Dream journals being kept by students in a college psychology class have provided researchers with a unique look at how people experienced the events of 9/11, including the influence that television coverage of the World Trade Center attacks had on people’s levels of stress. Reported in the April 2007 issue of the journal Psychological Science, the study data finds that for every hour of television viewed on Sept. 11 – with some students reporting in excess of 13 hours watched – levels of stress, as indicated by dream content, increased significantly. In addition, the study found that time spent talking with family and friends helped individuals to better process the day’s horrific events. ‘We had not set out to conduct a scientific study of TV viewing and trauma,’ says lead author Ruth Propper, PhD, an Associate Professor of Psychology at Merrimack College in North Andover, Mass. ‘But it so happened that students enrolled in one of my courses during the fall 2001 semester were already in the process of keeping dream journals on a nightly basis. As the events of 9/11 were unfolding, I realized there was a valuable opportunity to find out what impact both media coverage […]