Changing beliefs and memories through dream interpretation
✍ Scribed by Giuliana A. L. Mazzoni; Elizabeth F. Loftus; Aaron Seitz; Steven J. Lynn
- Publisher
- John Wiley and Sons
- Year
- 1999
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 177 KB
- Volume
- 13
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 0888-4080
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
✦ Synopsis
Autobiographical memory is malleable, but how much can we change people's beliefs and memories about the past? We approached this question with a method designed to supply subjects with a highly personalized suggestion about what probably happened in their childhood. In the current study, one group of subjects (the `Dream' subjects) had their dreams interpreted to indicate that they had experienced a critical childhood event (e.g. being harassed by a bully) before the age of 3. Relative to control subjects who did not receive personalized suggestion, the Dream subjects were more likely to increase their belief that they had the critical experience, and approximately half of these also produced concrete memory reports. These ®ndings are discussed in terms of their implications for autobiographical memory, and also for psychotherapy practice.