makes sense that if you try to avoid thinking about something that it would be processed mostly by the SC, which is what drives the dream. Pretty cool.

"What if I said to you, 'don't think about elephants?' Now what are you thinking about?"
"...Elephants."
--- End quote ---

It does make sense. Haven't tried the writing meditation yet, though. Kind of annoying to have to do all that writing. But maybe just monitoring your thoughts right before going to sleep while trying not to think about one particular thing (elephants, for example) would work.

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