ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Psychol.

Sec. Cognition

Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1575174

Dream content influences daily spirituality

Provisionally accepted
John BalchJohn Balch1,2*George HodulikGeorge Hodulik2Rachel RaiderRachel Raider1Aidan DavidAidan David2Chanel ReedChanel Reed1Wesley J. WildmanWesley J. Wildman2,3,4David RohrDavid Rohr2Patrick McNamaraPatrick McNamara1,2,5
  • 1National University, San Diego, California, United States
  • 2Center for Mind and Culture, Boston, United States
  • 3Faculty of Computing and Data Sciences, Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts, United States
  • 4School of Theology, Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts, United States
  • 5Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine, Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts, United States

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This paper presents a novel study of the impact of sleep and dream variables on spiritual beliefs and attitudes. Frontiers in Psychology has published work on both dreaming and the cognitive science of religion in the past, as well as a study at the intersection of both. This paper builds upon this research by utilizing an intensive longitudinal design and leveraging novel techniques for the analysis of time-series data using machine learning techniques, which we expect to be of significant interest to Frontiers in Psychology's readership. We found that dreams with supernatural content differ significantly in dream affect and dream agency and that dream content influences perception of God in both relational and doctrinal dimensions.

Keywords: Supernatural agents, Dreams, REM sleep, portable EEG devices, Religious cognition

Received: 11 Feb 2025; Accepted: 23 Jun 2025.

Copyright: © 2025 Balch, Hodulik, Raider, David, Reed, Wildman, Rohr and McNamara. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

* Correspondence: John Balch, National University, San Diego, 92037, California, United States

Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

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