Dreaming and personality: Wake-dream continuity, thought suppression, and the Big Five Inventory

Studies have found relationships between dream content and personality traits, but there are still many traits that have been underexplored or have had questionable conclusions drawn about them. Experimental work has found a 'rebound' effect in dreams when thoughts are suppressed prior to sleep, but the effect of trait thought suppression on dream content has not yet been researched. In the present study participants (N = 106) reported their Most Recent Dream, answered questions about the content of the dream, and completed questionnaires measuring trait thought suppression and the 'Big Five' personality traits. Of these, 83 were suitably recent for analyses. A significant positive correlation was found between trait thought suppression and participants' ratings of dreaming of waking-life emotions, and high suppressors reported dreaming more of their waking-life emotions than low suppressors did. The results may lend support to the compensation theory of dreams, and/or the ironic process theory of mental control.