My friend and I are doing the 7th grade science fair for extra credit this year and want to know if this is a good experiment and if you can provide some information on this subject that'd be great. We want to study how movies affect your dream. So I think it's psychology but I'm not sure. Anyways we were going to get 3 people and have them watch different genres of movies (horror/thriller, drama, and comedy) and have them keep a dream journal for about 3 days. Is this a good experiment and do you have any suggestions? Thanks in advance.
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This is a good idea, but dreams are really unpredictable, so unless you actually study the science or psychology of dreams, you are most likely not going to get even remotely accurate results. It's just that way with dreams. People dream every time they sleep (depending on how deep you sleep and for how long), they just don't remember all of them. If they do, they normally forget it after a few hours unless they store it in their long-term memory.
So, to directly answer your question, yes it is a good experiment, but only if you did it over a long time with many different variables. Also, a reliable constant in your experiment would be extremely difficult to have.
But if you are really interested in it, go for it, but what the judges look for is interesting material and how much research you put into the project, so take information from many (reliable, trustworthy, and true) sources. You may want your friends to take all the dreams they can remember, to get more information.
Just have fun with it and back up your statements with facts. :)
The first source is on your topic, and the other is frequently asked questions on dreams, which may or may not be helpful
So, to directly answer your question, yes it is a good experiment, but only if you did it over a long time with many different variables. Also, a reliable constant in your experiment would be extremely difficult to have.
But if you are really interested in it, go for it, but what the judges look for is interesting material and how much research you put into the project, so take information from many (reliable, trustworthy, and true) sources. You may want your friends to take all the dreams they can remember, to get more information.
Just have fun with it and back up your statements with facts. :)
The first source is on your topic, and the other is frequently asked questions on dreams, which may or may not be helpful
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You want to have a control, so get 1 person to watch no movie and write down the dreams. If you want to be systematic and get some real results, you would need something more like 25 people watching each type of movie, and 25 watching nothing, and keep a record of dreams for a week. But since you're in 7th grade I doubt you have the capability for that. Therefore, your results will be useless but you can at least pretend you're using the scientific method.
EDIT: You also might consider having them watch a movie every night of the same genre, or watch different episodes in a series every night. This would give a stronger impression on the person and a higher likelihood of affecting dreams.
EDIT: You also might consider having them watch a movie every night of the same genre, or watch different episodes in a series every night. This would give a stronger impression on the person and a higher likelihood of affecting dreams.
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What if they forget their dreams? I don't think it would be good but other physcology tests such as how music can effect studying would be a good one.