Circling Science

Testing the Empathy Theory of Dreaming: The Relationships Between Dream Sharing and Trait and State Empathy

Mark Blagrove, Sioned Hale, Julia Lockheart, Michelle Carr, Alex Jones and Katja Valli · 2019

Evidence
Before-and-after study
Kind
Journal article
peer-reviewed
Method
Survey followed by an uncontrolled study of empathy before and after dream discussions
Sample
160 survey respondents; 27 discussion pairs, with usable data from 26 dream-sharers and 27 listeners
Published
Frontiers in Psychology, 10, 1351
Practices
Dream sharing

Adjacent

Studies a related practice or mechanism, without testing Circling.

A survey and a small dream-sharing study linked dream discussion with empathy, with listeners reporting a modest increase after hearing a partner’s dream.

What it doesn’t show

The discussion study had only 27 pairs, used questionnaire outcomes and measured change immediately after the discussions. Its positive listener result used a one-tailed test. Without a comparison conversation, it cannot separate dream-sharing from other personal disclosure or establish an evolved function of dreaming.

Summary based on the abstract and the full text’s methods, results and limitations.

Links

Cite

Blagrove, M., Hale, S., Lockheart, J., Carr, M., Jones, A., & Valli, K. (2019). Testing the Empathy Theory of Dreaming: The Relationships Between Dream Sharing and Trait and State Empathy. Frontiers in Psychology, 10, 1351. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.01351