In this paper we sought to understand which internal and external factors influence our dreams. Past research has shown that environmental factors influence our dream contents, our belief and experiences with the paranormal is a factor behind lucid dreaming, and distress while conscious is a factor that leads to nightmares and sleep paralysis. In our correlational study, we tested the strength of these relationships by examining naturalistic daily changes in their variables longitudinally over a two-week period. The participants kept a dream journal and rated the variables and outcomes on one-to-five Likert scales every morning for two weeks. Our study found that paranormal experiences were strongly correlated with controllability/frequency of dreams, that there was a strong correlation between stress and sleep paralysis, but that the correlation between environmental exposure to activities and their representation in dream content was insignificant.
