Personality and Social Psychology Mindfulness and dream quality: The inverse relationship between mindfulness and negative dream affect PE ´ TER SIMOR, 1 FERENC KO ¨ TELES, 2 PIROSKA SA ´ NDOR, 3 ZSOLT PETKE 4 and RO ´ BERT BO ´ DIZS 3,5 1 Department of Cognitive Sciences, Budapest University of Technology and Economics, Budapest, Hungary 2 Institute for Health Promotion and Sport Sciences, Eo ¨tvo ¨s Lora ´nd University, Faculty of Education and Psychology, Budapest 3 Institute of Behavioural Sciences, Semmelweis University, Budapest, Hungary 4 Nyı ´r} o Gyula Hospital, Drug Ambulance, Budapest, Hungary 5 HAS-BME Cognitive Science Research Group of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Budapest, Hungary Simor, P., Ko ¨teles, F., Sa ´ndor, P., Petke, Z. & Bo ´dizs, R. (2011). Mindfulness and dream quality: The inverse relationship between mindfulness and negative dream affect. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology 52, 369–375. The aim of the study was to examine the relationship of mindfulness to the emotional quality of dreaming. In our questionnaire-based study, comprising the data of 587 undergraduate students we examined the association between trait anxiety, perceived stress, trait mindfulness, negative dream affect and dream anxiety. Our results indicate that mindfulness is inversely related to disturbed dreaming and predicts less severe dream disturbances after controlling for trait anxiety. Moreover, the results of the applied hierarchical regression analysis suggest that mindfulness is associated with reduced dream anxiety by moderating the extent of waking anxiety. Our findings extend previous research relating mindfulness, emotional regulation and sleep quality to the domain of dream research. We suggest that mindfulness is a possible protective factor against dream disturbances. Key words: Mindfulness, dreaming, dream anxiety, emotional regulation, nightmares. Peter Simor, BME-TTK, Department of Cognitive Sciences, Stoczek u. 2, H-1111 Budapest, Hungary. Tel/fax: +36-1-463 1072; e-mail: psimor@cogsci. bme.hu; petersimor@gmail.com INTRODUCTION Originating in Far Eastern philosophies and religious practices, mindfulness is an enhanced state of awareness characterized by focused attention towards internal and external present moment experiences in an open, receptive and non-judgmental information processing style (Brown & Ryan, 2003). Since mindfulness seems to be an adaptive skill promoting self-regulation, stress reduction and positive emotional states, mindfulness-based stress reduction is an effective treatment method for different psychopathological conditions (Roemer, Lee, Salters-Pedneault, Eristman, Orsillo & Mennin, 2009). Apart from its therapeutic applications there is a mounting body of evidence linking mindfulness to a variety of mental health indices (Brown & Ryan, 2003; Weinstein, Brown & Ryan, 2009) fostering our scientific understanding of this impor- tant construct. Ultimately, mindfulness was related to positive sleep quality (Howell, Digdon, Buro & Sheptycki, 2008). More- over, results indicated that the relationship between mindfulness and well-being was mediated by improved sleep quality (Howell, Digdon & Buro, 2010). In the present paper we aim to broaden these sleep-related findings investigating the relationship between mindfulness and the emotional aspects of dreaming. Mindfulness and emotional regulation There is abundant clinical and experimental research data sug- gesting that mindfulness is an important emotion regulatory skill promoting higher levels of well-being (Brown & Ryan, 2003; Weinstein et al., 2009; Feltman, Robinson & Ode, 2010). Even according to the first clinical reports, mindfulness seemed to be an adaptive skill promoting self-regulation, stress reduction and positive emotional states (Kabat-Zinn, Massion, Kristeller et al. 1992) and therefore the operationalization of dispositional mind- fulness might have been expected to be shaped by the con- straints of our preconceptions considering mindfulness as a dimension of emotional regulation. Nevertheless, the Mindful Attention Awareness Scale (MAAS), the most widely used ques- tionnaire measuring trait mindfulness, developed by Brown and Ryan (2003) does not contain any content that relates directly to emotions or emotional regulation. Moreover, the psychometric properties of the scale suggest that the MAAS reflects a unique property of human consciousness. Since MAAS aims to measure a receptive attentional stance toward inner and outer present moment experiences it was related to the Openness to Experi- ence Factor of the NEO-PI (Costa & McCrae 1992) and to mea- sures of emotional intelligence (Trait Meta-Mood Scale; Salovey, Mayer, Goldman, Turvey & Palfai, 1995). But mindful- ness is not a marker of self-consciousness characterized by higher-order, self-reflective thoughts. In contrast mindful states are more perceptual or pre-reflexive, ‘‘operating on, rather than within, thought, feeling, and other contents of consciousness’’ (Brown & Ryan, 2003, p. 823). Subsequently, mindfulness was positively related to benign stress appraisals and to a higher use of approach coping instead of avoidant coping strategies (Garland, Gaylord & Park, 2009; Wein- stein et al., 2009). Mindfulness was a positive correlate of such personality traits as Conscientiousness, Agreeableness and Posi- tive Affect, while it was a negative correlate of Neuroticism and Negative Affect (Giluk, 2009). Lower levels of mindfulness were related to emotional dysregulation and predicted symptom sever- ity in Generalized Anxiety Disorder (Roemer et al., 2009) and in Borderline Personality Disorder (Wupperman, Neumann, Whit- man & Axelrod, 2009). These findings indicate that mindfulness mitigates emotional reactivity to threatening situations (Arch & Ó 2011 The Authors. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology Ó 2011 The Scandinavian Psychological Associations. Published by Blackwell Publishing Ltd., 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA. ISSN 0036-5564. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, 2011, 52, 369–375 DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-9450.2011.00888.x