Abstract
Emotions dreamers experience in dreams are considered simple experiential awareness and theorized as primary consciousness. The current study investigated emotions as part of a core variable of the problem-solving phenomenon. 979 dreams were analyzed by the method of grounded theory with questions applied through constant comparative analysis to individual instances of dreamers' problem solving. The 29 dreams yielded represent the core variable with 86 different components of cognitive and psychological processes accompanied by dreamers' emotional awareness in emotional signaling, stimulating, self-regulating, or action prompting or preventing roles. The critical emotional awareness during efforts to resolve difficult situations alerts dreamers and allows them to shift from being a passive recipient in the mode of primary consciousness with simple awareness of emotions into the active initiatory and participatory mode of secondary consciousness in which dreamers enrich their problem-solving efforts by reflective and intellectual abstract analyses. These mental efforts are considered an adaptive, self-organizing, goal-oriented process. Future isomorphically based prospective investigations of problem-solving dreams could focus on neural correlates of emotional awareness as a critical component of non-lucid dreamers' capacities to use secondary consciousness.
Experientially, the emotions of waking life with their accompanying evoked feelings and power to exert a dominant influence upon capacities to reason are characterized as “complex psychological and physiological states” (Dolan, 2002, p. 1191). In this viewpoint, experiencing, awake individuals use emotions as their “fundamentally adaptive resource” (Greenberg, 2002, p. 155). It is understood that persons put this emotional resource in the service of their “meaning system” (p. 156) or as a compass by which they guide their appreciation and evaluation of the personal effects of events that are often accompanied by unanticipated consequences. If needed, individuals' personal awareness of emotions allows them to employ “rapid adaptive action” (Greenberg, 2002, p. 156) in times when slower, more critically oriented processing of complex situations is not possible. Furthermore, incorporating emotions into thinking about problems could offer guidance in figuring out—without explicit time constraint—the suitable mode of activity (Dolan, 2002, p. 1191). These subsequent reasoning acts are termed problem solving and are an essential part of the motivation to overcome difficulties people encounter during their lives (Davidson, 2003).
In studies of dreaming consciousness, the existence of and dreamers' propensity for a problem-solving capacity generated during non-lucid dreaming has been demonstrated in earlier research (e.g., Glucksman & Kramer, 2004; Wolman & Kozmová, 2007). This evidence of specific mental abilities and accomplishments within non-lucid dreaming indicates continuity of problem-solving activities across waking/dreaming states of consciousness. The scientific community considers nocturnal problem solving as one of many possible functions of dreaming: an adaptive process that is connected with an individual's emotional responsiveness to his or her current waking pressing concerns (e.g., Greenberg, Katz, Schwartz, & Pearlman, 1992; Glucksman, 1995). It is not yet known, however, with regard to individuals' waking lives, what exactly could be adaptive in the relationship between problem solving and emotions that occur during non-lucid dreaming.
The assertion that emotions connected with problem solving in which dreamers engage during non-lucid dreaming might be adaptively advantageous requires a distinction between lucid and non-lucid dreaming. During lucid dreaming, dreamers are aware they are dreaming, and they are able to manipulate, control, or create the content of their own dreams (Gackenbach & LaBerge, 1988). Dreamers also retain some behavioral contact with the external world (in laboratory conditions, they are able to emit cues, or to signal voluntarily about their internal state [e.g., Dresler, Eibl, Fischer, Wehrle, Spoormaker, Steiger, et al., 2014]). In contrast to these cognitive skills, non-lucid dreamers are unable to have “control over” the dream mechanics (Purcell, Moffitt, & Hoffmann, 1993, p. 219) or over the dream form (Nir & Tononi, 2009). They are also disconnected from the world that exists outside of their minds (Rechtschaffen, 1978). While being in an environment that simulates the waking world (Nielsen, 2011) with its dilemmas, problems, and concerns, non-lucid dreamers who are without the connection to external realities remain immersed in the immediacy (“in the moment” or “in the here and now”) of unsolicited dream situations, surroundings, and environs.
Problem-solving that non-lucid dreamers become involved in has been defined as dreamers' “attempts for resolution of dilemmas within immediacy of their dreams” (Kozmová, 2012, p. 51). These mental actions occur in problem-solving dreams, defined as dreams in which the individual dreamer, in the presence of some occasioning or prompting event, is able to make an active choice or reacts to it in a manner that is discernible from the dream report (Kozmová, 2012, p. 53).
In the previous research, the existing potential for dreamers' mental activities that could become realized upon encountering conflicts, dilemmas, perturbations, or curiosities has been documented and described as a multilayered nocturnal cognitive problem-solving phenomenon (Kozmová, 2008). As previously discussed (Kozmová, 2008), the identified phenomenon contains three distinct problem-solving modalities—direct, self-monitoring, and indirect—and includes additional specific categories and properties that represent the dreaming mind in its problem-solving mode.
As described earlier (Kozmová, 2008), the dreamers' direct involvement and engagement in resolving encountered problems or difficulties or in satisfying their curiosities include (a) deliberate actions or behaviors; (b) thinking (for most recently known extent of executive function and its forms of existence in non-lucid dreaming, see also Kozmová, 2012); and (c) experience and use of emotions. The current research's aim is to investigate emotions as one of the core variables of the nocturnal cognitive problem-solving phenomenon (Kozmová, 2008), with the objective of understanding the adaptive functions of emotions that dreamers experience or use during problem solving and the uses these may have in individuals' waking lives.
The present exploratory research about emotions' instrumentality during dreamers' problem solving used the method of grounded theory (Glasser, 1992, Henwood & Pigeon, 2003). Given that this qualitative method is relatively unknown in dreaming research, in this presentation the author's explicit investigative goals are interwoven with the method's working stages and phases to serve as an organizing principle for reporting the results. The following five objectives of the present inquiry into nocturnal emotions in problem solving ensue from and are in concert with particular stages of working with the grounded theory method (Henwood & Pigeon, 2003, p. 136). These goals are: (a) determining the contexts in which dreamers apply problem-solving efforts interconnected with emotions (because the phenomena are linked to contexts; Charmaz, 2008); (b) analyzing and coding into categories of cognitive and psychological components of problem-solving processes that accompany dreamers' experience or use of emotions; (c) quantifying individual components; (d) exploring and linking, in writing, concepts about processes connected with awareness of emotions and offering cross-state conceptualization of emotions relevant to problem solving and adaptation; and (e) proceeding in the analysis of data from a descriptive level to a theoretical level by developing substantive grounded theory and proposing the adaptive function of nocturnal emotions in problem solving.
The present author's specific contributions about emotions in non-lucid dreaming consist of elucidating their influence, purposefulness, and instrumentality in the context of mental activities of problem-solving processes. From the perspective of explicating this adaptive function, emotions in the nocturnal problem-solving processes are not seen as an abundant and intense element of primary consciousness (defined as “simple awareness that includes perception and emotion”; Hobson, 2009, p. 803) that overtakes the rationality of the dreamers (Hobson, 2009). In contrast, during the problem-solving process the awareness of emotions signals non-lucid dreamers' movement from relative inertia of passive experience to “internal participation” (Strauch & Meier, 1996, p. 87) with its purposefulness and goal orientation (Kozmová, 2012). The emotions are considered the key element that allows dreamers, albeit unknowingly, to shift between two states of consciousness, namely, from primary consciousness to secondary (or higher order) consciousness, which is defined as “subjective awareness including perception and emotion that is enriched by abstract analysis (thinking)” (Hobson, 2009, p. 803). These higher order cognitive additions include reflection, self-reflection, and decision making (Kozmová, 2012). In this view of the present contribution, the dreamers' attempts to resolve, to master, or to discover are considered two sides of the same problem-solving phenomenon that exists continuously in waking and in non-lucid dreaming states of consciousness (Kozmová, 2008). An additional contribution of the current research rests in considering critical emotional awareness and experience of nocturnal problem-solving emotions as germane to the adaptive psychological and emotional effectiveness of awake individuals.
Researchers' Conceptualizations About Emotions of Waking Life
Awareness of emotions, as an element of consciousness (Kozmová, 2012), develops during infants' waking lives through the intimate complex of affective attunement (Schore, 1994). As the author indicates, this intricate emotional growth occurs based upon mutual interactions, caregivers' intuitions, communication and reciprocal identifications, and communication of feelings between caregiver and child. Later, upon a child's age-dependent neural development (Domhoff, 2003), the experience of emotions becomes part of dreaming consciousness (e.g., Glucksman, 2007).
The emotions of waking life are understood as “complex psychological and physiological states” (Dolan, 2002, p. 1191). From an evolutionary perspective, the experiencing of emotions has been defined as the “ability to ascribe value to events in the world” in terms of their greater or lesser desirability (p. 1191); thus, emotions, with their accompanying potential to evoke feeling states, exert a dominant influence on the capacities to reason (p. 1191).
Previously, Ekman (1992) argued that emotions offer “adaptive value in dealing with fundamental life-tasks” (p. 169). These life tasks are understood variably, e.g., finding better solutions in situations in pursuit of goals that engender common human dilemmas (e.g., frustrations, losses, and accomplishments; Johnson-Laird & Oatley, 1992). Emotions accompany the expectations of intentionality and attaining, maintaining, or failing to achieve a goal (Stein & Trabasso, 1992). Hence, emotions also influence “goal states” and choices among those desirable behaviors and actions that are initiated or assisted by, or which individuals accomplish by engaging in executive function, including planning (Tooby & Cosmides, 1990, p. 412). Existentially, emotions assist in appraisal of recurring themes in one's life (e.g., “danger… loss… progressing toward realization of a goal”; Lazarus, 1991, p. 202).
Research Connecting Problem-solving and Dreams The basic externally oriented approach that connects problem solving and dreams has been called dream incubation (or, “sleeping on it”). Incubation of dreams is understood as a process during which, prior to sleep, a person poses a usually emotionally weighty, meaningful, or significant life problem and expects a dream to develop an idea, offer or contribute to a solution, or assist in resolution of the problem in some way (e.g., Krippner, 1981; Barrett, 2001; White & Taytroe, 2003). When the dream offers its contribution to problem solving, either concretely or symbolically, the individual generally realizes or understands it in the waking state of consciousness.
In previous decades and also currently, researchers' interests focused on different connections between dreams and problem solving. For example, Kuper (1983) traced residual daytime problems and observed the evolution of their solutions in dreams. Wolowitz and Anderson (1989) compared psychoanalytical treatment and problem solving within dreams to the state of mental health. Revonsuo and Valli (2008) proposed a biologically based adaptive evolutionary function of dreaming through perception of threats and practicing of threat-avoidance skills. Glucksman and Kramer (2004) used problem-solving dreams as an instrument for evaluating the clinical progress in psychoanalytical and psychodynamic therapy. Ruggeri, Mosca, and Zei (2011) tracked, within psychotherapy with a single patient, evolution of “dramatic” dream narratives and resolution of their central issues without predetermined conclusions. Hypothetically, Coutts (2008) in his emotional selection theory proposed an autonomous process during which dreamt emotions contribute to evaluation, accommodation, and retention of socially adaptive schemas that could govern waking behavior. From an internal viewpoint of dreamers' abilities of solving and resolving problems as they occur within the immediacy of non-lucid dreaming, the role of emotions the dreamers experience and use during the process or sequence of their problem-solving efforts, however, has not yet been investigated.
Previous Relevant Research and Theoretical Positions about Emotions and Problem-solving in Non-lucid Dreams
Emotions are one of the many phenomenological elements of consciousness spanning the waking/dreaming continuum (Schredl, 2010). In relationship to dreams, the investigations of emotions have been predominantly carried out without definitions (e.g., Schredl & Doll, 1998). The most widely used coding system of Hall and van de Castle (1966) represents only five examples (anger, apprehension [fear], confusion, happiness, and sadness) of many other possible emotions, and thus it captures only the basics of dreamers' emotional lives.
Theoretically, it has been proposed that emotions, as an element of primary consciousness, dominate non-lucid dreams “at the expense of reason” (Hobson, 2009, p. 808).
At the same time, there is an assumption that even though emotions have expressive power, they “do not have continuous impact on the dream experience and do not necessarily form part of these events” (Strauch & Meier, 1996, p. 95). Emotions, however, are present in dreams, and with instruction dreamers include them in their dream reports (e.g., Merritt, Stickgold, Pace-Schott, Williams, & Hobson, 1994). Emotions have been categorized into at least 22 types, with variety of sub-types termed “emotional tokens” (Nielsen, Deslauriers, & Baylor, 1991, pp. 298–300). Researchers' additional efforts focused on the research of emotions on scoring of explicit emotions, their intensity, and measurement issues (e.g., Schredl & Doll, 1998).
As mentioned earlier, Strauch and Meier (1996) asserted that emotions lack “continuous impact on the dream experience” and are, for the most part, excluded from events occurring during dreaming (p. 95). In contrast to this claim about the unimportance of emotions in dreams, Smith, Antrobus, Gordon, Tucker, Hirota, et al. (2004), while investigating motivations and emotions, determined that during Rapid Eye Movement (REM) dreaming (presumably non-lucid) individual dreamers are motivated or have intentions when compelled to change something about the experienced state of affairs (p. 504). In this case, as the authors postulated, the dreamers are “trying” or “wanting” to change the situation (p. 504), and they employ “motivated behavior” (p. 509). In other words, dreamers experience a mental shift into a “motivated state,” which Smith, et al. define as “an experience of a discrepancy between an existing state and a preferred, or more valued state” (p. 509).
As Smith, et al. (2004) asserted, with the experience of emotional inconsistency (feeling sense of undesirable or encountering the opposite of valued state of affairs), the motivated individual dreamer “moves towards a preferred alternative” (p. 509). This notion is consistent with Klinger's (2013) proposition that the content of dreams is understood in terms of involved mental activities regarding goal commitments with underlying motivations that continue in waking and dreaming consciousness. As Klinger proposed, in internal and external environments the “protoemotional activity or full emotional arousal” (p. 1) assists and sensitizes the individuals to noticing and processing cues relevant to their achievements, sequences of behaviors, or explorations based upon desires. While considering Smith, et al. 's and Klinger's theoretical frameworks, the current research corroborates the notion that in the presence of salient emotional clues indicating some discrepancy between experience and a desired goal the non-lucid dreamers become mentally active.
Background and the Current Research Questions
As documented previously (Kozmová, 2008, 2012), within the immediacy of their uncalled-for and not designed internal vistas of dream settings and situations, non-lucid dreamers often encounter self- or environment-created or initiated problems, difficulties, dilemmas, perturbations, and curiosities. The current presentation represents a smaller segment of an earlier conducted larger exploratory investigation guided by the question, “What is the scope of cognitive problem-solving strategies that dreamers are capable of employing for resolving situations encountered during dreaming?” (Kozmová, 2008, p. ii). A complex description was offered and characteristics of the phenomenon of nocturnal cognitive problem-solving strategies were posited (Kozmová, 2008).
Herein are presented the results of a context-based analysis of emotions as one core variable of the abovementioned phenomenon; the analysis was conducted using the method of grounded theory (Glaser & Strauss, 1967). The researcher selected this method for its suitability of working with raw data (narratives), as fitting for categorizing core variables from dream reports and lifting those to conceptual levels (Henwood & Pigeon, 2003; Suddaby, 2006). The specific initial research question informing this research, which follows the evolution of emotional awareness as a sophisticated tool for problem solving (e.g., Wolman & Kozmová, 2007; Kozmová, 2008), was “In which specific contexts are dreamers able to use emotions while they feel prompted to engage their capacity of problem solving?” Additional questions used during investigating varieties of dreamers' negotiating or strategizing attempts that included emotions will be explicated in a detailed description of working with the method of grounded theory (Henwood & Pigeon, 2003).
Method
Assumptions and Operational Definitions
The present author's work is guided by following assumptions and suppositions that have guided the consciousness studies and discussions in the literature:
There were no preceding arrangements for dream recall from Non Rapid Eye Movement (NREM) and Rapid Eye Movement (REM) periods of sleep (e.g., Fosse, Stickgold, & Hobson, 2004). The dreamers recalled the dreams spontaneously at home. These dreams were considered to be from the latter REM sleep periods because REM sleep with its overall physiological and psychological activities is closest to the waking state (Strauch & Meier, 1996); prior to waking, the dreamers have greater direct access to those dreams (p. 60).
Dream narratives serve as a legitimate source of data suitable for systematic investigation by means of scientific inquiry (Domhoff, 2003; see also three volumes of dream science works edited by Barrett & McNamara, 2007).
Dream reports are considered data consisting of “first-person accounts of subjective experiences” that contain information about psychology and the mental life of the dreamer (Hobson, PaceSchott, & Stickgold, 2003, p. 231).
Investigations conducted using the grounded theory method are inevitably and irreducibly tied to contexts in which the researched phenomena are occurring (Charmaz, 2008). This contextualization is exemplified in waking life with regard to individuals' mental activities related to problems and difficulties (Farthing, 1992; Klinger, 2013) and equally in the dreaming life of non-lucid dreamers in which they also problem solve in the contexts of specific situations (Glucksman, 2007; Kozmová, 2008).
As part of their working memory, non-lucid dreamers notice what is going on in their extemporary created dream environments and they remember, feel, know, and name personal circumstances that could contribute to making choices based on subjective preferences (e.g., Kozmová & Wolman, 2006; Wolman & Kozmová, 2007).
Non-lucid dreamers consider the dream world as real (Nielsen, 2011), and during their dreaming they are generally disengaged from sensory contact with external realities or people who are awake or asleep and who could offer assistance as needed. In these situations of being on their own, non-lucid dreamers might use their available individual personal mental abilities to deal with the ensued situations (Kozmová, 2012).
While sleeping, the mental processes dreamers use during problem solving are of endogenous (internal) origins similar to sources of information that undergird private thought processes of waking life (e.g., imagining, daydreaming; Wamsley & Stickgold, 2010). These private mental activities also include “imaginal problem solving,” Nielsen, 2011, p. 596).
Within dream environments, dream characters could be actively helping or assisting the dreamers in difficult situations; this type of problem solving is not a focus of the present investigation (Kozmová, 2008).
For this study, the author developed and constructed several definitions intended specifically for the research work with dreams.
Consciousness.—The concept of consciousness is compiled from the works of several authors (James, 1890; Farthing, 1993; Kozmová & Wolman, 2006, Kozmová, 2008; Purves, Brannon, Cabeza, Huettel, La Bar, Platt, et al., 2008) as a subjective awareness of oneself as an experient, actor, 3 observer, and thinker distinct from other experients, actors, observers, and thinkers regardless and including of recognition and acknowledgment of separateness between waking, dreaming, or altered states—which could be momentary or longer than a few minutes—of conscious existence. Consciousness further includes noticing and awareness of sensations, perceptions, emotions, thoughts, and memories registered in the primary and in reflective 4 mode of experiencing. Consciousness denotes an ability to recall and describe internal experiences. These recalled descriptions (offered orally to self or others or shared in a written or pictorial form) could include non-salient, salient, and surprising elements of subjective experience which may remain experienced, stored in memory, developed further in imagination, or could be volitionally acted upon—internally or externally—by internal or external prompts to action. (Kozmová, 2012, p. 51)
Non-lucid dreaming.—The current exploratory study focused exclusively on non-lucid dream reports. The study belongs to the family of investigations that are looking into the extent of phenomenological qualities in terms of conceptual similarities and differences in cognitive, emotional, and other capacities (e.g., Kahan, 1994; Wolman & Kozmová, 2007; Kahan & LaBerge, 2011) of dreamers immersed in circumstances of non-lucid dreaming. In this state of consciousness, the dreamers live in “a convincing simulation of waking reality experience” (Nielsen, 2011, p. 596) without knowledge of a direct connection to the waking world; they are not reflecting critically upon this fact (Rechtschaffen, 1978).
Given these suppositions, comparisons of the quality and extent of phenomenal elements and psychological dimensions of subjective experiences thus makes sense in delimited non-lucid dreaming during which dreamers problem solve: in this state of consciousness, the individual dreamer, without, for the most part, the ability to think about or connect to the external world, is automatically “captured and held” within the immediacy of the dream and its context. For this reason, he or she is in the best position to demonstrate own internal capacities existing in this altered state of consciousness.
Dream.—Each group of researchers conceptualizes the term dream differently (Pagel, Blagrove, Levin, States, Stickgold, & White, 2001). It is my contention that in dreams per se one could find elements of primary and secondary consciousness (Kozmová & Wolman, 2006). For the present study, the definition of the dream is:
…a subjective experience that occurred during sleep. When awake, the experient spontaneously recalled it, and described it, to oneself in an oral or in a written form, in a story-like fashion. In this narrative, which could closely follow one segment or several sequential scenes of the dream, the awake dreamer might depict some or all of the following features of subjective experience that occurred while being in the role of a dreamer: The images seen, the action performed or participated in, the solitary or shared engagements, the situations observed, the perceptions noticed, feelings felt, and thoughts thought. (Kozmová, 2012, pp. 52–53)
Problem solving.—Problem solving during non-lucid dreaming per se could be defined and operationalized as process entailing individual dreamers' idiosyncratic variety of strategizing efforts, including, as stated earlier, “attempts for resolution of dilemmas within immediacy of their dreams” (Kozmová, 2012, p. 51).
Problem-solving dreams.—Because the problem-solving activities that include necessary higher order cognition within non-lucid dreams are carried out by the dreamer himself and might not occur during every dream, it seemed reasonable to divide non-lucid dream reports into two categories: (a) descriptive dreams, comprised of “the descriptions of scenery, situations, actions of the dreamer or other characters, and the dreamer's own observations and experiences within that dream” (Kozmová, 2012, p. 53); and (b) problem-solving dreams (Kozmová, 2008, pp. 72–73), each characterized as
…a dream report that differs from a descriptive type of dream narrative. In a report of an problem-solving dream, an independent reader would be able to discern that the dreamer was propelled or prompted to make an active choice (reasonable or unreasonable) in the presence of a situation or event, one which he or she might have recognized, defined, or identified and explicitly described within the dream. Alternatively, in the report, it could be observable that during the dream the dreamer might have implicitly hinted at but not described, yet acted upon, some precipitating event [that might not be mentioned in the dream report]. 5 The discernible active choices as responses to internally generated, perceived, and later described contexts, situations, perceptions, beliefs, images, or novelties could be visible and construed as reactions to an emotionally, psychologically, or intellectually realistic immediacy of the dream or to some other unidentifiable cause. The overt or covert events [stimuli] 5 to which dreamers reacted could be characterized by an independent reader as realistic or imagined vicissitudes of life in general (e.g., ambiguities, puzzlements, distresses, dilemmas, conflicts, concerns, difficulties, worries, threats, dangers, curiosities, intrigues, or wonderments) (Kozmová, 2012, p. 53).
Examples of descriptive and problem-solving dreams can be seen in Table 1.
Examples of Descriptive and Problem-solving Dreams
Participants
The current research utilized 1,298 archival dreams collected retrospectively from 100 men and 100 women who participated in dream seminars conducted during the years 1990 to 2004. The dream workers resided in six different countries (Argentina, Brazil, England, Japan, and two republics of the former Soviet Union—Russia and Ukraine) and in the United States (32 women and 66 men), and each contributed one self-selected dream. During their dream work, the participants were protected under the approval of the Saybrook Institutional Review Board (SIRB). For concision with the sample size of each group (100 participants), some participants' relatives and friends, with equal protection from the SIRB, were asked to contribute one self-selected dream. Part of the previously complete dream collection from the United States participants remained incomplete because of an irretrievable loss due to a computer failure.
The dream workers, ages 20 to 70 years, with a few younger or older exceptions (median age was approximately 40yr.), came from middle- and upper-middle-class socioeconomic groups; they were motivated by a desire to learn about themselves by working on their self-selected dreams. The collected dreams were professionally translated into English, with some of them previously utilized for quantitative content analyses (e.g., Krippner, Winkler, Rochlen, & Yashar, 1998; Krippner & Weinhold, 2001).
As described earlier (Kozmová, 2012), from a total of 1,288 cross-cultural non-lucid dreams (10 lucid dreams were not part of the current research), with the operationalized definition of problem-solving dream, 979 dreams (67%) were selected for primary analysis leading to emergence of the complex problem-solving phenomenon. The national origin of problem-solving dreams is marked as follows: Argentina (76 men; 71 women); Brazil (69 men; 72 women); England (74 men; 66 women); Japan (81 men; 77 women); Russia (75 men; 75 women); Ukraine (90 men; 78 women); the United States (25 men; 50 women). For the analysis of emotions in problem-solving dreams relevant to goals of this research, the problem-solving dreams needed to contain at least one emotional element that indicated the presence of emotions and their potential role in the problem-solving process. The working sample consisted of all selected problem-solving dreams (979) narrowed down, through actual analysis, to 29 dreams that were collectively representative of individual instances of the dreamers' emotional awareness.
The current report focuses on emotions as one of the three core variables of the nocturnal problem-solving phenomenon; the partial and complete results of working with the primary analysis are not part of the current research and have been presented elsewhere (Kozmová, 2008; 2012).
Grounded Theory Method
Based upon anecdotal examples and the previous study with results that non-lucid dreamers are capable of exerting problem-solving efforts (Wolman & Kozmová, 2007), it was intuited that these strategies could represent a phenomenon. With the use of the grounded theory method (Glaser & Strauss, 1967), the purpose of which is to generate, from observed data, a description of the object of research, the dreamers' efforts were described as the nocturnal cognitive phenomenon of problem solving (Kozmová, 2008).
As proposed by Glaser and Strauss (1967), in the work with grounded theory method, the researcher who is “theoretically sensitive” (p. 46) looks for a main phenomenon, also termed core variable. The investigator finds this core variable in the accounts of people's actions, behaviors, habits, reactions, or responses within contexts and environments (in which experiences occur) by using questions designed specifically for the project. He or she applies the questions to the similarities and contrasts of constant comparative analysis of individual instances of the researched phenomenon with the goal of forming abstract concepts from narratives (Glaser, 1992). As Glaser further described, to find a core variable and create its structure the researcher captures the delineating elements of the phenomenon. Concurrently, the investigator develops the theory as it emerges from data analysis in the form of coded categories and their dimensions, modalities, properties, processes, and other distinctive markers (including outliers type), often described in “in vivo language” (in the language of participants) and documented in memos.
As Glaser (1992) and Henwood and Pidgeon (2003) elucidated, the main goal of this phase of the research is to achieve saturation of the elements of the phenomenon and to create its structure; saturation occurs when sampling and analysis bring quantity and sameness but no novel variety. With the saturation of categories and developed description of the phenomenon, the researcher shifts investigation into the stage of positing a substantive theory (Glaser & Straus, 1967; Kozmová, 2012). Presumably, researchers' detachment from their favorite hypotheses might reduce preconceived notions during this segment of analysis (hence the need for disclosure of assumptions).
Researchers working with the grounded theory method often prefer the initial a posteriori approach (inductive reasoning). The conclusions that the individual authors reach based on observed facts then leave space for forming a priori (deducted from propositions) hypotheses based on research findings and theories published in scholarly publications with the option for testing the theory through quantification of data in the experimental design by logico-deductive means (Glaser & Strauss, 1967). The method is not restricted by validity of constructs; by a narrow sample (e.g., specific demographics); or by comparisons of homogeneous samples with the control group (e.g., Cozby, 1997). According to the method's developer (Glaser, 1992), the way of working is flexible, with starting the analyses and comparisons anywhere within the restricted or amplified open sample until the elements or processes under investigation reach saturation. Hence, using the method allows for data-driven instead of hypothesis-driven research.
The current investigation conducted by using the grounded theory method remained qualitative (by directly working with dream narratives), subjective (by acknowledging the author's prior knowledge and including testing of the theory prior to the current research; Kozmová, 2007), and transparent (the author has explicated theoretical preconceptions, notions, and knowledge in “Introduction” and “Assumptions”). The researcher carried out the actual analytical comparative work by reliance on her own mental faculties, intellect, psychology of being, emotional maturity, and rigorousness of approach—all used in the service of building the theory from diversity of data (Charmaz, 2008). Previous authors who have worked partially or completely with grounded theory in the research of dream narratives include English (2002), Gilbert (2004), Hill (1998), Kozmová (2008), Matheny (2001), and Sungy (2001). According to Glaser's (1993) collection of research, the method has been used in a variety of fields of the social sciences, nursing, and medicine. The current research of problem-solving dreams conducted by using grounded theory offers an original contribution in extending the method to categorize and classify the subjective experiences, namely, the dreamers' use of emotions in problem-solving efforts.
Descriptions of Working with Method of Grounded Theory
In their inquiry into the complex issues regarding the presentation of the results of analysis with the method of grounded theory, Henwood and Pigeon (2003) pointed out that “one of the most perplexing features of generating grounded theory is how researchers move from early and intermediate stages to theoretical integration and closure, for any individual study” (p. 148). For this reason, with the goals of the study in mind, the present researcher cites the authors' relevant work steps (p. 136) in the brief induction into the qualitative grounded theory applied to research of emotions as a core variable in the dreamers' problem-solving process. For the very same reason, the descriptions of various phases of analysis in the current project are illustrated by the pertinent parts of dreams and concurrently or subsequently interspersed with memos that portray how the researcher used constant comparative analysis, to draw from the raw data the concepts (Suddaby, 2006), including development of substantive grounded theory.
Goal 1. Finding distinctive internal contexts in which dreamers use emotions as part of their problem-solving efforts.—The analysis with the method of grounded theory is irreducibly tied to the contexts in which the investigated phenomenon occurs (Charmaz, 2008). In this study, the contexts were contained in the “first-person accounts of subjective experiences” (Hobson, et al., 2003, p. 231) in problem-solving dreams.
The analysis with the method of grounded theory started with the researcher's intention “to capture, by coding, the detail, variation, and complexity of the basic qualitative material” (Henwood & Pigeon, 2003, p. 136). Hence, within all operationally selected problem-solving dream narratives, by using the initial question, “In which specific contexts are dreamers able to use emotions while they feel prompted to engage their capacity of problem-solving?” and by focusing methodically on the occurrences of dreamers' efforts, the investigator then constantly compared their differences and similarities with the following prompting questions: (a) Who or what is present in the dreamer's problematic or curiosity-evoking situation? and, if needed, (b) In which situation is this individual dreamer problem solving? In these instances, the present author “captured the detail” and “variety” (Henwood & Pigeon, 2003, p. 136) of contexts in concrete situations. For example, through the constant comparative analysis of the following two dreams, by using the abovementioned questions, the researcher arrived at the ensuing conclusions described in memos: in the first dream, the dreamer is alone, and his problem-solving, which is accompanied by emotions, involves exclusively his own life goals; hence, it is possible to call the context “intrapersonal.”
In contrast, the obvious difference in contexts between the first and second dream is in the presence of additional character and in the narrative of implicitly stated problem; thus, the context within which the emotion occurred will be termed “interpersonal.”
” …The coordinator asks us for our sensations, and I say I feel like a fish. I visualize people in circles, like we are in a huge aquarium. Suddenly, I see a shark jumping into the middle, but it tries to escape. I open my eyes and notice that the coordinator is watching me with a smile that is both satisfied and sarcastic.
In this stage of research, the process of lifting from the emotional data (all data that exemplify dreamers' cognitive and psychological procesess linked by emotions and found in specific contexts) an additional conceptual level (while intellectually moving, during analysis, back and forth within the same and new consequently selected data for analysis; Suddaby, 2006) required an additional question. For example, in intrapersonal context, based upon the experience of the dreamer in the first dream, the researcher inquired, With what is the dreamer engaged during problem solving while contemplating himself (or own skills) exclusively? In this case, constant comparison between instances revealed that the dreamers are focused on tasks, undertakings, and activities (e.g., how to get back on the correct road, how to perform work in the office, or how to complete the test efficiently even under under strenuous conditions) (Table 2).
Experiencing and Using Emotions within Intrapersonal Context of Engagement with Personal Tasks, Undertakings, and Activities
Goal 2. Analyzing, categorizing, and coding components of problem solving during which dreamers become aware of their emotions or use them.—As Henwood and Pidgeon (2003) suggested, to arrive at saturation requires “to capture, by coding, the detail, variation, and complexity of the basic qualitative material” (p. 136). In this case, the researcher focused (in 979 dream narratives) on finding, categorizing the variations, and describing complexity of problem-solving efforts that were accompanied by emotions. To discern these variations from problem-solving narratives, the investigator created the following questions that guided the analysis of dreamers' strategizing: Is there an emotional component to dreamer's engagement with the situation? If yes, what emotion is the dreamer feeling? Where exactly is the emotion positioned in the problem-solving activity? (Kozmová, 2008, p. 75) With these questions in mind, this time the focus was on emotions connected to problem-solving processes found in various contexts during dreamers' strategizing.
Parts of Dream 1 serve as an illustration for this level of constant comparative analysis that starts to involve emerging categorization within the intrapsychic context: analyzing the segment “I am very worried. I have a heart full of misgiving…. I am scared that I may fail the examination,” it was concluded in the memo that the dreamer was psychologically and cognitively involved in “emotionally laden thinking; this type of thinking evokes fear of failure; and the dreamer is also using future-oriented thinking.” The investigator termed the intellectual outcome of analysis components of problem solving and continued to look for additional components by comparing these instances with those found in subsequent dreams.
At this successive level of analysis, the present author utilized Henwood and Pidgeon's (2003) approach of “sampling new data and cases on theoretical grounds as analysis progresses” (p. 136). Sampling new data included dreams from dreamers who lived in individualistic and collectivistic cultures. The logical notion behind this approach was that the work of constant comparative analysis of subjective experiences narrated in dreams that transpired in the minds of numerous individuals grounded in the same culture could elucidate some approaches to problem solving. At the same time, the researcher hypothesized that dreams of dreamers living in several different cultures would maximize discovering numerous instances of problem solving and allow for a creation of a composite, richer picture of the emotions connected with problem-solving capacities of the dreaming brain (Kozmová, 2008, p. 13).
Examples of working toward discovering richness in emotional fundamentals existing during problem solving are two dreams in which two dreamers from different cultures approach problems they encounter in interpersonal contexts:
His son, a twin, came to me and started talking about a contract. He laid out some terms that were not acceptable to me, and I did not want to store my vehicle under those conditions.
In this dream, for the dreamer (from an individualistic culture 7 ), the emotion of feeling stuck serves as a marker of dissatisfaction with a solution to the problem; subsequently, the dreamer attempts, by asking himself a question, to find his own solution to the problem.
I saw an opportunity that was available to me for a job that I desperately needed. Other people had promised me a job but they did not deliver. But the person who had the concept for this undertaking did not keep his promise either.
In this dream, the dreamer's emotions are comprised of reactions to other people's behavior. In the same line of comparative investigation, the researcher continued to find and code psychological and cognitive components of problem-solving process as these were connected to emotions (Tables 2–6).
Goal 3. Quantification of emotion-connected components of problem solving.—To establish whether the saturation of categories represents discernable richness and nuances that enliven non-lucid dreamers' problem solving by awareness of emotions, it seemed imperative to quantify the emotional components of problem solving. For example, previously mentioned Dreams 3 and 4 serve as illustrations of quantification: in Dream 3, there are two components of cognitive/psychological processes (“markers of dissatisfaction with solution to problem” and “subsequent attempt at new solution”). In Dream 4, there are also two, but different, processes present (“conclusion of reasoning” and “reaction to other people's behavior”). This evaluative phase then served as a basis to determine whether further phases of Henwood and Pidgeon's (2003) suggestions for working with grounded theory were warranted.
Goal 4. Exploring and linking concepts about processes connected with awareness of emotions and cross-state conceptualization of emotions relevant to problem solving and adaptation.—Inspired by the sheer volume of nuances (complexity) the dreamers presented in their awareness and use of emotions during problem solving, it became obvious that the acquired knowledge requires exploration with regard to existing theories and research. Henwood and Pidgeon (2003) termed this part of working with grounded theory “checking out emerging ideas, extending richness and scope” and “writing theoretical memoranda to explore concepts and links to existing theory” (Henwood & Pidgeon, 2003, p. 136). This checking on emerging ideas (which included “writing extended memos,” p. 136) focused on three theoretical conceptualizations relevant for problem solving that includes emotions:
Because in the leading theory of dreaming non-lucid dreamers must have perceptual awareness for “interaction and integration of emotions” (Hobson, 2009, p. 803), it seemed pertinent to ask the question, What kind of processes need to be present that would allow for dreamers' perceptions and idiosyncratic efforts that include emotions in problem-solving dreams? The answer included elucidation of processes that would allow dreamers to move from primary (perception and simple awareness of emotion; Hobson, 2009, p. 803) to secondary consciousness (perception and emotions “enriched by abstract analysis” in form of thinking, p. 803) within any context of non-lucid problem solving that contains emotions.
The conceptualization of emotions previously researched, namely, the theory of emotions as components of dream consciousness with formal properties (Hobson, 2002), focused exclusively on instances (Merritt, et al., 1994) or descriptions of feelings in dream reports (Kahn, Pace-Schott, & Hobson, 2002). From the currently analyzed problem-solving data emerged the idea that in dream narratives, and thus in dreamers' subjective experiences during non-lucid dreaming, there is a remarkable emotional similarity to the problem-solving situations of waking life. For example, the dreamer feeling stuck upon an unfavorable result of an interaction between people and trying to find his own way (Dream 3) and the dreamer feeling betrayed and experiencing sadness, injustice, and anguish upon expectation of a promise not fulfilled by others (Dream 4) seem to be common life experiences. This insight indicated that emotions dreamers encounter or utilize during strategizing could have some function in non-lucid dreaming. In other words, coded categories seemed to be similar to anecdotal approaches of using emotions in waking life in problem-solving circumstances. Based upon this “emerging idea” that was in agreement with “giving more detailed attention to phenomenology” of dream consciousness (Hobson, 2009, p. 812), it was decided to focus on writing a theoretical memorandum that would explore and integrate how the theorists of waking consciousness conceptualize waking emotions.
In preparation for the final stages of grounded theory, guided by the initial question of what could be adaptive, with regard to waking life, within the relationship between problem solving and emotions that occur during non-lucid dreaming, the present author explored the concepts of adaptation and adaptive processes in relationship to waking life and dreams.
Goals 5a and 5b. Proceeding in data analysis from descriptive to theoretical level by developing substantive grounded theory and proposing adaptive function of emotions dreamt in non-lucid dreaming state.—In the final stages of working with the method of grounded theory, Henwood and Pidgeon (2003) suggested that researchers select from “additional tactics to move analysis from descriptive to more theoretical levels: e.g., grouping or reclassifying sets of basic categories; writing definitions of core categories, building conceptual models and data displays, linking to the existing literature; writing extended memos and more formal theory” (p. 136).
Since the regrouping or reclassifying work was already covered by finding contexts in which dreamers problem solve, at this stage of the investigation the researcher started with constructing “data displays” (Tables 2–6) followed by “writing definitions of core categories” (in this research, termed “components”) guided by the question, Within each of the five contexts, what could be the range of dreamers' mental engagements underpinned by emotions they experience during the specific content in their problem-solving efforts while dreaming non-lucid dreams? The researcher termed these definitions “substantive grounded theory of emotions dreamers experience and use during their problem-solving process.” In addition, because “writing extended memos” already occurred with regard to problem-solving processes required to be in existence during nocturnal consciousness in order for dreamer to shift from primary to secondary consciousness (along with conceptualization of waking and dreaming problem-solving emotions and adaptation processes, see Goal 4), the researcher's focus on “more formal theory” (p. 136) then resulted in posited “adaptive function of emotions in problem-solving dreams dreamt in a non-lucid dreaming state.”
The final portion of intellectual work of “linking [the emerged theory] to existing literature” (p. 136) ensued in interpreting the current work and discussing it in terms of existing theories, research, and suggestions for future investigations. Because the researcher worked with narratives of dreams that were previously directly experienced, she opted to expresses this direct immediacy of subjective experiences (which includes dreamers' mental activities within problem-solving dreams) in the vivid narrative present tense that exhibits the active process of dreamers' experiences and their subsequent analysis (e.g., dreamers think, act, etc.). This type of description is in contrast to reports of results that are generally presented in the past tense (APA, 2010, p. 78).
Results
Goals 1. Distinctive Contexts of Emotions Included in Problem-solving
Through constant comparative analysis of the grounded theory method (Glaser, 1978, 1992) of narrated situations in which dreamers found themselves and experienced, felt prompted or resigned, or used emotions for their problem solving in the unpredictable immediate atmosphere of non-lucid problem-solving dreams, the following contexts emerged: (a) The dreamer is problem solving within his or her own intrapersonal or intrapsychic domain (Table 2); (b) the dreamer is participating in an interpersonal relationship (Table 3); (c) the dreamer is a participating member in group relationships (Table 4); (d) the dreamer engages with the animate environment (Table 5); and (e) the dreamer engages with an inanimate environment (Table 6).
Experiencing, Participating, and Using Emotions within Interpersonal Context
Experiencing, Participating, and Using Emotions within Group Context
Experiencing and Using Emotions in Inanimate Environmental Context
Experiencing and Using Emotions in Inanimate Environmental Context
Goal 2. Categorized Components of Problem Solving Connected With Emotions
From the constant comparative analysis within all five contexts emerged components of problem solving. These components are cognitively, intellectually, reflectively, or psychologically connected with emotions (Tables 2–6).
Goal 3. Quantities of Saturated Variety of Components of Problem-solving and Reflective/Intellectual Elaborations Simple counting of the components of problem solving (Tables 2–6, saturated varieties of dreamers' engagement with emotions within the core variable of emotion) in all five contexts in which dreamers problem solved yielded 86 different ways in which emotions become an integral and instrumental part of the problem-solving process.
These constituents demonstrate how individual dreamers, in an intellectual or reflective psychologically important manner, elaborated upon experienced or utilized emotions during their problem-solving processes. All of such specific efforts to resolve an encountered problem or dilemma, or to satisfy one's curiosity, signify the pursuit of an overt goal or demonstrate some other narrated striving in an unpredictable environment of non-lucid dreams.
Goal 4. Exploring and Linking Concepts About the Processes Connected With Awareness of Emotions and Cross-state Conceptualization of Emotions Relevant to Problem-solving and Adaptation
Processes connected with awareness of emotions in problem-solving dreams.—The investigator's exploration of occurrences that allows for the individual dreamer to move from perception of emotions (in the mode of primary consciousness) to being able to be aware and to use emotions in the problem-solving mode (in secondary, more elaborated mode of consciousness) leads to conceptualization of multiplicity of interconnected mental capacities:
In order to problem solve, have access, and shift from primary to secondary consciousness, the individual non-lucid dreamer needs to be able to (a) not notice that he or she is immersed in the dream and (b) notice, be aware, and subjectively experience range of fundamentals within the dreams. These elements of consciousness include: (1) awareness of general features occurring in dreams such as objects, scenery, settings, surroundings, people (including self, characters, acquaintances, strangers, and figures); internally originated sensations, impressions, perceptions, feelings, imaginations, or thinking of one's own thoughts; and, at times, (2) various relational engagements and involvements within events and situations in the non-lucid dream.
Thus, the individual dreamer needs to be able to possess and use the ability (1) to perceive, observe, notice, discern, distinguish, detect, recognize, or identify direct problems or curiosities or indirect circumstances that lead or pose as problems, difficulties, dilemmas, perturbations, or curiosities, and then (2) to react, plainly act, feel or think, strategize, maneuver, or use mental tactics in a person-systematic (or idiosyncratic) manner in order to make attempts or actually resolve the comprehended, understood, or dimly perceived situation (which, motivationally—similarly to waking life and its nonlinear subjective experiences—does not need to be known to the dreamer in order for him or her to act on it).
Cross-state conceptualization of emotions relevant to problem-solving circumstances.—Based upon 86 different categories or ways in which dreamers experience or utilize emotions (one of the three direct core variables of problem-solving phenomenon occurring during non-lucid dreaming; Kozmová, 2008), in quite similar ways to life in the waking world, the exploration of theories of emotions leads to the following conceptualization of problem-solving emotions.
Emotions are conscious experiences of psychological and physiological events localized in a person's psychology and body that are “fundamentally adaptive resources” (Greenberg, 2002, p. 155); they signal time for communication of intention and regulation of interaction within self and between self and the other—the environment (Sroufe, 1996). In this sense, the emotions become a source of information.
Emotions, in their vast variety, consist of discrete states during which a person's attention detects, “capture[s]” or “appropriate[s]” emotionally meaningful events (Dolan, 2002, p. 1191) regarding their well-being in “constantly changing environment” (Greenberg, 2002, p. 154). During these states, the person might consciously experience these events in the body, or have “conscious experience of the stimuli” [“cues”] to specific goals (Klinger, 2013, p. 1), “or [experience] memory that induced the emotion” (Tsuchiya & Adolphs, 2007, p. 159). Emotions facilitate “the ability to ascribe value to events” (Dolan, 2002, p. 1191) in both the waking world and in the situations within reality simulation of the dreaming world (Nielsen, 2011). These ascriptions occur in terms of their greater or lesser desirability (personal importance or significance) or decrease (or elimination) of their occurrence and intensity (in terms of perceptions or experiences of dangers and threats and subsequent self-preservation).
From this viewpoint, with either direct awareness or with lack of specific awareness of conflicting, problematic, or difficult situations which could be also called “emotional state[s],” people might feel internally prompted to “evaluate or appraise of a situations” (Tsuchiya & Adolphs, 2007, p. 159). With evaluating or appraising elaborations, the conscious person shifts from primary consciousness of perceptions and emotions to secondary consciousness (also termed “reflective awareness”; Kozmová & Wolman, 2006). Concurrently or subsequently with this shift, a person starts to “generate motivation” and pursue “intentionality and instrumentality” (Tsuchiya & Adolphs, 2007, p. 161). In addition, without sequential regard, being in an emotional state prepares the individual and elicits in him or her “action tendency and emotional response” and facilitates “thoughts pertaining to emotion” (Tsuchiya & Adolphs, 2007, p. 159).
Overall, emotions defined as “complex psychological and physiological states” have the power to exhort dominant influence on capacities to reason (Dolan, 2002, p. 1191) and could also signal an impending or ongoing disturbance in persons' homeostasis or equilibrium. Lack of awareness of emotions and an inability to “access and process emotional information” prevents individuals from “adaptive orientation and meaning production systems” (Frijda, 1986, Izard, 1991, paraphrased by Greenberg, 2002, p. 156).
During dreaming, emotions are considered to be signifiers of dreamers' “internal participation” (Strauch & Meier, 1996, p. 87) and are “overwhelmingly appropriate to dream content” (Foulkes, 1999, p. 68).
The ability to detect emotions, feel their intensity, label them, ascribe, and describe their impact while experiencing those in unexpected or self-created problematic or difficult situations during problem-solving dreams (or while pursuing various goals or seeking satisfaction of needs during the waking life) could be considered to be highly idiosyncratic.
Adaptation and adaptive processes.—Greenberg and Perlman (1975) proposed that REM dreaming is adaptive in the sense of private time in which the individual dreamer has a chance to institute new defenses or resolve conflict in a novel way. Similar to this notion of adaptation occurring within dreaming, the tenets of the current exploration of nocturnal problem solving are connected to dreamers' capacities of using emotions in a variety of ways that might in some way represent an adaptation. Because these adaptive strivings could bear relevance for an individual dreamer's waking life, the basic exploration that would be useful for linking the theories to emerged categories in terms of waking life adaptation or adaptive processes brought about the following understanding.
In the psychology of waking life, the concept of adaptation, in brevity also known as “reality mastery” (Hartmann, 1958, p. 22), involves disruption of one's equilibrium; the individual's previously undisturbed calmness or equanimity is understood as “a state of rest or balance due to the equal action of opposing forces” (Portland House, 1989, p. 482).
Hartmann (1958) divided adaptation processes into “processes connected with conflict situation and processes which pertain to the conflict-free sphere” (p. 10). Thus, even upon experiencing psychological or emotional disequilibrium or imbalance, one could nevertheless remain within the conflict-free sphere (Hartmann, 1958).
In expanded terms, the waking life adaptation has been characterized as “the individual's capacity to deal with the external environment, either by accommodating to the demands of reality or by actively modifying reality in a personally or socially beneficial way” (Zimmer, Bookstein, Kenny, & Kraeber, 2005, p. 547). Even though this elaborated conceptualization involves two possibilities, earlier in the scholarly discourse pertaining to problems with understanding adaptation Hartmann (1958) already delineated that the processes of adaptation are “purposive only for a certain range of environmental situations” (p. 54): namely, they are suitable for an “average expectable environment” that brings with it an “average expectable conflict” (Hartmann, 1958, p. 55). From this proposition follows that should the environment (external reality) become unreasonable, abusive, or coercive, or its demands purposefully exceed capacities of the person or group of individuals, the aim of adaptation achievements could turn into experiences of “adaptation disturbances” (p. 54).
Indeed, the term adaptation as mastery differs from the “principles of adjustment” (Szekacs-Weiss & Keve, 2012, p. 108), which are considered to be survival strategies in adverse or traumatic circumstances; the need for such occur when the “average expectable” circumstances (Hartmann, 1958, p. 55) become extreme. In such cases, it could be proposed that ill health starts to be manifested in processes of changing oneself (autoplasticity in terms of modification of oneself to fit one's existence to harsh, retaliatory, or non-collaborative environments that induce and prompt self-preservation). These autoplastic processes take over the place of changing the stimulus (alloplasticity in terms of affecting the environment to make it more livable). In contrast to the adjustment to unfavorable conditions that aims at self-preservation, adaptation thus concerns itself with the mastery of life in the external world to ensure one's continuous existence and thriving in terms of a variety of psychological, emotional, or reality-oriented accomplishments. These developmentally age-appropriate tasks, according to Greenberg and Pearlman (1975), consist also from holding on to those elements that support feelings of safety.
Regarding emotional development and growth of mind, the framework of depth psychology seems to be useful for current hypothesizing insofar as it involves the concept of adaptation known so far only in terms of the waking life. For example, Greenspan (1997) proposed several “critical emotional capacities” that typify a waking person's development namely, the “ability for effecting regulation, forming relationships, using emotions to signal intentions, and engaging in problem-solving interactions” (cited in Greenspan & Shanker, 2005, p. 339). These critical emotional capacities are considered as more extensive capabilities because they are “two-way interactive” (p. 340) and represent a developmental step in the growth of the mind further along than just mere acknowledgment or expression of emotions per se.
Thus, with regard to the link between dreamers' problem solving and emotions, it could be proposed that non-lucid dreamers' emotional awareness and use of emotions remarkably resemble “critical emotional capacities” (Greenspan, & Shanker, 2005, p. 339) of waking life and expands our understanding of higher order cognition in dreaming. This instrumentality of emotions also increases knowledge of individuals' cross-state capacities (waking/dreaming) for psychological, intellectual, and emotional dimensions of consciousness which, if executed during dreaming, could be considered adaptive.
Goal 5a. Proceeding in Analysis from Descriptive to Theoretical Level by Positing Substantive Grounded Theory of Emotions in Problem-solving Dreams
For postulating substantive grounded theory of emotions in problem solving in non-lucid dreams in which dreamers are not aware they are dreaming (Gackenbach & LaBerge, 1988), the researcher centered attention on earlier-found five different contexts of nocturnal problem solving (within an intrapersonal domain, an interpersonal context, a group context, an animate environment, an inanimate environment; Tables 2–6). The emergence of the substantive theory was guided by the question, “Within each of the five contexts, what could be the range of dreamers' mental engagements underpinned by emotions they experience during the content-specific problem-solving efforts while dreaming problem-solving dreams?”
The description of substantive theory follows 86 saturated components of problem solving, as highlighted in Tables 2–6. Even though the described situations represent capacities of more than one dreamer, the portrayal of emerged theory is written as a picture of problem-solving abilities of one dreamer: In this form, it represents all, to this date, known possibilities of dreamers' problem-solving efforts originated with, underpinned, or accompanied by emotions.
Within an intrapersonal domain.—In engagement with a personal task, undertaking, and activities, the dreamer realizes and identifies a self-created problem and feels emotions as a consequence of the realization of his or her own contribution to the problem. After evaluating his or her own mental state or own efforts, the dreamer gains subsequent understanding of the causes for his or her own internal state. The dreamer also acknowledges his or her own emotions and uses them as a signal for finding a reason for emotion. Also, after evaluating the situation the dreamer feels an emotion. The engagements with tasks could also evoke feelings of internal discrepancies and shifts.
The dreamer acknowledges the feelings evoked by engagement with activities and realizes his or her own emotional (or cognitive) block, or acknowledges and assesses the reasonableness of the situation that then could lead to reorienting attention from the previously experienced emotion. Upon experiencing the emotion while involved in activities, the dreamer uses the emotion to cognitively evaluate the situation, arrives at a reasonable conclusion, and thus dissipates the negative emotion. Intellectually, feeling the emotion could also serve as a motivator for developing a line of reasoning and decision making and using emotionally laden thinking for the dreamer's orientation toward future situations.
Within an interpersonal context.—The dreamer's experiencing of emotions could serve as a marker of dissatisfaction with the current state of affairs in the relationship; this experience prompts the dreamer to look for more satisfying solutions. Additionally, the dreamer's experience of emotions serves as an indicator of the quality of the interpersonal situation and the dreamer's emotion-based solutions to it.
Emotions specify (in terms of evaluation) how the dreamer feels about his or her own behavior toward other characters in dreams or indicate how other people treat or behave towards the dreamer. Experiencing emotions in an interpersonally hostile situation created by other characters and the dreamer defending his or her own actions also results in subsequent emotions; consequently, the dreamer initiates a dialogue with himself or herself about moral standards acquired during the waking life in contrast to situations as they occurred during the immediacy of the experience.
Within a group context.—The dreamer reads the emotions of other characters who just experienced and lived through difficult situations. At the same time, however, the dreamer notices the lack of his or her own emotional reactivity when seeing the remnants of the previous attack. The dreamer also experiences emotions as a reaction to a problem that group behavior presents to the dreamer.
The dreamer experiences emotions that then motivate him or her toward action. In a crowd of people, experiences of emotions are accompanied by physiological reactions, and emotions prompt the dreamer to question the attitudes and motivation of other characters as well as his or her own attitude toward others. The dreamer uses the emotional impressions to evaluate the threat other characters could pose to the dreamer.
The dreamer's experiencing of emotions could indicate his or her own instability, and, by looking at consequent violent actions toward another character, the dreamer could experience another emotion that initiates subsequent questioning about his or her own behavior. Upon experiencing a problem and making a resolving request to another character in the group situation, the dreamer might feel emotion as a consequence of the request granted by the group member.
Within an animate environment (dreamer is in the presence of animals or beings other than humans).—While being in an animate environment that acts in a hostile manner toward the dreamer, the dreamer becomes aware of emotion that prompts him to a self-preserving action. Upon subsequent attack by an animal, the dreamer might become aware of emotion and physiological reaction in his own body. Furthermore, the direct attack of an animal or insect could cause the dreamer to feel pain.
Upon realizing the danger and experiencing its relevant emotion, the dreamer might be resisting taking care of the future situation that may call for self-preserving action. The experience of emotion also acts as a precursor to reasoning about a dangerous situation and prompts the dreamer to idiosyncratic interpretation in the form of intellectual reasoning. Acknowledgment of the lack of one's own emotion where one would expect it could then lead to subsequent self-evaluation.
The feeling of emotions within an animate environment also leads the dreamer to ensuing intellectual activity in the form of sense-making (meaning-making or sorting things out to arrive at a conclusion).
Within an inanimate environment.—The dreamer evaluates his or her own mental state, and the result of the evaluation serves as a shift toward the pursuit of intellectual curiosity. In the absence of other characters, the dreamer might imagine what could happen if characters were present. The ensuing emotions evoke in the dreamer emotion regulation, action, and subsequent evaluation of the situation. Upon encountering a problem caused by an inanimate object and feeling the emotion that signals future failure, the dreamer evaluates the situation and decides to forfeit possible action.
In summary, it seems conceivable that in one or more of the five contexts the dreamers could interchangeably use one or more of the 86 elucidated emotional components of cognitive and psychological problem-solving processes by which the dreamers negotiate uncalled for or self-created situations. At the same time, upon dreamers' experiencing and using varieties of emotions fitting into the five different contexts in which dreamers in problem-solving dreams are immersed, specific distinct emotions act, among other purposes, as underlying, signaling, accompanying, thwarting, prompting, and action evoking components of problem solving. Furthermore, the emotions inspire, spark, incent, or signal to the dreamer the presence of a cue to pursue a goal (resolve the problem, threat, difficulty, or satisfy the curiosity). Upon these internal indicators, during which attention of the dreamer is redirected to the situation, the dreamer starts or continues to participate in the process of problem solving. In summary, in a total of 86 cases that involve a saturated variety of emotions as an instrumental part of the nocturnal problem-solving phenomenon, the dreamers intellectually and reflectively elaborated upon registered emotions. These mental activities demonstrate the presence of elements of abstract or rational reasoning understood as higher order cognition (Wolman & Kozmová, 2007; Kozmová, 2012).
Furthermore, in this substantive grounded theory of emotions in problem-solving dreams, the present author connects Schwartz and Maquet's (2002) proposition about waking life emotions' organizing goal-oriented influence with the current evidence of roles emotions play in problem-solving dreams. In these non-lucid dreams, emotions are part of dreamers' consciousness, and just as the additional waking life theory of emotions predicted (Dolan, 2002), they exhort a dominant, governing, or organizing influence on dreamers' extent of individual skills to use their reasoning capacities. In this case, the mentally active dreamers' efforts are concentrated on finding a solution or decreasing or negotiating experienced difficulties and problems.
In view of the current evidence about dreamers' mental activities connected with emotions during their problem-solving processes, it could be proposed that the adaptive part of this relationship rests in dreamers' capacity for shift (albeit unknowingly within the dream), upon emotional awareness, from primary consciousness into the domain of secondary consciousness while using a more intellectually elaborate approach to resolving difficulties or satisfying their curiosities. This approach by awareness and subsequent mental activities in self-motivated mental action is then adaptive insofar as it signals or foreshadows the potential for its use in the waking life or demonstrates its reciprocal cross-state (waking-dreaming-waking) realization or actualization.
Goal 5b. Proposed Adaptive Function of Emotions in Problem-solving Dreams Dreamt in Non-lucid Dreaming State
Non-lucid dreaming is considered to be an experience that is inundated by perceptions and emotions (Merritt, et al., 1994). In this state, the individual dreamers in the investigated dream reports found themselves, similarly to Kohut and Wolf's (1978) previously expressed idea about awake individuals, in a position of “an independent recipient of impressions” (p. 414; also termed “primary consciousness” defined as “simple awareness that includes perception and emotion,” Hobson, 2009, p. 803). Subsequently, if the dreamer experienced these impressions and perceptions and with it a need to change the situation (in other words, felt prompted to problem solve), then, as Smith, et al. (2004) reported regarding motivations and affects in non-lucid dreams, the dreamers shifted into a “motivated state” (defined as “an experience of a discrepancy between an existing state and a preferred, or more valued state” p. 509). In such circumstances of encountering the need to achieve something (e.g., emotional equilibrium) or realize a goal that is either self, or socially, or by an animate or inanimate environment created (as demonstrated by the five contexts of dreamers' problem-solving, Tables 2–6), the non-lucid dreamer becomes an “independent center of initiative” (Kohut & Wolf, 1978, p. 414) by using one's own mental capacities. This claim is supported by 86 different cognitive elaborations, including “intellectual reflectiveness” (Rechtschaffen, 1978), that emerged from analysis of emotions connected to problem solving.
Thus, it could be proposed that during problem-solving dreams in which dreamers employ emotions, the internal shift from primary consciousness starts by receiving interior perceptions through emotions (understood as “complex psychological and physiological states”; Dolan, 2002, p. 1191) that exhort, in problematic or curious situations, a dominant influence on capacities to reason (p. 1191). The emotions or emotional awareness signal to the dreamer the need to evaluate, appraise, or elaborate (Tsuchiya & Adolphs, 2007) upon current experience or to reflect upon the immediate internal problematic situation without the knowledge that there exists an external world.
This capacity to use reasoning (“abstract thinking”; Hobson, 2009, p. 803), as seen in five different dilemmatic or curiosity-evoking contexts within the realm of non-lucid dreams, undergirds the proposition of the goal-oriented adaptive function emotions perform in problem-solving dreams: the emotions act as cues and signals for the dreamer to make a shift from receiving perceptual and emotional impressions of primary consciousness and to move mentally to intellectual elaborations, abstractions, or reflections of secondary consciousness. This dynamic is initiated by the individual problem-solving dreamer in order to reach a goal either by dealing with the difficulty or by satisfying curiosity. In these circumstances, the emotions (in ongoing subjective experiences dreamers have during non-lucid dreaming) seem to give purposefulness to dreamers' inner experiences and thus act as an organizing principle.
In neuroscientific terms, in these situations emotions connected with the active limbic system mediate “stressful situations” (Schwartz & Maquet, 2002, pp. 24–25) in ongoing subjective experiences that dreamers have during non-lucid dreaming. It could thus be proposed that dreamers' problem solving with the use of emotions belongs to capacities termed executive function that are active during non-lucid dreaming (Kozmová, 2012).
Furthermore, the dynamic psychological interplays or oscillations between dreamers' perceptions, emotions, and intellectual reflectiveness as these pertain to problem-solving capacities could be characterized as belonging to a “self-organizing” capacity of the dreaming person (Kahn, Krippner, & Combs, 2000). For the experiencing dreamers, the presence of perceptions that create internal perturbation, disequilibrium, or suggest curiosity evokes emotional reactivity (captures and affects dreamers' attention within an emotionally meaningful event; Dolan, 2002); it involves the dreamer as an internal participant (Strauch & Meier, 1996, p. 87); and it requires the stabilizing influence of intellectual reflection or reasoning (use of executive function, Kozmová, 2012). This problem-solving sequence is even more impressive because it occurs without reliance on the external world; hence, it could be postulated that dreamers, even without recognition of external realities, are nevertheless capable of employing, within the immediacy of the non-lucid dreaming world, their goal-oriented purposive capacities.
In addition, the using of emotions in problem-solving dreams could be conceptualized as nocturnal “critical emotional capacity” (Greenspan, 1992, 1997, cited in Greenspan & Shanker, 2005, p. 339): The evidence (Tables 2–6) demonstrates that, similarly to the waking life, dreamers, in their minds, are able to use emotions to influence self-regulation, use them as signals and intentions, and by oneself and in interaction with others (in relationships, groups) or environment (animate and inanimate context) are prompted by the experience of emotions to engage in problem solving. This act, by itself, could be considered adaptive. Furthermore, dreamers' mental abilities in problem-solving situations seem to be very similar, if not identical, to goal-orientedness that includes emotions during the waking life as outlined by Dolan (2002), Ekman (1992), Johnson-Laird & Oatley, (1992), Lazarus (1991), Stein & Trabasso (1992), and Tooby and Cosmides (1990). Thus, it could be proposed that by experiencing and utilizing the emotions during strategizing in problem-solving dreams, the dreamer's mind, similarly to the awake state of consciousness, is under the influence of an emotion-based self-organizing process.
In summary, non-lucid dreamers are not aware that they are dreaming, and their current reflections predominantly do not pertain to this fact (e.g., Rechtschaffen, 1978). Nevertheless, the capacity to reflect upon perceptions and emotions and devise strategies on how to use those (capacity that is understood as secondary consciousness, or critical emotional capacity, and as such, a part of executive function) is generally thought of as belonging to an awake person (Hobson, 2009). Along the cross-state appearance of executive function connected to dreamers' ongoing non-lucid problem-solving attempts and efforts, the present research also demonstrates the adaptive function emotions have during problem solving as a self-organizing, goal-oriented process.
Discussion
The focus of the present research positioned within non-lucid dreaming has been the core variable of emotions previously established as a direct modality of the nocturnal phenomenon of problem solving (Kozmová, 2008). The dreamers' problem-solving capacities are located in the non-lucid world of dreams which represents “reality simulation” or “a convincing simulation of waking reality experience” (Nielsen, 2011, p. 596); in these circumstances, the dreamers feel the need to resolve encountered problems and thus achieve goals that lead to re-establishing of equilibrium (Kozmová, 2008).
Dreamers tend to report their emotions rather sporadically (Snyder, 1970) unless prompted to do so (Hobson, 2009). In the framework of neuroscience, however, the initially considered isomorphism between assumption of prevalence of emotions in REM sleep dreaming and brain activities during REM has been confirmed by neuroimaging data (for review, see Desseilles, Dang-Vu, Sterpenich, & Schwartz, 2011). Generally, regarding emotions in non-lucid dreams, Kahn, et al. (2000) asserted that the emotional aspects (which could cause disequilibrium) of subjective experience are dreams' ubiquitous feature. Emotions power, give shape to, and exhort a strong influence on the content of dreams (p. 9).
From a philosophical viewpoint, theorists of dreaming (e.g., Edelman, 1992; Hobson, 2009) claim that non-lucid dreaming is predominantly based on perceptions and emotions as the main elements of dreaming consciousness (“primary consciousness”; Hobson, 2009, p. 803). In this framework, only the waking state and lucid dreaming (characterized by critical “self-reflectiveness” about which state of consciousness the person is in) with “abstract thinking, volition and metacognition” (Edelman, 1992, paraphrased by Hobson, 2009, p. 803) are deemed to proliferate in secondary consciousness. In contrast, non-lucid dreaming has been portrayed as a state in which dreamers “do not strongly evince the characteristics of secondary consciousness” because they are under the imposition of “severe limitation of thoughts” (Hobson, 2009, p. 803). Despite this claim, the previous investigations (Kozmová, 2012; see also Kozmová & Wolman, 2006; Wolman & Kozmová, 2007) offer evidence about the abundance and sophistication of thought which is enhanced, in connection with perceptions and emotions, by “abstract analysis (thinking)” (Hobson, 2009, p. 803). The present study suggests that in problem-solving dreams there exists a strong connection of emotion with dreamers' thinking capacities of secondary consciousness. This discovery seems significant enough to warrant a proposition of the adaptive function emotions serve in problem-solving dreams.
Therapeutic Implications
The present findings also bear significance for individuals (and by extension, for therapists) who wish to work, within a therapeutic setting, with their own dreams. The dream worker and therapist alike could become aware of aspects of the dreamer's “internal participation” (Strauch & Meier, 1996, p. 87), including elaborations upon emotions (as elucidated by the present research). This understanding might solidify, for the awake person, the possibilities of solving life's difficulties, negotiating fluctuations of one's mental state, and incorporating waking-life realities, as these could be reflected by the content of dreams.
As seen in Tables 2–6, the capacity for detecting the emotionally meaningful events (Dolan, 2002, p. 1191) is a cross-state capacity. Included in this picture of emotions during dreaming the problem-solving dreams is, then, the ability for intellectual reflection and evaluation (“secondary consciousness”; Hobson, 2009, p. 596) which becomes united, in psychotherapy, through the continuity of mental capacities, dreaming, and waking states of consciousness. Focusing on this adaptive problem-solving role of the dreamer who is able to use emotions could thus represent for the individual dream worker a realization of his or her own flexibility and strengths in terms of judgment and decision-making capacities with critical emotional awareness relevant for adaptation of internal realities and situations in the dreams.
Future Directions
On the basis of present research, the currently differently appreciated position of emotions in their signaling, stimulating, self-regulating, or action prompting or preventing roles and goal-oriented function that lead to dreamers' intellectual reflectivity during strategizing in problem-solving dreams offers to dream science numerous possibilities for research.
Therapy research.—Ideally, the emotional awareness in problem solving could lead, during the waking life, to establishing, following up on, and working toward life goals for any given individual. The investigation of these executive skills and their appearance in dreams could have relevance for the success of psychotherapy. It could be proposed that the psychotherapeutic process and research alike might be enriched by adding and potentially investigating the rise and continuity of one's emotions as a guiding system in decision making that could appear in individuals' dream work and during actual therapy.
In addition, the success of therapeutic engagement (as an illustration of life outside of therapy) could be measured by detecting the presence of maladaptive emotional processes that do not support and actually might subvert agency and autonomy of the awake individual (e.g., Greenberg, 2002). Investigations could thus focus on the ratio and quality between underdeveloped, not facilitating, and adaptive emotional problem-solving processes, as these are capacities transferable to the waking life.
Adaptation in terms of using “critical emotional capacity.”—The waking ability to work with emotions in a problem-solving manner is considered to be a “critical emotional capacity” (Greenspan, 1997). Because the current research confirms that at least some dreamers might be able to use such abilities in internal problem solving, it is possible to hypothesize that there might be gender differences in using dreams in this adaptive capacity, similar to differently hypothesized expressions of these capacities during the waking life.
Neuroscience.—The present work attended to the call for characterizing phenomenological qualities of subjective experiences in non-lucid dreaming consciousness (Hobson, 2009) for the purposes of advancement of psychophysiology and neuropsychology by means of neuroimaging tools (Hobson, et al., 2003, p. 231). Included in the depiction of emotions during dreaming problem-solving dreams is then the capacity for intellectual reflection and evaluation (“secondary consciousness”; Hobson, 2009, p. 596), which unites dreaming and waking states of consciousness. In these terms, to the community of dream researchers using neuroimaging techniques, the current results offer opportunities to use already delineated mental activities of dreamers who problem-solved with emotions as a means to connect the psychological and emotional processes of problem-solving experiences with neurobiological data (Hobson, et al., 2003).
The most prevalent framework for investigation of problem-solving processes with emotional underpinning and neural activities by using neuroimaging seems to be isomorphism or the notion of one-to-one correspondence between mental activities and brain processes. In this context, it remains yet unclear which neural correlates sustain the dreamers' problem-solving abilities to combine emotion and intellect in higher order cognition of secondary consciousness during non-lucid dreaming. The present evidence of non-lucid dreamers' capacities to move, through their problem-solving efforts, from primary to secondary consciousness seems to be in contrast to the model of dreamers being portrayed as unable, based upon deactivated prefrontal cortex, to reach toward specific internal goals (Fosse & Domhoff, 2007).
In concrete terms, the dorsolateral (inferior and middle frontal gyri) and inferior parietal lobules (as part of the ventral attentional network: Corbetta & Shulman, 2002) are, during wakefulness, implicated in detecting behaviorally relevant stimuli and assisting in reorienting attention toward perceived stimuli (Corbeta, Kincade, Ollinger, McAvoy, & Shulman, 2000). These neural networks are deactivated in REM sleep (Desseilles, et al., 2011). In terms of causality, then, the following question waits for the scientific community to find a logical explanation that could be prospectively supported by neuroscientific findings: “If the deactivations, during non-lucid dreaming (presumably occurring in REM sleep), of neural networks that during wakefulness support executive function truly pose cognitive constraints on dreamers' abilities, then, with the present results, how could prospective neuroimaging findings (within or outside of framework of isomorphism) neurally pinpoint and explain non-lucid dreamers' capacities to use, at the same time, emotions and cognitions (intellect) in immediate situations that require problem-solving?”
For this investigation, the present phenomenological data offer a baseline that allows for more precise mapping of non-lucid dreamers minds' abilities and their corresponding to brains' functioning in terms of neural correlates active within specific conditions of strategizing with emotions in the immediacy of problem-solving situations.
Limitations and Conclusion
While investigating the present set of dream narratives, the participants who offered their dream reports were motivated individuals who wanted to work with their dreams and were open to new experiences while examining them and learning about themselves in non gratis workshops. Based on these participants' waking aspirations, the sample could be considered biased. Hence, researching the dreams of motivated individuals who in their waking lives could have had an attitude of gaining knowledge might have inadvertently contributed to discovering and defining the parameters of nocturnal cognitive problem solving (Kozmová, 2008). This discovery includes the core variable of emotions elucidated within the phenomenon. Similarly, the detection that pertains to finding the place of emotions in problem-solving dreams from dreamers residing in seven different countries represents diversity that was desirable for this research. It allowed defining the overall possible extent of dreamers' capacities to become engaged with emotions.
The findings of five different contexts in which dreamers become aware, experience, and use emotions for solving the situations in which they find themselves through reflective and intellectual elaborations of secondary consciousness demonstrate that problem-solving capacities of non-lucid dreamers are expended into more than one set of circumstances. The fact that these elaborations so far demonstrate 86 different components of intellectual problem solving within discrepancies that dreamers either find, create, or are confronted with between their present and future-oriented more desirable state (Smith, et al., 2004) offers evidence regarding non-lucid dreamers' mental capacities for problem solving. These intentional capacities are even more impressive considering that the skill for critical evaluation of one's own current dreaming state is, for the most part, not supported by non-lucidity.
Based upon the present findings, it could be proposed that non-lucid dreamers, without critical realization about one's own current state (Rechtschaffen, 1978), are nevertheless able to use the emotional awareness in their repertoire of problem-solving skills. They intellectually elaborate upon subjective experiences ensued, colored, or accompanied by emotions in problematic or curious situations. When considering the presently posed nocturnal goal-oriented function of emotions, and in agreement with earlier propositions regarding problem solving (e.g., Glucksman, 2007), it could be postulated that non-lucid dreaming problem-solving skills, supported by critical emotional capacities, appear to be a cross-state phenomenon. The phenomenon is exempt from the reality principle understood as generally agreed-upon commonalities of external realities from which the dreamers are separated and from dependence on knowing one's state of consciousness. Last, it exemplifies non-lucid dreamers' realization of secondary consciousness by using emotions as an adaptive, self-organizing, goal-oriented process.
Previously, the present author also included the role of a participant (Kozmová & Wolman, 2006).
The present author defines the term reflective as a concept belonging to a group of rational or secondary thought processes (e.g., Wolman & Kozmová, 2007) occurring within higher order or secondary consciousness (Hobson, 2009).
The statement in brackets was added for clarity after the research was completed based upon a previously conducted pilot study about recognizing (prima facie with method of grounded theory) problems that are implicitly hinted at in the dreams (Kozmová, 2007).
Dreams are numbered for illustrative purposes of working with the method of grounded theory; the numbers do not correspond to any numbers in the dreams archive that the present author used in this analysis.
In the present study, the research did not focus on cross-cultural comparisons within and between individualist and collectivistic cultures but, rather, emphasized development of a composite diverse picture of the possibilities that emotions could play in problems dreamers encounter in a variety of nocturnal minds in a state of dreaming.
Originally understood as acknowledgment of situation (by cognitive assessment) and moving ahead despite feeling the fear (Kozmová, 2008, p. 140).
It could be also anticipation of future situations.