A moderated mediation study of music engagement, adaptive music listening, and dreaming

This study aimed to test whether the adaptive functions of music listening would mediate the relation between music engagement and subjective dream intensity and whether this mediation relation would be moderated by the regularity of music listening and level of music training. A total of 236 undergraduate students were invited to complete the Music Engagement Questionnaire, Music Use Questionnaire (MUSE), Adaptive Functions of Music Listening Scale (AFML), and Dream Intensity Scale. The analyses using the PROCESS Marco Models 4 and 75 demonstrated a significant mediation effect of the AFML and significant moderation effects of the MUSE Music Listening and Music Training Indices. This provides the first empirical evidence for the indirect effect of active music engagement on dream intensity via adaptive music listening. In addition, the overall evidence highlights the implication for the significance of music behavior in maintaining mental healthiness. Because an individual’s emotional concerns and difficulty in emotion regulation during waking as reflected by the subconscious process of dreaming are modulated by music behavior and adaptive music listening, directed music engagement for adaptive purposes could form a potential tool for psychological intervention, irrespective of the effect of the regularity of music listening and the background of music training.