Stress and Coping in the Waking and Dreaming States During an Examination Period

Dream diaries were kept by 35 female undergraduates for two ten-day periods, one of preparation for midterm or final examinations, and an exam-free one. Research questions were whether the stress and negative emotions induced by preparing for exams were reflected in dreams and what types of coping were used both in the waking and dreaming states. There was no consistent impact of the stressful situation on dreams, in terms of incorporation and negative emotions. However, 22 dreamers had incorporation dreams. They reported significantly less active problem-solving strategies in waking than the ones who had no such dreams. While a significant negative correlation was found between harm/threat emotions in waking and negative emotions in dream imagery, a positive correlation was found between positive reappraisal in waking and active problem-solving in dreams. Findings are discussed from the perspective of Lazarus and Folkman's theory of adaptation to stress in waking life.     

Emotions in the Diary and REM Dreams of Young and Late Adulthood Women and Their Relation to Life Satisfaction.

Expanding on studies of the incidence and valence of emotions in dreams and their relationship with waking life satisfaction, home and rapid eye movement (REM) sleep dreams were collected from 30 late adulthood and 28 young women who had filled out a life satisfaction scale. Four positive and 4 negative dream emotions were self-rated. Both groups reported more emotions, with greater intensity, in home dreams than in REM dreams, particularly the older group. Regardless of age, intensity of negative emotions was lower in laboratory dreams than in home dreams, but there was no difference for positive emotions. The older women's home dreams had fewer negative emotions, with lower intensity, than did the young women's. Life satisfaction did not differ between age groups and was not significantly related to dream emotions. These results reinforce the distinction between home and laboratory dreams and question the relation between dream emotions and life satisfaction. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The relationships between dream content and physical health, mood, and self-construal.

Research is presented that examines the relationship among dream content, physical health, mood, and self-construal. Participants were 27 undergraduate students who completed the Medical Outcomes SF-36 Health Survey (SF-36), the Profile of Mood States Scale (POMS-SF), and the Self-Construal Scale (SCS). Each participant handed in four dream reports, which were analyzed according to the Hall and Van de Castle (1966) system of content analysis. Multiple significant correlations were observed between dream content and the SF-36, the POMS-SF, and the SCS. Most notable were the findings between physical health and dream content. Participants displaying poor physical health reported more bodily misfortunes, injuries and illnesses, medical themes, and body parts in their dreams. Findings support continuity between dreams and waking life physical and mental functioning. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Predictors of Outcome of Dream Interpretation Sessions: Volunteer Client Characteristics, Dream Characteristics, and Type of Interpretation

105 volunteer clients completed single sessions of dream interpretation using the Hill (1996) model, with half randomly assigned to waking life interpretation and the other half to parts of self interpretation in the insight stage of the Hill model. No differences were found between waking life and parts of self interpretations, suggesting that therapists can use either type of dream interpretation. Volunteer clients who had positive attitudes toward dreams and presented pleasant dreams had better session outcome; in addition, volunteer clients who had pleasant dreams gained more insight into their dreams. Results suggest that therapists doing single sessions of dream interpretation need to be cautious about working with dreams when volunteer clients have negative attitudes toward dreams and present unpleasant dreams.     

Attachment styles and emotional content, stress, and conflict in dreams of romantic partners.

Expanding on previous research investigating the link between dreams and attachment, participants in committed dating relationships were recruited to fill out dream diaries for 1 week. It was hypothesized that when dreaming about romantic partners (attachment figures), dream content would vary by attachment style, such that insecurely attached individuals would experience a different quality of dream, emotionally and cognitively. At Time 1, participants completed a self-report measure of attachment style, and then completed a dream diary at home each morning for 7 days. Dreams that contained romantic partners were coded by double-blind research assistants for emotional content, with a focus on attachment-related emotions and stressful expressions. Anxious-attached and avoidant-attached participants experienced significantly more stress and conflict, and scored significantly higher on specific emotions such as anxiety and jealousy in such dreams. Secure scores did not correlate with any specific or general emotion. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Individual Differences in the Range of Sensory Modalities Experienced in Dreams.

The present study investigated the relationship between the recalled frequency of sensory modalities experienced in dreams and waking imagery abilities. Five hundred thirty-one undergraduate students completed 4 imagery ability tests and a dream recall questionnaire containing a question on the frequency of experience of the sensory modalities in dreams. A k-means cluster analysis of the Dream Sense Modality Scale indicated that the participants fell into 3 groups: the major modalities group, whose dreams were entirely visual, auditory, and kinesthetic; the all modalities group, who experienced all sense modalities in dreams; and the no modalities group, whose dreams were without sensory content. The participants' scores on the imagery tests in the 3 groups showed significant intergroup differences. The all modalities group showed the highest levels of ability in evoking vivid imagery and controlling visual imagery and the most frequent use of visual imagery compared with the other two groups. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Emotions before, during, and after dreaming sleep.

The aim of this study was to provide a preliminary overview of the emotions before, during, and after dreaming sleep in Chinese people. One hundred Chinese participants were included in the study. Cheerful emotions, including interest, exhilaration, and enjoyment, were pervasive in the collected dreams, although anxiety was also a common type of emotion. Positive correlations were found between the intensities of dream, presleep, and postsleep emotions. Significant reductions in intensity were noted in the analyses of emotions preceding dreaming sleep versus emotions following dreaming sleep. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Dream Recall Frequency and Dream Detail as Mediated by Personality, Behavior, and Attitude

Many studies investigated how personality, behavior, and attitude mediate dream recall, but few distinguish between measures of dream recall frequency: the number of dreams experienced in a specified time frame and dream detail: individual ratings of vividness or detailed content of dreams. This study compared undergraduates' (n = 173) self-reported dream recall frequency, and dream detail, with behaviors, attitude toward dreaming, and scores on scales of Extraversion/Introversion and Type A/B. Dream recall frequency and dream detail manifested different patterns of association in relation to behaviors, attitude and personality. Dream recall frequency was associated with the frequency of experiencing emotionally disturbing dreams and trying to interpret dreams, while detail of dreams was associated with positive attitude toward dreaming and Type B personality. Although males and females both held positive attitudes toward dreaming, females experienced more emotionally disturbing dreams and felt unable to control their dreams. Interactions between personality and gender emerged for behaviors associated with dreaming. Researchers are encouraged to differentiate between dream recall frequency and dream detail.     

Dream relevance and the continuity hypothesis: Believe it or not?

The dream-related beliefs of two university samples were surveyed and analyzed: (a) the belief that dreams contain important information; and (b) the belief that dreams reflect aspects of waking life. In addition, this study investigated the relationships between dream-related beliefs and both dream content and waking life measures of health, mood, and self-construal. The majority of participants maintained the belief that dreams contain important information, and participants were most likely to believe that dreams reflect relationships and decisions being made. Those believing that dreams reflect their spirituality scored higher on metapersonal self-construal and reported fewer deaths in their dreams. In contrast, those maintaining the belief that dreams reflect physical health scored lower on physical functioning and reported more body parts in their dreams. Within this demographic, findings suggest a common belief in dream relevance and waking-dreaming continuity. Further research is needed in order to fully account for possible sources of these beliefs. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The mechanisms of defense and dreaming.

This study examined the degree to which the phenomenological experience of dream intensity and its components are correlated with repression, splitting, and other defense mechanisms. The Dream Intensity Scale, Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scale, Splitting Scale, Defense Style Questionnaire-40, and other related measures were administered to 583 subjects. It is demonstrated that repression as a personality trait is inversely and moderately related to the quantitative aspect of dream intensity (i.e., frequencies of dream awareness, nightmares, and multiple dreams in a single night) but does not influence qualitative sensory experiences in dreams (e.g., hearing sounds in dreams). Moreover, the present findings indicate that the more repressed people are, the less likely they are to report splitting and immature defenses, and the less frequently they experience dreams, with the effect of repression on defenses being greater than that on dream intensity. Accordingly, if both dreams and defense mechanisms are the critical materials to work through in a treatment, then starting with the former may be conducive to the therapeutic progress by provoking less resistance from the client. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Personality and Dream Recall Frequency: Further Negative Findings

On the basis of previous findings of dream recall frequency being associated with thin boundariness and sensitivity we assessed the association between DRF and variables that appear related to these two measures. Data from 93 participants (47 males, 46 females, mean age 21.3 yrs., SD = 3.5) show that dream recall frequency (DRF) correlates marginally with neuroticism (r = .20) and interrogative suggestibility (r = .21), the latter result indicating that DRF obtained by questionnaire may be subject to demand bias. DRF had very low correlations with various other personality variables (need for cognition, personal locus of control, hypochondriasis, morningness-eveningness), and with narrative memory, confabulation of narrative memory, and habitual sleep length. DRF correlated positively with POMS elated (-depressed) for males (r = .31) but negatively for females (r = –.19), this significant difference in correlations may be due to sex differences in DRF in response to stress. The frequent findings of small or nonsignificant correlations between DRF and personality are discussed in terms of similar low correlations in personality psychology, but we conclude that DRF is usually sampled adequately, and that the results of no simple relationship with personality (except boundariness, creativity, and positive attitude towards dreams) are therefore robust and may indicate that dream recall is mainly determined physiologically.     

Perceived change in the affect associated with dreams: The fading affect bias and its moderators.

Eighty-two undergraduate participants kept dream diaries for a month. Five dreams were randomly selected from each diary and were returned to participants. They rated the affect produced by the dream at its occurrence and at its recall, as well as a number of other characteristics of the dream and characteristics of the context in which the dream occurred. Results revealed that, like memories for real autobiographical events, the negative affect associated with dreams generally faded faster than the positive affect associated with dreams (a Fading Affect Bias, or FAB). The data also showed that the FAB did not occur for: (a) dreams that were remembered to contain information that dreamers believed came true at a later date, (b) dreamers who had reportedly taken recreational drugs prior to their dream, (c) dreams remembered as lacking sound, and (d) dreams remembered as very quiet. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Boundary Questionnaire Results in the Mentally Healthy Elderly

The Hartmann Boundary Questionnaire was administered twice, with six months in between, to 61 Swiss subjects over 60 years of age taking part in an investigation into the effects of dream-telling on five variables: well-being, sleep quality, sleep duration, dream recall and dream tone. In addition, dream epoch, i.e., the age of life of the dreamer as perceived in the dream, was recorded for those who told dreams. In addition to this study group in which the members told dreams there were two control groups. Those in the first control group were asked about well-being and sleep quality but not about dreams or dreaming, while those in the second control group were additionally asked how many dreams they had retained, how frequently they had occurred and about the dream tone (pleasant/unpleasant). All study participants were given the Hartmann Boundary Questionnaire at the beginning (pre-test) and again at the end of the six month study period (post-test). The retest reliability was high (r = 0.872 for the whole sample). We report here the relationships obtained between the questionnaire scores and age, group membership, gender and the number of dreams that were retained over a 26 week testing period. No significant correlations were found for age, group membership or dream recall. There was, however, a small, significant boundary score difference between women and men for the pre-test, indicating thinner boundaries for women, but this difference was no longer significant in the post-test.     

Rehearsal of dreams and waking events similarly improves the quality but not the quantity of autobiographical recall.

Salient dreams are often discussed and ruminated upon over time, especially when they feature in dream work or therapy. The present study investigated the effects of rehearsal over time on dream memories, as compared to memories for waking experiences. Participants were instructed to complete a dream and waking episodic event diary over two weeks. A rehearsal group (n = 27) were instructed to read through their reports after recording them. A control group (n = 28) were instructed not to look at their reports. A surprise recall task demonstrated that rehearsal reduced significantly the detail of dream, but not waking event, reports. It maintained episodic richness for dreams. Furthermore, rehearsed dream and event reports corresponded significantly more closely with original reports than controls. These data indicate that while rehearsal may not increase dream recall over time, it may influence the phenomenology of memories that are subsequently recalled, such that a rehearsed memory is subsequently recalled, rather than the original experience. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

The Home Dreams and Waking Fantasies of Boys and Girls Between Ages 9 and 15: A Longitudinal Study

In this longitudinal developmental study, 12 boys and 12 girls provided home dreams and waking fantasies at 3 age levels: 9–11, 11–13, and 13–15. A total of 299 dreams and 286 fantasies were coded by 2 independent raters using Hall and Van de Castle (1966) content categories. In addition, word counts and bizarreness ratings were completed. There were very few changes in the dreams or waking fantasies of either boys or girls, but dream reports were longer at ages 13–15, the aggression/friendliness percent increased over the course of the study, joint-sex peer groups became more frequent, and girls showed a decline in animal percent. The tendency in a wide range of societies for men to dream mostly about other men and for women to dream equally of women and men was found in both the dreams and waking fantasies. Dreams and fantasies differed markedly, with dreams containing more outdoor and unfamiliar settings, and more bizarreness. In dreams the children tended to portray themselves as victims of aggression and recipients of friendliness, but in fantasies they took a more active role as aggressors and befrienders. It is suggested that the children in this study portrayed themselves in their dreams as they conceived of themselves in everyday life, while in their waking fantasies they imagined themselves as they would have liked to be.     

Stereotypical Gender-Based Emotions Are Not Detectable in Dream Reports

This study reports on the number of feelings evoked in men and women by their dream characters as well as on the relative frequency of different kinds of feelings. Thirty-five subjects recorded 320 dreams over a two-week period, submitted dream reports and a dream log of all characters that appeared in their dreams as well as any feelings involving the characters. We found that feelings were pervasive in dreams and that they were evoked by over 80% of a subject's dream characters. Further, negative and positive emotions were balanced for both men and women. We found no significant differences in the number or in the profile of feelings in men and women's dreams. The reasons for this are discussed in terms of a continuity hypothesis across dream and wake states or, on the contrary, that feelings expressed in dreams may be independent of learned gender differences.     

Assessing the dream-lag effect for REM and NREM stage 2 dreams

This study investigates evidence, from dream reports, for memory consolidation during sleep. It is well-known that events and memories from waking life can be incorporated into dreams. These incorporations can be a literal replication of what occurred in waking life, or, more often, they can be partial or indirect. Two types of temporal relationship have been found to characterize the time of occurrence of a daytime event and the reappearance or incorporation of its features in a dream. These temporal relationships are referred to as the day-residue or immediate incorporation effect, where there is the reappearance of features from events occurring on the immediately preceding day, and the dream-lag effect, where there is the reappearance of features from events occurring 5-7 days prior to the dream. Previous work on the dream-lag effect has used spontaneous home recalled dream reports, which can be from Rapid Eye Movement Sleep (REM) and from non-Rapid Eye Movement Sleep (NREM). This study addresses whether the dream-lag effect occurs only for REM sleep dreams, or for both REM and NREM stage 2 (N2) dreams. 20 participants kept a daily diary for over a week before sleeping in the sleep laboratory for 2 nights. REM and N2 dreams collected in the laboratory were transcribed and each participant rated the level of correspondence between every dream report and every diary record. The dream-lag effect was found for REM but not N2 dreams. Further analysis indicated that this result was not due to N2 dream reports being shorter, in terms of number of words, than the REM dream reports. These results provide evidence for a 7-day sleep-dependent non-linear memory consolidation process that is specific to REM sleep, and accord with proposals for the importance of REM sleep to emotional memory consolidation.     

Ordinary and Recurrent Dream Recall of Active, Past and Non-recurrent Dreamers During and After Academic Stress

The role of stress in the onset and frequency of recurrent dreams was investigated by comparing dream recall of students undergoing naturalistic stress conditions. Thirty nine students in active, past and non-recurrent dream groups (n = 13) recorded frequency of nights per week involving overall and recurrent dream recall in the week prior to mid-term examinations and in a neutral study week in second semester. Self-report measures of everyday hassles and uplifts, anxiety and positive and negative affect experienced during these conditions were also collected. Anxiety and negative affect were reported as significantly higher in the pre-examination week. Overall the groups reported dreams on significantly more nights in the pre-examination week than the post examination week. Recurrent dream nights increased during the stress week for the active recurrent dream group but there was no change in recurrent dream recall for the other groups. These findings are consistent with theories that the experience of emotional stress is a critical factor in the onset and persistence of recurrent dreams.     

Detecting meaning in dream reports: An extension of a word search approach.

Building on previous investigations of waking–dreaming continuities using word search technology (Bulkeley 2009a, 2009b; Domhoff & Schneider, 2008), we demonstrate that a blind analysis of a dream series using only word search methods can accurately predict many important aspects of the individual's waking life, including personality attributes, relationships, activities, and cultural preferences. Results from a study of the “Van” dream series (N = 192) show that blind inferences drawn from a word search analysis were almost entirely accurate according to the dreamer. After presenting these findings we discuss several remaining shortcomings and suggest ways of improving the method for use by other researchers involved in the search for a more systematic understanding of meaning in dreams. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A relationship between nightmare content and somatic stimuli in a sleep-disordered population: A preliminary study.

This study aimed to examine the influence of specific sleep disorders on dream content. The authors hypothesized that: (a) waking somatic concerns influence dream content and (b) somatic stimulation associated with specific sleep disorders influence dream content items. The subjects (N = 124) were included if they demonstrated obstructive sleep apnea, narcolepsy, an EEG arousal disorder during sleep, or periodic leg movements during sleep (PLMS), based on standard polysomnography. The 42-item Wahler Physical Symptom Inventory was used to quantify somatic concerns. Dream content and frequency was assessed with a 37-item Dream Questionnaire. Ten symptom-dream pairs were selected as mutually relevant and subjected to chi-square analysis. 84.6% of all subjects reported having bad dreams (N = 105). A significant proportion of patients who complain of excessive perspiration dream about perspiring, and significant proportions of those who report difficulty breathing while awake dream about feelings of choking and suffocation. Recurring dreams and dreams of paralysis are significantly more prominent in patients with narcolepsy. Patients with sleep apnea do not dream of choking/feelings of suffocation with greater frequency than nonapneics. These findings suggest that somatic stimulation associated with specific sleep disorders appears to have an inconsistent influence on certain dream content items. Furthermore, dream mentation appears to feature waking concerns, rather that being related to events associated with during sleep disorders. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)