Bodily Self-Consciousness in Dreams Questionnaire (BSD-Q) and Its Relation to Waking Dissociative Experiences

Abstract

According to virtual reality dream theory (Hobson & Friston, 2014), while dreaming, brains generate a dream world similar to a virtual reality environment, and this world uses the same predictive self/world modeling capacity as that used during wakefulness. The theory proposes that phenomenology of dreaming experience is based on the waking experience, a view widely accepted by dream researchers. In the current research, we argued that individuals with different intensities of dissociative experiences during waking, will report corresponding differences in the profoundness of sensory modality experiences, such as touching in dreams. To test this hypothesis, first we developed a novel Bodily Self-Consciousness in Dreams Questionnaire, that was completed by 414 participants. The questionnaire measured the intensity of different sensory modality experiences in past dreams. The results showed that a four-factor solution explains 64% of the total variance, and yielded sufficient reliability with McDonald's to ranging from .62 to .84, and Cronbach's a ranged from .61 to .84. Along with the Bodily Self-Consciousness in Dreams Questionnaire, we administered the Dissociation Questionnaire (Vanderlinden et al, 1993), which showed a significant positive correlation between the bodily self-consciousness in dreams and dissociative experiences during waking. In conclusion, the results showed that all of the modalities pertain to bodily self-consciousness in dreams and are significantly correlated with waking state dissociative experiences.