My own observation is that while my dreams are not infrequently quite unpleasant and nightmarish in content, a corresponding emotional reaction is not there
My best guess is that I experience as intense emotions in dreams as in waking life. Mostly this is informed by personal experience/ introspection. I kept a dream journal for a while a long time ago, and at one point also rated how good or bad the most recent dream bit was after waking. I can’t remember exactly what my scores were, but seem to remember it being consistent with dream experiences feeling pretty good or bad. (I might be something of an anomaly with my dream experiences though, I have narcolepsy and annoyingly for my housemates once every month or two I’ll start screaming in my sleep).
The main observation is that dreams tend to be negative on many dimensions. The most common emotion is apprehension; aggressions are more frequent than friendly interactions, and misfortunes outnumber good fortunes.
I haven’t looked at the original study, and AFAICT there isn’t any comparison of emotions in waking life to dreams, but was interesting to me that the ratio of negative to positive emotions reported was 4:1.
My best guess is that I experience as intense emotions in dreams as in waking life. Mostly this is informed by personal experience/ introspection. I kept a dream journal for a while a long time ago, and at one point also rated how good or bad the most recent dream bit was after waking. I can’t remember exactly what my scores were, but seem to remember it being consistent with dream experiences feeling pretty good or bad. (I might be something of an anomaly with my dream experiences though, I have narcolepsy and annoyingly for my housemates once every month or two I’ll start screaming in my sleep).
This Sleep, Dreams and Dreaming Oxford Handbook article talks about a study of ‘dream content dimensions’
I haven’t looked at the original study, and AFAICT there isn’t any comparison of emotions in waking life to dreams, but was interesting to me that the ratio of negative to positive emotions reported was 4:1.