Paula Shin

IR 2/11 AP

Annotated Source List

Breus, Michael J. “How Do Scientists Study Dreams?” Psychology Today. N.p., n.d. Web.

This article is about the discovery of dreams and how the field has been mysterious, considering
how the experiences of dreaming is most often forgotten and unable to be remembered. People’s
abilities to research and be able to interpret dreams has immensely grown within the past few decades,
after originating from psychoanalysis studies. In the 19th and 20th century, there were studies on
psychoanalysis, which were focused on treating mental health disorders by studying the unconscious
mind. After these studies, the research was adjusted to focus more on the idea of dreams making an
impact with unconscious minds. In the middle of the 20th century, new technology regarding the
research of brain activity during sleep. It was called the electroencephalography (EEG), which allowed
scientists to view the levels of brain activity and how the brain reacted when the brain was dreaming.
This technology system also showed scientists the different stages of sleep by showing which parts of
the brain displayed high levels of activity. Curently, there are also brain imaging tools, called functional
magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), which record blood oxygen levels and flow. This allows scientists
to determine in which parts of the brain that dreams take place, because it identifies areas of the brain
that soak up oxygen.
In addition to writing about the observations of dreaming, the author provided links to further
readings that could offer more insight into the information listed, which is extremely useful to
answering any questions related to future research. The links that are attached to certain words offer
background information on those aspects, mainly leading to in-depth explanations of those topics,
provided by the Psychology Today website, but occasionally lead to deep analyses created in scholarly
articles.

Dekker, Kim, Tessa F. Blanken, and Eus J. W. Van Someren. “Insomnia and Personality—A Network
Approach.” Ed. Célyne H. Bastien. Brain Sciences 7.3 (2017): 28. PMC. Web. 9 Oct. 2017.

This brain sciences journal article explored the impacts of insomnia on personality traits. In
order to accomplish this, a study was conducted with the five factor model personality traits, comparing
them to the severity of insomnia. The study of these traits may give conclusive results about the role of
underlying brain circuits and how they are related to specific characteristics of insomnia, which was a
concern, considering how unexplored the relationship between personality traits and the characteristics
of insomnia is. The article states that brain structure and function plays a role in the differences
between personality traits. There is a correlation between the amount of gray matter in one’s brain and
levels of sleep because according to some findings, the “orbitofrontal cortex” controls the density of the
amount of gray matter, and a low amount contributes to sleep vulnerability, leading to insomnia. A
study was conducted using the Netherlands Sleep Registry which assesses various traits from several
kinds of sleepers in order to distinguish insomniacs from those who sleep well. In addition, the
direct/indirect correlations between insomnia and personality traits were distinguished with network
analyses. These showed how one of the five personality traits, neuroticism was directly related to the
severity of insomnia.
This article benefits further research on the impacts of insomnia on personality with concrete
information that can be researched. However, it does not delve further into the main focus, its impacts
on dreams, but the information regarding the five factor personality traits could be taken into account
when identifying how they are affected with insomnia, then leading to other research with dreams.
Duggan, Katherine A. et al. “Personality and Healthy Sleep: The Importance of Conscientiousness and
Neuroticism.” Ed. Oscar Arias-Carrion. PLoS ONE 9.3 (2014): e90628. PMC. Web.

This research article was about the findings of a study that was conducted to determine the
correlation between the personalities of people and healthy sleeping patterns. It mainly focused on the
study, which examined the most important personality traits and the sleeping habits of participants who
were in university. The results stated that poor sleep was a result of several factors, such as low
conscientiousness and high neuroticism, which are the main values of what this article is revolved
around. The findings display the significance of sleep health on personality. These findings are a huge
innovation in sleep research because there has been research conducted in the past that have shown that
personality and sleep are indicators of health throughout one’s lifespan, but there have not been any
research done on the comparisons between personality and healthy sleep patterns. Conscientiousness, a
value that this article is revolved around, has been described as “socially-prescribed impulse control”
and has been discovered as a factor in decreasing mortality rates in healthy populations, and people
who have a high level of it have been portrayed as living longer lives because they engage in more
healthy behaviors.
This informative article clarified the correlations between personality traits and sleeping
patterns, which supports the conclusion that sleep health is dependent on certain characteristics.

Hintsanen, M., Puttonen, S., Smith, K., Törnroos, M., Jokela, M., Pulkki-Råback, L., . . .
Keltikangas-Järvinen, L. (2014). Five-factor personality traits and sleep: Evidence from
two population-based cohort studies. Health Psychology, 33(10), 1214-1223.

This article is about a study that examines the relationship between the five factor personality
traits and the length of a person’s sleep, with the problems that occur from a lack of sleep. There are 5
traits of personalities, which are neuroticism, extraversion, openness, agreeableness, and
conscientiousness. Neuroticism is based on characteristics that describe people as constantly self
conscious and worrying about themselves. Extraversion is the proclivity to socialize with other people,
openness is characterized by creativity, agreeableness is characterized by sympathy, and
conscientiousness is the tendency to be hardworking. Most of these character traits were associated
with aspects of sleep. For example, higher levels of neuroticism portrayed longer sleep durations,
extraversion and conscientiousness was associated with better sleep quality. Studies were conducted on
different types of people in different areas of the world. The results concluded that older people who
are more educated tend to be less self conscious, thus portraying a better quality of sleep. However,
those who had higher neuroticism, those who tended to be more self conscious, sleep deficiency was
prominent in their experiments.
Because this article’s objective was written about the association between five factor personality
traits and average sleep duration, the article should have incorporated both perspectives of the
personality traits having an impact on sleep duration, and sleep duration impacting people’s personality
traits. But, it only gave information on the first aspect, which is an interesting aspect of sleep research,
but not completely useful for research on the impacts of sleep on dispositions.

Kahn, Michal, et al. “Sleep and Emotions: Bidirectional Links and Underlying Mechanisms.”
International Journal of Psychophysiology: Official Journal of the International Organization
of Psychophysiology, vol. 89, no. 2, Aug. 2013, pp. 218–28. PubMed
doi:10.1016/j.ijpsycho.2013.05.010.

This review studies the correlation between sleep and the someone’s emotions, based on recent
findings on the effects of sleep deprivation. Sleep serves as recuperation at many neurophysiological
levels, and potentially serves to reproduce emotions. There are several impacts that sleep deprivation
has on a person’s functioning level. Negative emotions tend to arise with sleep deprivation, such as an
increase in anxiety, confusion, fatigue, and mood disturbances. In addition, several other studies have
concluded that depressive emotions increase immensely from sleep deprivation in adult and adolescent
samples. There are also impacts in one’s “emotional expressiveness” displayed on one’s face. Sleep
loss is connected to a loss of control over people’s negative emotions, which has disrupted prefrontal
cortex functions, which impacts one’s logical skills. This article not only lists several negative impacts
of sleep loss on emotions, but also lists the impacts of emotions on sleep which I think is an interesting
perspective to consider.
In addition, this article consistently states how this field is a new and evolving one, with the
research still at its earliest stage, so the “emotional consequences” are not as well known but are still
crucial, and it would be interesting to aid the research and help raise awareness of the negative impacts
of sleep deprivation.

Moulin, Kerry L., and Chia-Jung Chung. “Technology Trumping Sleep: Impact of Electronic Media
and Sleep in Late Adolescent Students.” Journal of Education and Learning, vol. 6, no. 1, 2017,
pp. 294–321.

This research study investigated the how technology has an impact on productivity and healthy
sleep. In the study, academic success were measured with several students in their late teens and early
20s, with underlying factors such as internet usage, sleeping times, and daily functioning levels. The
results displayed that sleep is extremely compromised at a time of life when people’s sleep is
important. The majority of students who participated in the study had cell phones and many of the
students went to sleep with their phone. They were mainly distracted and unable to sleep due to using
devices in bed. These factors result in sleep deprived individuals who are unable to perform at the
highest level. As a result, it is advised that the adults in students’ lives create guidelines for their
children to allow the next generation to increase productivity and decrease the usage of electronics that
impede students’ sleeping schedules. In addition teachers were instructed to observe the students’
actions during class, which helps to display the correlation between sleep and productivity in class. In
an example, a teacher’s observation of a certain student in class matched with his input about his
sleeping behavior, because his technology usage resulted in his inability to sleep. This portrays the
detrimental effects of technology on sleep.
This source will be very useful for research about insomnia because it provides information that
proves technology has a negative impact on sleep, which could be utilized as an underlying cause of the
lack of sleep. However, it does not offer any insight on the impacts of sleep on dreams, and touches on
the topic of altering personality traits.

Nielsen, Tore. "Acting out Dreams." Dream and Nightmare Laboratory.

This journal article was about acting out dreams in one’s sleep and the characteristics that define
it. It introduced the aspects of dreaming by defining it as a cognitive activity that is characterized by
scenarios that are thought out in one’s head. The article was written by professors and students who are
focused on studying the area of psychology and the topic of remembering dreams, who initially
performed research on other groups of people with dream-enacting behavior, and studied groups of
college students who had completed questionnaires about these behaviors and utilized their findings to
make a conclusion. In the students’ questionnaires, they determined the levels of different types of
sleeping behaviors. One group of students created questions that described different kinds of behaviors,
differentiating dream enacting behaviors from other sleeping problems. These results portray that there
are other sleep markers that need to be identified, along with the levels of other factors that may trigger
sleep behaviors.
Although this article was extremely brief and did not provide many in-depth explanations of the
study and its conclusions, it provided preliminary research in discovering the topic of dreams and how
they are correlated with emotional responses.

Nielsen, Tore A. "What Are the Memory Sources of Dreaming?" Insight Progress.

This journal article is about the functions of dreams and how they are correlated to the workings
of the brain. The author discusses how personal memories can play a vital role in formulating dreams
for one person. Research has been performed on this area of subject, and determined that memories of
one person are changed over the course of time, and when they occur in one’s dreams, they have the
ability to become modified and completely change the meaning behind the dream. In this process, the
origins of the dream are completely lost even though they portray a similar situation to reality.
Experiments were also performed by introducing “psychophysiological methods” to the subject of
dreaming, and using those methods to analyze what kind of impact they would have on the alterations
of personal memories. These methods included ID of rapid eye movement and non rapid eye
movement, which are phases of sleeping, watching stimulatory content before sleeping, and using
sensory stimulation.
The article provided explanations of dreaming and and background information on the
experiences, but there were several complex topics covered in the article, which made the content
difficult to follow, especially since they were not discovered more deeply.

Pérusse, Alexandra D., et al. “REM Dream Activity of Insomnia Sufferers: A Systematic Comparison
with Good Sleepers.” Sleep Medicine, vol. 20, Apr. 2016, pp. 147–54. PubMed,
doi:10.1016/j.sleep.2015.08.007.

This article is about identifying the difference in dream content and the ability to recall dreams
between insomniacs with good sleepers. Instead of observing how insomnia has an impact on dream
content, the article focuses on the reverse effect, the impact of dreams on patients’ tendency to suffer
from a lack of sleep. These observations were obtained by using polysomnographies to record the level
of brain waves, oxygen levels in blood, heart rate, and limb movements for both insomniacs and good
sleepers. The results of this experiment stated that both groups were able to recall dreams at similar
rates, but the good sleepers portrayed recalling positive feelings, whereas the insomniacs recalled
negative feelings in their dreams. The patients who were able to sleep well, complete with the subject
experiencing total REM sleep, described their recalls as pleasant and feeling joy and contentness. This
study was mainly focused on the level of one’s emotions having an impact on insomniac’s dreams.
This article aided in furthering research related to dreaming, because it introduced another
aspect, and provided more information for research. After unsuccessfully researching the impacts of
insomnia on personality traits, reading this article helped reconsider this focus, and instead, offered
insight on the impacts of insomnia on dream content.

Schredl, Michael. “Dreaming in Patients with Insomnia: A Fascinating Topic for Future
Research.” Sleep Medicine, vol. 20, pp. 145–46, doi:10.1016/j.sleep.2015.09.006.

This article is about the activity of dreams in patients who suffer from insomnia. Insomnia is
characterized as a disorder that forces people to have difficulties falling asleep and maintaining sleep.
Although there is a close relationship between sleep and dreaming, there has barely been any research
conducted on dream content in patients with sleep disorders. There are 2 aspects on research in dreams
of sleep disorders: the question of whether the alteration of sleep physiology (with different types of
sleep) is a symptom of a disorder that affects dream content, and analyzing dream content to determine
origins of the disorders. The article states that for studies conducted in the future, other factors should
be taken into consideration, such as stressors and other mental disorders, to comprehend how insomnia
affects dreams. Also, the REM instabilities that patients suffer from should be considered, along with
the data from sleep EEGs (recording of brain’s electrical activity during sleep), to observe dreaming
characteristics.
The title of this article seemed that it would be beneficial with furthering research and would
provide more information, but after reading the article, there were only pieces of information that
would not help me with future research. There are additional resources at the bottom, which could be
utilized to acquire the information needed to understand dream content in insomniac patients.

Smith, Andrew & Maben, Andrea. (1993). Effects of sleep deprivation, lunch, and personality on
performance, mood, and cardiovascular function. Physiology & Behavior.

This article is about a study that was conducted on the detrimental effects of sleep deprivation
on the ability to function properly through the day. There were three aspects of the study, of which they
were the effects of sleep deprivation prevailing through the night rather than during the afternoon, the
feelings of alertness after eating lunch, and small differences between the effects of sleep deprivation.
The study compared the feelings of the sleep deprived to those who had gotten plenty of sleep, and
found out that those who were sleep deprived were less responsive and displayed slow reaction times to
cognitive tasks. Along with the cognitive tasks, there were also reasoning tasks. These were
incorporated into the study because past research had shown that performances in these tasks had been
impaired by loss of sleep and lunch. In addition to comparing those who were sleep deprived with those
who were not, there were also connections made between extroverts and introverts, with how each
group was able to display responsiveness.
This article states several obvious facts, primary information on this topic, but the study goes
into depth into the mental levels of these issues, providing more information on the impacts of sleep
deprivation, specifically insomnia, on people's attitudes.

Turner, Rebecca. “A History of Dream Research.” N.p., n.d. Web. 25 Sept. 2017.

This article is about the history of dreaming and how there has always been slight mentions
about dreams and how people have made new discoveries regarding them. The history leads all the way
back by thousands of years, when the Ancient Egyptians painted pictures of people sleeping and
drawing an “out-of-body” experience. In modern times, this drawing has been correlated with the ideas
of lucid dreaming. This created the conclusion that the subject of lucid dreaming was common enough
to make an appearance in the olden cultures, similar to how it is today- leading to the rise in research of
this topic. Another major discovery was made in the 1600s, where a French philosopher created an
argument stating that peoples’ senses of reality are not real, because the senses in our dreams create
worlds that seem incredibly vivid, and people are unable to recognize whether they are dreaming or
not. The rest of this article states references that have been created by scientists who have studied this
field of subject.
The aspects in this article provides engrossing information on the history of dreams and
illuminating a higher understanding of the topic of lucid dreaming, which is an aspect of my research I
have not delved into. However, it may be difficult to incorporate this into my research with the impacts
of insomnia on dreaming content.

Van de Laar, Merijn, et al. “The Role of Personality Traits in Insomnia.” Sleep Medicine Reviews, vol.
 14, no. 1, pp. 61–68, doi:10.1016/j.smrv.2009.07.007.

This article has focused on the disorder of insomnia, and describes how it impacts people’s lives
negatively. This conclusion was based on studies that reviewed this aspect of insomnia. It also
concluded that people who suffer from insomnia display signs of anxiety and obsessive personalities.
There is a mutual impact between insomnia and personality traits because not only can personality
traits become a consequence of lack of sleep, but also can play a vital role in the development of
insomnia. However, personality is not the only factor for determining insomnia, but other
psychological and physiological factors should be considered for determining the effects of insomnia.
For example, perfectionism, the energy-consuming efforts to achieve flawlessness, could be a focus for
insomnia research, but only when studies have been conducted for long periods of time.
This article was extremely helpful with the topic of insomnia and its relation with personality
traits because the information offered insightful information on inquiries, and helped clarify them.
There are also several sources at the bottom of the article, which could be utilized in the future to
search for new information.

Vedaa, Øystein, et al. “Prospective Study of Predictors and Consequences of Insomnia: Personality,
Lifestyle, Mental Health, and Work-Related Stressors.” Sleep Medicine, vol. 20, pp. 51–58,
doi:10.1016/j.sleep.2015.12.002.

This article, which was a part of a sleep medicine journal, investigated the mutual relationships
between personality traits, lifestyle factors, mental health, sleepiness, and stressors with insomnia. This
was done by assessing several nurses who were working in shifts. There were several factors that they
were assessed on: an insomnia scale, anxiety, depression, Work–Family Interface Scale, which all
determined the relationship between individual issues and insomnia. In addition, other factors, such as
bullying, and issues in an individual’s issues with jobs and families increased the effects of insomnia
over time. However, positive situations regarding work and family displayed a smaller amount of
insomnia symptoms. Insomnia is often a consequence of issues in one’s personal life, instead of it
becoming a predecessor of the issues.
The article was interesting and provided valuable information, such as the investigations of how
insomnia is formed from personal issues, but my topic is mainly focused on how insomnia creates these
issues, and their impact on people's dreams, which was not illuminated in this article.