摘要:Impactful dreams are reported by the dreamer to have an effect on their waking mood. However, the time course relationship of negative and positive impactful dreams with pre-sleep and post-sleep mood has not been examined closely. A total of 32 participants (21 females) reported one dream self-rated as either very or extremely emotionally impactful and one dream self-rated as not at all emotionally impactful (mundane dream), totalling 64 dreams. Participants completed a dream diary as well as pre-sleep, dream, and post-sleep mood checklists. They also completed rating scales of the impact of their dreams. The Hall & Van de Castle method was used for dream coding and analysis. A dream containing more positive than negative emotions was classified as positively impactful and vice versa. The 2 x 3 analysis of variance demonstrated a significant difference between mundane dreams and both negative and positive impactful dreams. Overall, negative impactful dreams were associated with higher negative mood levels at pre-sleep, in dream, and at post-sleep, compared to mundane dreams. Conversely, positive impactful dreams were associated with more positive mood levels during the dream and at post-sleep, but not at pre-sleep. Correlational analyses demonstrated that in negative impactful dreams, negative dream mood strongly correlated with negative post-sleep mood. Similarly, in positive impactful dreams, positive dream mood strongly correlated with positive post-sleep mood. However, pre-sleep and dream mood, whether positive or negative, did not significantly correlate. Additionally, there was a significant correlation between pre-sleep and post-sleep positive mood in positive impactful dreams and mundane dreams. These results confirm that dream mood and post-sleep mood are positively related, further suggesting a potential effect on post-sleep mood. The absence of a relationship between pre-sleep and dream mood undermines the continuity theory as well as modern dream function theories for emotions. The threat simulation theory is also used to interpret results.