Predictors of third person perspective dreams, and the association between anxiety and memories for emotional events

Abstract

Dreaming varies between individuals, with third-person perspective dreams being particularly challenging to study due to reflective awareness and self-objectification. Dreams may reflect real-life experiences, especially emotionally charged events, which are also recalled more vividly. Anxiety and personality traits can affect event perception and memory. Therefore, it was hypothesized that third-person perspective dreams, dream content, and emotional memory recall would be significantly related to early media exposure, anxiety, and personality. One-hundred and sixty-two South Carolina residents completed a survey with sections about types of media present when they were children, third-person perspective dreams and dream content, the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory, the Big Five Personality Inventory, the Open Extended Jungian Types Scale, and an emotional event questionnaire. Results revealed that anxiety, neuroticism, openness, and thinking-feeling are all significant predictors for the recall of third-person dreams, while anxiety and neuroticism are also predictors of how often they occur. Additionally, there are significant correlations between anxiety, neuroticism, openness, and certain aspects of dream content. Regarding emotional event recall, anxiety is significantly associated with both the frequency and vividness of such memories. Neuroticism is linked to the frequency, vividness, clarity, and familiarity of emotional event recall. There was also a significant correlation between extraversion and how coherent the emotional memory is. Therefore, there is evidence of a relationship regarding third-person perspective dreams and emotional event recall with anxiety and personality, but not early media consumption.