Investigating the Effects of Psychological Factors on Belief and Experience of Precognitive Dreams
View/ Open
Jenny Hutton dissertation 2013.pdf (900.0Kb)
Date
02/07/2013Item status
Restricted AccessAuthor
Hutton, Jenny
Metadata
Abstract
Previous research has established a relationship between psychological factors and precognitive dreaming belief and experience. The present study investigates this claim, specifically focussing on the relationship between the psychological factors of personality, memory, IQ and implicit awareness with precognitive dreaming belief and experience measures. 50 participants volunteered to take part in the study which took place at The University of Edinburgh psychology building’s Admiral’s Laboratory. Personality was measured using Naumann, John and Soto’s (2005) Big-Five Inventory (BFI) and memory was measured using the everyday memory failures (EMF) questionnaire by Sunderland, Harris and Baddeley (1983). Implicit awareness was measured using a change blindness task (Rensink, 2004; modified by Wiseman) and IQ measured using Raven’s advanced progressive matrices (RAPM; Raven, 1962).
The results show the effect of the variables on precognitive dream belief and experience not to be significant, with the exception of a significant negative correlation between neuroticism and precognitive dreaming belief (rs = - .328, p<0.05). The mean scores of precognitive dream experiencers were higher for all measured variables apart from neuroticism, when compared with the mean scores of those who had not experienced a precognitive dream.
The hypothesis that individuals scoring higher on the personality factors of openness and neuroticism would hold greater precognitive beliefs was not supported. The hypothesis that individuals with worse memory scores and higher scores on implicit awareness would be more likely to report a precognitive dreaming experience was also not supported. Therefore, precognitive dreaming belief and experience does not appear to be effected by the analysed psychological components. However, the higher mean scores of individuals who reported a precognitive dream experience suggests that individuals who have higher scores on certain psychological components have increased precognitive dream experiences.