The effects of current-concern- and nonconcern-related waking suggestions on nocturnal dream content

In previous research, presleep suggestions influenced nocturnal dream content. It was hypothesized that suggesting topics associated with participants' current concerns would influence dream content more than suggesting other topics. Ten students spent 4 nights in a sleep laboratory: an adaptation night, a baseline night, and 2 nights under suggestions to dream about a concern-related or other topic. Concern-related suggestions influenced dream content--largely its central imagery--more than did other suggestions, which did not differ from nonsuggestion. Number of transformations within dreams was uncorrelated with dream vividness, contrary to extended activation-synthesis theory. Thus, the concern-related status of suggestions moderates their effectiveness and, inconsistent with extended activation-synthesis theory but consistent with current-concerns and distributed-activation theories, motivational and volitional processes actively influence dream content.