title: Music in dreams.
abstract: Music in dreams is rarely reported in scientific literature, while the presence of musical themes in dreams of famous musicians is anecdotally reported. We did a systematic investigation to evaluate whether the occurrence of musical dreams could be related to musical competence and practice, and to explore specific features of dreamt pieces. Thirty-five professional musicians and thirty non-musicians filled out a questionnaire about the characteristics of their musical activity and a structured dream log on the awakening for 30 consecutive days. Musicians dream of music more than twice with respect to non-musicians; musical dreams frequency is related to the age of commencement of musical instruction, but not to the daily load of musical activity. Nearly half of the recalled music was non-standard, suggesting that original music can be created in dreams.
authors.affiliation: Sleep Lab, Department of Psychology, University of Florence, via S. Niccolò 93, 50125 Florence, Italy.
authors.forename: Valeria
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Uga
authors.forename: Maria Chiara
authors.initials: MC
authors.lastname: Lemut
authors.forename: Chiara
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Zampi
authors.forename: Iole
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Zilli
authors.forename: Piero
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Salzarulo
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D003405:Creativity; D004325:Dreams / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008568:Memory / Q000502:physiology*; D008875:Middle Aged; D009146:Music / Q000523:psychology*; D009790:Occupations; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires