The Effects of Sleep Quality on Dream and Waking Emotions

Francesca Conte, Nicola Cellini, Oreste De Rosa, Marissa Lynn Rescott, Serena Malloggi, Fiorenza Giganti and Gianluca Ficca
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Francesca Conte: Department of Psychology, University of Campania L. Vanvitelli, Viale Ellittico 31, 81100 Caserta, Italy
Nicola Cellini: Department of General Psychology, University of Padova, Via Venezia 8, 35131 Padova, Italy
Oreste De Rosa: Department of Psychology, University of Campania L. Vanvitelli, Viale Ellittico 31, 81100 Caserta, Italy
Marissa Lynn Rescott: Department of Psychology, University of Campania L. Vanvitelli, Viale Ellittico 31, 81100 Caserta, Italy
Serena Malloggi: Department NEUROFARBA, University of Firenze, Via di San Salvi 12, 50135 Firenze, Italy
Fiorenza Giganti: Department NEUROFARBA, University of Firenze, Via di San Salvi 12, 50135 Firenze, Italy
Gianluca Ficca: Department of Psychology, University of Campania L. Vanvitelli, Viale Ellittico 31, 81100 Caserta, Italy

IJERPH, 2021, vol. 18, issue 2, 1-16

Abstract: Despite the increasing interest in sleep and dream-related processes of emotion regulation, their reflection into waking and dream emotional experience remains unclear. We have previously described a discontinuity between wakefulness and dreaming, with a prevalence of positive emotions in wakefulness and negative emotions during sleep. Here we aim to investigate whether this profile may be affected by poor sleep quality. Twenty-three ‘Good Sleepers’ (GS) and 27 ‘Poor Sleepers’ (PS), identified through the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) cut-off score, completed three forms of the modified Differential Emotions Scale, assessing, respectively, the frequency of 22 emotions over the past 2 weeks, their intensity during dreaming and during the previous day. The ANOVA revealed a different pattern of emotionality between groups: GS showed high positive emotionality in wakefulness (both past 2 weeks and 24 h) with a significant shift to negative emotionality in dreams, while PS showed evenly distributed emotional valence across all three conditions. No significant regression model emerged between waking and dream affect. In the frame of recent hypotheses on the role of dreaming in emotion regulation, our findings suggest that the different day/night expression of emotions between groups depends on a relative impairment of sleep-related processes of affect regulation in poor sleepers. Moreover, these results highlight the importance of including sleep quality assessments in future dream studies.

Keywords: dreaming; emotions; sleep quality; good sleepers; poor sleepers (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
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