1 Department of Psychology, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta
² Department of Psychology, University of Notre Dame, South Bend, Indiana
³ The Focusing Institute, Spring Valley, New York
⁴ Correspondence should be directed to Don Kuiken, Department of Psychology, P-220 Biological Sciences Building, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, Canada, T6G 2E9.

Abstract

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 (1996) 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 orienting 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 dreaming may mediate increased self-perceptual depth.

KEY WORDS: dream function; orienting response; self-perception; body awareness.

Recent classificatory studies (Kuiken & Sikora, 1993; Busink & Kuiken, 1996) have identified a type of dream involving frustrating ineffectuality, agonizing sadness, and themes concerning separation and loss. Despite their negative tone, these "existential dreams" often are valued because somehow they deepen self-perception. Kuiken (1995) has proposed that such self-perceptual depth is precipitated by these dreams' characteristic feelings of ineffectuality. Dream transformations of emotional reactions to ineffectuality (e.g., frustration transformed into sadness) are experienced as a kind of "feeling realization" that lingers even after awakening. Kuiken also proposed that the ineffectuality of existential dreams may be mediated by intensification of the neuromuscular inhibition that is normally associated with the orienting response (OR) during REM sleep.

In Part I of this report, Kuiken and Nielsen (1996) provided preliminary evidence for these proposals. They found that individuals reporting frequent movement inhibition during dreaming or during sudden waking emotions—often recalled dreams that involved (a) the enactment of dream events during awakening, (b) a lingering sense of the "reality" of dream events, and (c) dream-induced self-perceptual depth. They also confirmed that such dream-induced self-perceptual depth is more closely associated with the occurrence of existential dreams than with the occurrence of either anxiety dreams (nightmares) or transcendent (archetypal) dreams.

The Kuiken and Nielsen findings were limited by reliance upon remote recall of OR-related movement inhibition. In three of their studies, movement inhibition during dreaming was recalled in response to a general question about the frequency of dreamed ineffectuality within the past year (e.g., "During events within a dream, do you ever feel weak or unable to move?"). In a fourth study, the difficulties of recalling felt ineffectuality during dreaming were minimized by using dream diaries in which participants answered a similar question as soon as possible after awakening. However, in all four studies, movement inhibition during wakefulness was recalled in response to general questions about weakness or movement difficulties during emotional events within the past year (e.g., "Do you ever feel weak or unable to move during daytime laughter, surprise, fear, or other strong emotions?"). In the studies reported here, we attempted to (a) provide an index of movement inhibition during wakefulness that depended upon concurrent verbal reports and (b) examine the relationship between that index and dream-induced self-perceptual depth.

The rationale for our assessment procedures requires consideration of three components of the OR. Beyond a covert component that initiates adjustments in working memory, there are two peripheral components of the OR: (a) activation of musculature involved in the reallocation of attention within the currently salient response modality (e.g., for the visual modality, activation of the musculature involved in head movements and gaze adjustments) and (b) inhibition of musculature unrelated to the currently salient response modality (e.g., transient loss of tone in the postural musculature). When these peripheral components of the OR are sufficiently intense and prolonged, experience of them may include increased feelings or sensations in musculature related to the salient response modality (e.g., active visual exploration experienced as felt engagement) and decreased feelings or sensations in musculature unrelated to that modality (e.g., loss of postural muscle tone experienced as momentary weakness or inability to move).

When assessing experiential effects of the OR, it is crucial to identify the salient response modality. For example, overt attentional adjustments in the visual modality make salient the neuromuscular systems that produce gaze adjustments; adjustments in the olfactory modalities make salient neuromuscular systems that produce sniffing, etc. Because existential dreams characteristically involve the transformation of emotional feelings (cf. Kuiken & Sikora, 1993), assessment procedures in the present study made emotional expression the salient response modality. Specifically, borrowing from Gendlin's (1981) description of "direct reference," we asked participants to reflect on bodily feelings (to "hold" them in attention) and to characterize their affective connotations (to "capture" those connotations in a word or phrase). Our justification for making "holding" and "capturing" emotional feelings the salient response modality included evidence that (a) sudden emotional responses frequently are associated with OR-related movement inhibition during wakefulness (Morrison & Dinges, 1986; Kuiken & Nielsen, in press) and (b) emotional feelings are accentuated in dreams that involve OR-related movement inhibition (Kuiken & Nielsen, 1996).

So, participants in Study 1 were instructed to "hold" and "capture" the feelings or sensations that they experienced in two emotion-related body areas (e.g., the upper chest) and in two emotion-unrelated body areas (e.g., the non-dominant hand). We expected that novel stimulation of emotion-related body areas would directly evoke emotional feelings (e.g., induced tensions in the upper chest might be felt as "apprehension"; cf. Laird, Cuniff, Sheehan, Shulman, & Strum, 1991). And, because the instructions made emotional expression the salient response modality, we also expected that stimulation of body areas normally unrelated to emotion would indirectly evoke emotional feelings, primarily because of the affective connotations of metaphoric attempts to characterize bodily feelings in those areas (e.g., induced tensions in the non-dominant hand might be felt as "reaching out").

Assuming that the activation component of the OR is experienced as an increase in feelings or sensations in modality-relevant (i.e., emotion-related) musculature, we hypothesized that individuals who manifest such stimulation-induced increases would report frequent dream-induced self-perceptual depth (Hypothesis 1). And, assuming that the inhibition component of the OR might be experienced as a decrease in feelings or sensations in modality-irrelevant (i.e., emotion-unrelated) musculature, we hypothesized that individuals who manifest such decreases also would report frequent dream-induced self-perceptual depth (Hypothesis 2).

Participants. Participants were volunteers who responded to announcements in advanced undergraduate psychology classes or to posters placed on campus bulletin boards. To be eligible, volunteers had to recall at least one dream per week. An initial telephone interview determined whether they had recently experienced extreme psychological distress, had any obvious sleep disorder, or experienced any chronic sources of body pain or discomfort. Of 46 screened volunteers, 6 failed to return research materials and 7 were excluded due to technical difficulties, resulting in a final sample of 33 individuals (11 men and 22 women; mean age: 23.2 yrs.).

Procedure. Participants individually attended a 50-minute laboratory session. Each person received an initial overview of the procedures and provided written consent to participate under the conditions described. After administration of the Body Awareness Assessment, each individual was supplied with the Sleep/Dreams Questionnaire for completion later at home. When returning these materials during a follow-up session, participants were given a complete debriefing.

Body Awareness Assessment. Instructions for the Body Awareness Assessment (BAA) were read aloud and timed by the experimenter. Presented as a procedure for the assessment of self-perception, especially "bodily self-perception," these instructions asked participants to attend sequentially to two emotion-related (modality-relevant) and two emotion-unrelated (modality-irrelevant) body areas (selected on the basis of evidence from Nieuwenhuyse, Offenberg, & Frijda, 1987). Emotion-related areas were the upper chest and the mouth/jaw region; emotion-unrelated areas were the non-dominant hand and non-dominant foot. Participants first attended to these four body areas after brief relaxation instructions; then they attended to the same four body areas but either after moving or touching them.

The relaxation instructions were administered prior to the first series of four trials. These instructions suggested that participants concentrate on their breathing, "breathe away" any tension that they felt, and let their attention "turn more and more inward with each breath." During reflection on each of the four body areas, order of presentation of emotion-related and emotion-unrelated body areas was counterbalanced.

The second series of trials included instructions for physically moving and then reflecting on each of two body areas (one emotion-related and one emotion-unrelated) and also for touching and then reflecting on each of two other body areas (one emotion-related and one emotion-unrelated) and also for touching and then reflecting on each of two other body areas (one emotion-related and one emotion-unrelated). Movement instructions required moving or tensing muscles in the designated body area, with minimal tactile involvement ("Slowly open your hand, fully expanding your fingers, and then, without letting your fingers touch your palm, gently close your hand. Now relax again."). Touch instructions required physically touching the designated body area with the dominant hand ("Reach across and place your [dominant] hand on your [non-dominant] hand. Now relax and return your hand to your side."). Within the movement/touch series, counterbalancing ensured that one emotion-related and one emotion-unrelated body area was designated under both the movement and touch conditions.

For each of the total of eight trials, the following instructions were given:

1. The participant was asked to reflect on the selected body area, to allow curiosity about anything experienced there, and to signal when "anything" was noticed there (e.g. "...let yourself pay attention to anything you may be experiencing in your upper chest right now. Let yourself be curious about any feeling or sensations there...if you notice anything, signal by raising the first finger of your [dominant] hand");

2. Twenty seconds after the signal, the participant was asked to confirm whether feelings or sensations were experienced in the designated body area ("...please tell me whether your experience involved a feeling or a sensation");

3. Then the participant was asked to "hold" or "bring...back" the feeling or sensation and to signal when it could be experienced again;

4. Twenty seconds after this second signal, the participant was asked to indicate how easily that feeling or sensation could be held in awareness ("...how easily can you hold the feeling or sensation in awareness right now?");

5. Next the participant attempted to capture the feeling or sensation in a word, phrase, or image ("Take a moment to find a word, a phrase, or perhaps an image that captures the qualities of that feeling or sensation");

6. Finally, the participant was asked to rate how well the selected word, phrase, or image "capture[d] the qualities of that feeling or sensation."

All ratings were on a 5-point scale (1 = Not at all; 5 = Extremely).

Sleep/Dreams Questionnaire. The Sleep/Dreams Questionnaire (SDQ) was a modification of an instrument that has been used to assess patterns of dreaming in several previous studies (Kuiken & Sikora, l993; Kuiken & Nielsen, 1996). SDQ responses indicate the frequency of experienced dream events, ranging from 0 = "Never" to 5 = "Very often (one or more times per week)."

Several aspects of dream experience were measured. First, the threshold for movement inhibition during dreaming was assessed by asking: "During events within a dream, do you ever feel weak or unable to move?" Second, affective involvement in dreams was measured by summing ratings for three items reflective of actual or incipient emotion during dream events (e.g., "How often, while you are dreaming, have you become distinctly aware of your feelings and emotions?"). Third, enactment of the dream during awakening was assessed by asking: "How often do you awaken to find yourself acting out your dream (e.g., crying during a sad dream, talking out loud during a dream in which someone is talking)?" Fourth, the lingering sense of dream reality after awakening was assessed by summing ratings for three items referring to the dream self, other dream figures, and dream places and things (e.g., "How often have dream places or things seemed 'real' to you even after awakening?").

Finally, a 4-item scale was used to measure dream-induced self-perceptual depth. These items were identified previously (Kuiken & Sikora, 1993) in a factor analysis of SDQ items probing the effects of impactful dreams on subsequent waking thoughts, feelings, and activities. Adaptations of this scale have been used to compare dream and fantasy reflection (Nielsen, Kuiken, & McGregor, 1989), to compare existential dreams with other types of impactful dreams (Kuiken & Sikora, 1993; Busink & Kuiken, 1996), and to study individual differences in movement inhibition and dream-induced self-perceptual depth (Kuiken & Nielsen, 1996). Items in this scale included: "How often have your dreams reminded you of events that occurred in your past?"; "How often after a dream have you felt more sensitive to aspects of your life that you typically ignore?"; and "How often have you experienced dreams that make you feel like changing the way you live?" To complete the scale, the sum of the preceding three items was added to the average of three other items reflective of different types of lingering dream affect (fear, sadness, and joy; e.g., "How often after awakening from a dream have you felt deeply saddened about life?").

Ratings from the BAA were used to create two separate measures of feeling response. First, for each of the eight trials, the participant's rated ability to hold the feeling in awareness was multiplied by their rating of how well their word, phrase, or image captured feeling qualities. The resulting index of Feeling Expression reflects the extent to which participants could hold those feelings in awareness and represent them symbolically. Second, for each body area, the Feeling Expression index after relaxation was subtracted from the Feeling Expression index after stimulation (either movement or touch) to measure the extent to which novel bodily stimulation increased the capacity for feeling expression ("OR Feeling Expression"). The differences between stimulation due to movement and to touch proved inconsequential, and all results will be presented independently of that distinction.

Preliminary Analyses. The results obtained disconfirm some "obvious" expectations. For example, it might be expected that the general capacity for feeling expression would predict dream-induced self-perceptual depth, regardless of body area. However, there was no reliable relationship between the SDQ measure of dream-induced self-perceptual depth and Feeling Expression summed across all eight trials (r = .01). Also, it might be expected that feeling expression in emotion-related areas alone would predict self-perceptual depth. However, the correlation between self-perceptual depth and Feeling Expression summed across emotion-related body areas was negligible (r = .03). And, it might be expected that feeling expression after stimulation would predict self-perceptual depth, but the correlation between self-perceptual depth and Feeling Expression after stimulation was again small and unreliable (r = -.10).

Hypothesized Relationships. In contrast, a pattern partly consistent with the OR movement inhibition model was observed. As indicated in the rightmost column of Table 1 (Study 1, Part A), dream-induced self-perceptual depth was not reliably correlated with the OR Feeling Expression index for modality-relevant (i.e., emotion-related) body areas, disconfirming Hypothesis 1. On the other hand, as predicted, dream-induced self-perceptual depth was inversely related to the OR Feeling Expression index for modality-irrelevant (i.e., emotion-unrelated) body areas (r = -.46). In other words, participants who were less able to "hold" and expressively "capture" feelings after stimulation of emotion-unrelated body areas were more likely to report dream-induced self-perceptual depth (Hypothesis 2). In addition, OR Feeling Expression for modality-irrelevant (emotion-unrelated) body areas tended to be inversely related to other dream characteristics associated with self-perceptual depth: affective involvement during dreaming (r = -.38), dream enactment during awakening (r = -.27), and a lingering sense of dream reality after awakening (r = -.30), although these correlations were not statistically reliable when alpha levels were corrected using multi-stage Bonferroni procedures (Lazelere & Mulaik, 1977).

Auxiliary Analyses. Additional analyses suggested that the failure to confirm Hypothesis 1 was due to an inappropriate choice of the mouth/jaw region as an emotion-related body area. The correlation between dream-induced self-perceptual depth and OR Feeling Expression for the mouth/jaw region (r = -.13) more nearly resembled the negative correlation obtained for emotion-unrelated body areas. In contrast (see Table 1, Study 1, Part B), the positive correlation (r = .42, p < .10) between self-perceptual depth and OR Feeling Expression in the upper chest is congruent with Hypothesis 1.

Further examination of the correlations for specific body areas provided evidence that the contrast between OR Feeling Expression in the upper chest and OR Feeling Expression in the non-dominant foot consistently predicted dream-induced self-perceptual depth. First, when OR Feeling Expression for the upper chest and OR Feeling Expression for the non-dominant foot were included in a multiple regression model, each of these indices contributed independently to the prediction of dream-induced self-perceptual depth (upper chest, std. coeff. = .42, p < .01; non-dominant foot, std. coeff. = -.23, p < .08; R = .48; F(2, 30) = 4.49, p < .02). Second, as indicated in Table 1 (Study 1, Part B), the differences between the correlations for the upper chest and the non-dominant foot consistently suggest contrasting relations between OR Feeling Expression in these two body areas and: (a) affective involvement during dreaming, (b) enactment of dream actions during awakening, (c) a lingering sense of dream reality after awakening, and (d) dream-induced self-perceptual depth (although only the latter difference is statistically reliable; t(30) = 2.88, p < .05; see McNemar, 1962, p. 140). Third, all 10 of these correlations (5 positive and 5 negative) were in the direction predicted by our model, a pattern that a Sign Test indicates is highly unlikely to occur by chance (p < .003).

Some of the results from Study 1 directly parallel relationships observed by Kuiken and Nielsen (1996). They found that retrospective estimates of movement inhibition during sudden emotional events while awake predicted dream-induced self-perceptual depth. Similarly, in the present study, concurrently reported post-stimulation suppression of feeling expression in emotion-unrelated body areas predicted dream-induced self-perceptual depth (Hypothesis 2). Moreover, as in the Kuiken and Nielsen studies, suppression of feelings and sensations in emotion-unrelated musculature was predictive of dream enactment during awakening and of a lingering sense of dream reality even after awakening. The absolute values of these correlations ([.27] to [.46]) were in the same range as those obtained by Kuiken and Nielsen in their questionnaire studies ([.23] to [.47]), although in the present case these coefficients were not consistently reliable given the small sample size. Nonetheless, the present results (modestly) reinforce the notion that OR-related movement inhibition mediates emergence of the sense of dream engagement and dream reality that contributes to some dreams' effects on waking self-perception.

On the other hand, the hypothesis that the activation component of the OR would contribute to prediction of dream-induced self-perceptual depth (Hypothesis 1) received rather meager support. In general, OR-related enhancement of feeling expression in the emotion-related areas selected for this study was not associated with more frequent reports of dream-induced self-perceptual depth. Rather, the hypothesized relationship was observed for the enhancement of OR-related feeling expression in the upper chest but not in the mouth/jaw region. These findings, and the overall pattern of the correlations, suggested that replacing the mouth/jaw region with a different emotion-related body area might enable replication of the results obtained for the upper chest area – and more clearly substantiate Hypothesis 1.

Besides replacing the mouth/jaw region as an emotion-related body area, Study 2 was an attempt to clarify the relationships observed in Study 1. In Study 1, it was assumed that stimulation of emotion-related musculature would directly activate an emotionally expressive response, whereas stimulation of emotion-unrelated musculature would indirectly do so. Thus, despite differences in the body area stimulated, the salient response modality always involved emotional expression. Under this assumption, post-stimulation contrasts between modality-relevant (emotion-related) and modality-irrelevant (emotion-unrelated) body areas seemed warranted. Although the nature of the BAA instructions made this assumption plausible, it was by no means secure. Therefore, in Study 2, following stimulation of an emotion-related body area, changes in feeling expression were immediately assessed in that body area and in an unstimulated and emotion-unrelated body area, providing direct and nearly simultaneous assessment of modality-relevant and modality-irrelevant changes.

Participants. Participants were 56 introductory psychology students (18 men, 38 women; mean age = 19.7 yrs.), who completed the study in partial fulfillment of course requirements. To be eligible, they had to indicate that they recalled at least one dream per week.

Procedure. In a 50-minute laboratory session, each person received an initial overview of the procedures and provided written consent to participate under the conditions described. After administration of a modified version of the Body Awareness Assessment, each individual completed the Sleep/Dreams Questionnaire before receiving a complete debriefing.

Body Awareness Assessment. For this study, the BAA used in Study 1 was modified in several ways:

1. In addition to the upper chest, the abdomen was selected as an emotion-related body area (replacing the mouth/jaw region). The non-dominant hand and foot were retained as emotion-unrelated areas.

2. Participants in Study 1 had been asked to (a) reflect on the identified feeling or sensation for 20 seconds, (b) "hold" or "bring back" that feeling or sensation, (c) reflect on the retrieved feeling or sensation another 20 seconds, and (d) indicate how easily they could "hold" those feelings in awareness. In contrast, in the present study, participants were questioned immediately after the first 20 second reflection interval. At that time, they were asked to rate the clarity of their feelings or sensations ("...how clear is that feeling or sensation in your awareness?") and how well they could "hold" that feeling or sensation in awareness. Then, as before, they attempted to find a "word or phrase" to "capture" those feelings and rated how effectively they were able to do so.

3. During two stimulation trials (for one emotion-related and one emotion-unrelated body area), participants were asked to (a) rate feeling clarity in the stimulated area, (b) shift attention to an unstimulated body area, (c) identify any feelings present in that area, and (d) rate their clarity. Following these ratings of feeling clarity, participants returned attention to the stimulated body area and, just as in Study 1, rated how well they could "hold" those feelings in awareness and how well they could "capture" those feelings in a word or phrase. Thus, on one of these trials, feeling clarity ratings for a stimulated, emotion-related area were followed immediately by clarity ratings for an unstimulated, emotion-unrelated area. On the other trial, ratings for a stimulated, emotion-unrelated area were followed by clarity ratings for an unstimulated, emotion-related area.

4. Stimulation trials in this study only involved movement (rather than touch and movement, as in Study 1).

The order of body areas was counterbalanced, as before.

Sleep/Dreams Questionnaire. The Sleep/Dreams Questionnaire (SDQ) was the same as in Study 1.

On the four relaxation trials and the two stimulation trials, each participant's reported ability to hold the feeling in awareness was multiplied by their rating of how well their word or phrase captured feeling qualities, creating the Feeling Expression index. Also, for the two stimulated body areas, Feeling Expression after relaxation was subtracted from Feeling Expression after stimulation to create the OR Feeling Expression index. Finally, for the stimulated emotion-related body area, an overall OR Clarity index was created according to the formula (A-B)-(C-D), where:

A = feeling clarity in an emotion-related area after stimulation (e.g., the upper chest)

B = feeling clarity after relaxation in that same emotion-related area (A-B) = OR clarity for the emotion-related area

C = feeling clarity in an emotion-unrelated area (e.g., the non-dominant hand) after stimulation of the emotion-related area referred to in A

D = feeling clarity in that same emotion-unrelated area after relaxation (C-D) = OR clarity for the emotion-unrelated area

A positive score on this index reflects increased clarity ratings in the stimulated, emotion-related area and/or simultaneously decreased clarity in an emotion-unrelated area. (An analogous index was created for the case in which an emotion-unrelated body area was stimulated before shifting attention to an emotion-related body area. We did not expect this index to be related to self-perceptual depth in dreams.)

Preliminary Analyses. As in Study 1, some "obvious" expectations were disconfirmed. Dream-induced self-perceptual depth was not reliably correlated with (a) Feeling Expression summed across all six applicable trials (r = .18), (b) Feeling Expression summed across emotion-related body areas (three trials; r = -.18), and (c) Feeling Expression summed across both applicable stimulation trials (r = .04).

Hypothesized Relationships. Again, the hypothesized pattern of OR Feeling Expression indices was more informative. First, as indicated in Table 1 (Study 2, Part A), dream-induced self-perceptual depth was positively and significantly correlated with OR Feeling Expression in emotion-related body areas (r = .36), congruent with the results for the upper chest in Study 1 (Hypothesis 1). Second, self-perceptual depth was inversely correlated with OR Feeling Expression in emotion-unrelated areas (r = -.09), although, unlike in Study 1, this correlation was neither large nor statistically reliable (Hypothesis 2).

Results for the OR Clarity index also were consistent with these hypotheses. OR Clarity was positively correlated with dream-induced self-perceptual depth (r = .24, p < .05). In other words, the pattern of increased feeling clarity in stimulated, emotion-related body areas and simultaneously decreased clarity in emotion-unrelated body areas was modestly predictive of dream-induced self-perceptual depth. It should be noted that this relationship was not obtained (r = .08, ns), when the body area stimulated was emotion-unrelated, as expected.

Auxiliary Analyses. As in Study 1, OR Feeling Expression in the upper chest and non-dominant foot most clearly confirmed the hypothesized relationships with self-perceptual depth (see Table 1, Study 2, Part B). The correlation for the upper chest was positive (r = .28), whereas for the non-dominant foot it was negative (r = -.26). Although neither of these correlations separately was reliable, the significant difference between them, t(53) = 2.43, p < .05, strongly indicated contrasting relations between OR Feeling Expression in emotion-related and emotion-unrelated body areas and dream-induced self-perceptual depth. Similarly, differences between the correlations for OR Feeling Expression in the upper chest and non-dominant foot were reliable for: affective involvement during dreaming, t(53) = 1.98, p < .10, and for dream enactment during awakening, t(53) = 3.10, p < .05. Finally, as in Study 1, all 10 of these correlations (5 positive and 5 negative) were in the directions predicted by our model, a pattern that a Sign Test indicates is highly unlikely to occur by chance (p < .003).

While the relationships tended to be weak and marginally significant statistically, results from this study provided a conceptual replication and extension of Study 1. Most clearly, contrasting patterns of stimulation-induced changes in feeling expression were consistently associated with dream-induced self-perceptual depth. Positive correlations for emotion-related areas, especially for the upper chest, and negative correlations for emotion-unrelated areas, especially for the non-dominant foot, were predictive of affective involvement during the dream, dream enactment during awakening, and dream-induced self-perceptual depth. Moreover, the results of Study 2 indicate that these contrasting correlations involve OR-related changes in which the emotionally expressive musculature (e.g., in the upper chest) is activated at the same time that modality-irrelevant musculature is inhibited.

The results of Studies 1 and 2 were generally consistent with the hypothesis that, when emotional expression is the salient response modality, OR-related activation of emotionally expressive (modality-relevant) musculature and inhibition of non-expressive (modality-irrelevant) musculature is predictive of dream-induced self-perceptual depth. In conjunction with results obtained by Kuiken and Nielsen (1996), the present studies suggest that thresholds for OR-related activation and inhibition predict for whom dreams frequently prompt personally significant shifts in self-perception.

It might be objected that the correlations reported in Studies 1 and 2 are attributable to shared method variance, since the measures of self-perceptual depth and of OR thresholds relied on self-reports. It also might be objected that the results are due to experimenter demand, since there may have been implicit expectations that personally significant dreaming is associated with awareness of bodily feelings. However, both objections are weakened by the specificity of the observed relationships. Whereas seemingly obvious self-report measures of feeling awareness (e.g., feelings reported in emotion-related body areas) failed to predict dream-induced self-perceptual depth, intuitively less obvious combinations of ratings, involving feeling awareness in emotion-related musculature and the lack thereof in emotion-unrelated musculature, did predict self-perceptual depth. Neither the shared method variance nor the experimenter demand explanations can readily account for this particular pattern.

However, the results reported here clearly were not as robust as those reported by Kuiken and Nielsen (1996). One reason is that the present studies relied upon smaller sample sizes than were used in the Kuiken and Nielsen questionnaire studies (Studies 1-3), with the corresponding loss of statistical power. Another consideration is that the present studies did not utilize dream diary procedures. Using diaries (Study 4), Kuiken and Nielsen observed especially robust effects despite a sample size comparable to those reported here. Still another factor is that participants in the present studies were restricted to individuals who recalled at least one dream per week, whereas participants in the Kuiken and Nielsen diary study recalled at least three dreams per week. Perhaps in the present studies relatively poor memory for relevant dream events attenuated the observed relationships.

Moreover, it is clear that the BAA provides a useful but not optimal strategy for assessing thresholds for OR-related activation and inhibition. First, based on participant reports, we were concerned that extraneous bodily sensations (e.g., abdominal sensations due to hunger, foot sensations lingering from winter cold) had adversely affected feeling judgments. Second, in both studies (see the leftmost column in Table 1), correlations between BAA indices of OR inhibition during wakefulness and the SDQ measures of movement inhibition during dreaming were unreliable, contrary to what would be expected if individual differences in thresholds for orienting activity were stable across states. Third, correlations between BAA indices of OR inhibition and SDQ measures of dream-induced self-perceptual depth were neither as robust nor as consistent as those previously obtained from retrospective accounts of inhibition during sudden emotional events (Kuiken & Nielsen, 1996). Finally, BAA indices of OR activation and inhibition were not correlated with the dream characteristics that hypothetically mediate self-perceptual depth (i.e., affect during the dream, enactment of dream events during awakening, and the lingering sense of dream reality). In sum, in future studies, it would be appropriate to consider more direct measures of OR activation and inhibition than the BAA provides (e.g., emotion-related facial EMG activation, emotion-unrelated neck EMG suppression, respectively).

On the other hand, BAA indices of the activation and inhibition components of the OR (a) are concurrent rather than reliant upon remote recall of uncommon OR phenomena (e.g., reports of felt inhibition after sudden emotional events); (b) are adaptable for the assessment of state as well as trait variations in OR thresholds (e.g., those related to stressful life events); (c) have face validity as measures of bodily feelings, befitting attempts to predict the affective consequences of dreams; and (d) are reflective of reactions to novel stimulation, as is appropriate for understanding the transformations that occur in impactful dreams. In fact, the overall pattern of results relating BAA indices to dream-induced self-perceptual depth is sufficiently coherent and promising to provide guidelines for future studies.

One guideline is that assessment alternatives to the BAA should remain sensitive to the incongruous combination of activation and inhibition that constitutes the OR. As indicated earlier, in the present studies, seemingly obvious unidimensional conceptions of feeling response simply failed to predict dream-induced self-perceptual depth. Instead, more complicated patterns that included activation in emotion-related musculature and inhibition in emotion-unrelated musculature provided greater predictive power. In fact, in Study 1, multiple regression analyses suggested that OR activation and inhibition components, involving the upper chest and non-dominant foot respectively, may separately contribute to our understanding of dream-induced self-perceptual depth.

A second guideline is that assessment alternatives to the BAA should measure reactions to stimulus change. In our studies, feelings and sensations were present before and after stimulation, although their pattern was altered. Empirically, those changes were crucial in predicting dream-induced self-perceptual depth. Moreover, theoretically, such stimulus change differentiates the OR from the startle response, with which it is sometimes confused. Reactions to abrupt stimulus onset (e.g., a sudden noise) include the diffuse sympathetic arousal of the startle response, but responses to stimulus change (e.g., the "coo" of a dove against a background of "twittering" songbirds) include the parasympathetically modulated activation and inhibition of the OR proper (Graham, 1979; Sokolov, 1975). Thus, unlike startle, the OR is implicated in the exploration of novelty (cf. Morrison, 1979), the shifting representations that occur in mundane dreams (Rittenhouse, Stickgold, & Hobson, 1994), and the even more dramatically shifting representations in impactful dreams (Kuiken & Sikora, 1993).

The incongruous activation and inhibition of the OR also seems to capture the phenomenology of feeling expression. Shifts in feelings, such as those that occur during intensive waking self-reflection or during events within existential dreams, often depend for their effect on a contrast: the emergence of certain feeling qualities (e.g., sensations in the upper chest suggestive of crying) against a background of peripheral quiescence (e.g., the fading of feelings in other body areas). That aspect of feeling realization is captured by the methods used in the present studies, and refinement of those methods may help to clarify when and for whom dreams initiate significant changes in self-perception.

The research reported here was supported in part by Program Grant No. 410-87-1013 from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

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Table 1. Correlations between OR Feeling Expression Indices (stimulation minus relaxation) and SDQ Measures of Dream Events Related to Self-perceptual Depth.

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