The Most Recent Dreams of 12–13 Year-Old Boys and Girls: A Methodological Contribution to the Study of Dream Content in Teenagers

The present study shows that the Most Recent Dream Method developed for the efficient and economical collection of dream reports from adults can be extended to suburban Caucasian 12–13 year-old boys and girls. A content analysis of 162 Most Recent Dreams from girls and 110 Most Recent Dreams from boys using the Hall and Van de Castle (1996) coding system revealed the same general pattern of gender similarities and differences found in the dream content of young adults. A comparison of the present results with those from participants between the ages of 11–13 and with a similar social background in two longitudinal studies showed several similarities in dream content. The overall findings thus suggest that the Most Recent Dream Method may provide a reasonably representative sample of dream reports from teenagers if at least 100 to 125 Most Recent Dreams are collected for each age group, making cross-sectional developmental studies of teenagers' dreams feasible if the cooperation of a school system can be enlisted. Suggestions for other kinds of studies using Most Recent Dreams from teenagers are also discussed.     

Austrian Dream Behavior: Results of a Representative Population Survey

This study was based on a survey of a representative sample of 1000 Austrians who were questioned about their sleep and dream behavior. About two-thirds of the respondents reported that they generally recalled at least one dream per month. Dream recall frequency decreased with advancing age, but did not differ between men and women. Fifty-five percent of the respondents characterized the affective content of their dreams: 29% reported neutral, 20% positive, and 6% negative dreams. Four percent of the sample reported suffering from nightmares. These respondents more frequently reported snoring, interrupted sleep, daytime somnolence, anxiety and nervousness, depression, high dream recall, recurrent dreams, and dreaming in color. Twenty-six percent of the total sample reported that sometimes they realized during their dreams that they were dreaming. These respondents more frequently reported family problems, high dream recall, positive dream content, recurrent dreams, dreaming in color, and nightmares.     

Much Ado About Very Little: The Small Effect Sizes When Home and Laboratory Collected Dreams Are Compared

We report a reanalysis of the original codings of dream reports collected at home and in the sleep laboratory from the same participants studied by Hall and Van de Castle in 1964. We used Cohen'sh statistic for effect sizes to argue that, even when statistically significant, most of the differences between the two samples are small to medium in magnitude. This finding suggests that past arguments over the relative usefulness of the two types of samples might not have occurred if the magnitude of effect sizes had been taken into account. The one exception concerns aggressions of various kinds, which also show the greatest variability with age, gender, and culture. It is concluded that useful dream samples for studies using the Hall and Van de Castle coding system can be collected in the laboratory or from normal recall at home and that effect sizes should be calculated in all dream content studies.     

Medication and Dreams: Changes in Dream Content After Drug Treatment

This case study examines the effects of sertraline (Zoloft ^TM ) on the dream content of a young woman with generalized anxiety disorder and panic attacks. The study used the major categories of Hall and Van de Castle's (1966) system of content analysis to compare dream reports before and after drug treatment. Prior to diagnosis and treatment, the dreamer had high levels of aggression and low levels of friendliness in her dreams. The post-medication dreams more closely approximate the female norms. This pilot study suggests a new direction for research on the effects of medication on dream content.     

The role of mood congruency memory effects in dream recall: A pilot study.

A methodological issue in research relating daytime mood to dream content is the question of whether mood congruency effects—that is, recalling more negative events if the current mood is more negative—also play a role in the dream recall process. This study adopted an indirect approach by testing the hypothesis that interindividual differences in mood congruency effects in a memory task carried out in the daytime correlate with mood congruency effects in dream recall (recalling more negative dream emotions, as one would predict on the basis of the current stress level or overall mood state). The findings, however, did not support the hypothesis of mood congruency effects and, thus, rule out that the findings regarding the continuity hypothesis of dreaming are biased by selective recall. Studies with different methodological approaches are necessary to validate this study’s findings. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Personality and Dreaming: Boundary Structure and Dream Content

Prior studies indicate that a personality dimension reflecting thin versus thick boundaries is related to global ratings of dream vividness, amount of emotion, and amount of interaction. In the present study, these relationships were examined by relating scores from the Boundary Questionnaire ( Hartmann, 1991) to dream content among 80 patients seen at a sleep disorders center. Thinness of boundaries was significantly correlated with dream length, vividness, amount of detail, and amount of emotion, and showed a trend towards correlation with aggressive interaction and nightmare-likeness. When dream length was statistically controlled, the relationships between boundary structure and dream content were no longer statistically significant, although amount of emotion and amount of detail showed a trend in the original direction. A principal components analysis was used to identify three factors in the dream content data (eigenvalues > 1.0). The first factor involved dream length, vividness, detail, and emotion; the second involved love/tender interaction and sexual interaction; and the third involved aggressive interaction. Thinness of boundaries showed a significant correlation with only the first factor. We suggest that the trait continuum ranging from thick to thin boundaries is similar to the state continuum running from focused waking thought to dreaming, and that both continua refer to the same aspects of cortical activity.     

The Dreams of Blind Men and Women: A Replication and Extension of Previous Findings

Drawing on a sample of 372 dreams from 15 blind adults, we present two separate analyses that replicate and extend findings from previous studies. The first analysis employed DreamSearch, a software program designed for use with dream narratives, to examine the appearance of the five sensory modalities. It revealed that those blind since birth or very early childhood had (1) no visual imagery and (2) a very high percentage of gustatory, olfactory, and tactual sensory references. The second analysis found that both male and female participants differed from their sighted counterparts in the same ways on several Hall and Van de Castle (1966) coding categories, including a high percentage of locomotion/transportation dreams that contained at least one dreamer-involved misfortune. The findings on sensory references and dreamer-involved misfortunes in locomotion/transportation dreams are interpreted as evidence for the continuity between dream content and waking cognition.     

The Most Recent Dreams of Children Ages 8–11

The present study examined whether the Most Recent Dream Method is a feasible choice for dream collection from children as young as 8 years old. A quantitative analysis of 30 Most Recent Dreams from 8–11 year-old girls and 32 Most Recent Dreams from 8–11 year-old boys reveals that the method seems feasible as indicated by children's ability to respond. The basic findings for recency, length, types of characters, and other content categories show the same overall pattern of gender similarities and differences by age 10–11 as found with 12–13 year-olds and young adults. Girls' dream reports especially begin to resemble those of older girls and young women by age 10–11. These results, if confirmed by follow-up studies with larger numbers of children, suggest that reasonably representative samples of the dreams of girls from age 10 onward can be collected using the Most Recent Dream method.     

The Use of the Strauch Scale to Study Dream Reports from Sacred Sites in England and Wales

Thirty-five volunteers spent between one and five nights in one of four unfamiliar outdoor sacred sites in England and Wales where they were awakened following rapid eye movement periods and asked for dream recall. They also monitored their dreams in familiar home surroundings, keeping dream diaries. Equal numbers of site dreams and home dream reports were obtained for each volunteer. Two judges, working blind and independently, evaluated each of the resulting 206 dream reports, using the Strauch Scale which contains criteria for identifying bizarre, magical, and paranormal elements. Of the 103 site dream reports, 46 fell into one of these categories, versus 31 of the home dream reports. A number of explanations exist for this difference, including expectancy, suggestion, the effect of unfamiliar surroundings, the nature of the volunteers' awakenings, and possible anomalous properties of the sacred sites. The latter possibility, however, is unlikely due to the fact the 22 volunteers reported site dreams containing Strauch Scale items, while 20 reported home dreams containing these content items, a minimal difference.     

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.     

Does Dream Interpretation Have Any Limits? An Evaluation of Interpretations of the Dream of “Irma's Injection”

Dream interpretative efforts appear unconstrained by methodological standards. An examination of the re-interpretations of Freud's dream of Irma's Injection, the dream specimen of psychoanalysis, illustrates the undisciplined nature of dream interpretation. Reading in from presumed day residues or infantile experiences rather than out from the dream report per se lies at the heart of the problem. The failure to spell out inferences, to link inferences to the dream text, to explain and maintain the relationships in the dream report, and to offer a substitute text for the entire dream text all contribute to the inadequacies of dream interpreatation.     

Questionnaires and Diaries as Research Instruments in Dream Research: Methodological Issues

Dream questionnaires are widely used in dream research to measure dream recall frequency and various aspects of dream life. The present study has investigated the intercorrelation between questionnaire and diary measures. 285 participants completed a dream questionnaire and kept a dream diary over a two-week period. Results indicate that keeping a dream diary increased dream recall in low and medium dream recallers but decreased dream recall in high dream recallers. The correlation coefficients between questionnaire items measuring aspects of dream content and diary data were large, except for a more complex scale (realism/bizarreness). In the low recall group, however, considerably lower coefficients were found indicating that recall and sampling processes affect the response to global items measuring dream content. Using the example of testing gender differences, the findings of the present study clearly indicate that the measurement technique affects the results. Whereas sufficient internal consistency and retest reliability have been demonstrated for various dream questionnaires, future research should focus on the aspects of validity by comparing questionnaire data to dream content analysis of at least 20 dreams per person.     

Counting statistics of 1/f fluctuations in neuronal spike trains

The mesencephalic reticular formation (MRF) neurons are regarded as contributing to the activation of the celebral cortex. In this paper, the statistical features of single neuronal activities in MRF of cat during dream sleep are investigated; the neuronal spike train exhibits 1/f fluctuations. Counting statistics is applied to the neuronal spike train giving rise to a variance/mean curve which follows at -law. For an interpretation of these findings, the clustering Poisson process is applied which not only gives rise to at -law but also suggests a generation mechanism. The MRF neuronal activities are closely fitted by the clustering Poisson process and the underlying statistical parameters can be estimated. These findings strongly suggest that neuronal activities can be interpreted as superposition of randomly occuring clusters ( = bursts of spikes).     

Content analysis does not belong in any theoretical category: A comment on Hartmann's "meteorite–gemstone" continuum.

This brief comment provides a detailed critique of the inclusion of the widely used Hall and Van de Castle (1966) coding system for the study of dream content in the “meteorite” category in a recent article by Ernest Hartmann (2010), a category for theorists who presumably believe that dreams come from “somewhere else.” The critique notes that content analysis is a methodology, not a theory, and that it has been used to study newspaper articles, speeches, and many other mundane texts. In the case of dream studies, it has produced results that have led many dream researchers to conclude that dreams belonged in Hartmann's “gemstone” category, a category for cognitively oriented theorists who see dreaming as 1 point on a continuum that includes daydreaming, reveries, and more rigorous focused thought. Several other problems with Hartmann's discussion of content analysis are also discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Dream Content in Patients with Narcolepsy: Preliminary Findings

The present study investigated dream recall and dream content in patients with narcolepsy. Compared to healthy controls, patients with narcolepsy reported higher dream recall frequency and more negatively toned and bizarre dreams, confirming earlier findings.     

Dreaming and the Impossible Art of Translation

This essay identifies translation both as an historically core metaphor in Euro-American dream theory and as a contemporary ally for dream teaching and research. It also traces the mutuality of translators' reliance on Freud, Jung, and other dream theorists in their metaphorical expression of the art and craft of translation. The sustained interaction of oneiric and linguistic metaphor-making stems from the fact that virtually all of our knowledge about dreams has been mediated through language and that all dream reporting is itself an act of intersemiotic translation. In an attempt to stimulate further comparative inquiry, the overlapping concerns and often uncanny affinities between language/translation studies and dream/interpretation studies are presented.     

A New Neurocognitive Theory of Dreams

Discoveries in three distinct areas of dream research make it possible to suggest the outlines of a new neurocognitive theory of dreaming. The first relevant findings come from assessments of patients with brain injuries, which show that lesions in different areas have differential effects on dreaming and thereby imply the contours of the neural network necessary for dreaming. The second set of results comes from work with children ages 3–15 in the sleep laboratory, which reveals that only 20–30% of REM period awakenings lead to dream reports up to age 9 and that the dreams of children under age 5 are bland and static in content. The third set of findings comes from a rigorous system of content analysis, which demonstrates the repetitive nature of much dream content and that dream content in general is continuous with waking conceptions and emotional preoccupations. Based on these findings, dreaming is best understood as a developmental cognitive achievement that depends upon the maturation and maintenance of a specific network of forebrain structures. The output of this neural network for dreaming is guided by a continuity principle linked to current personal concerns on the one hand and a repetition principle rooted in past emotional preoccupations on the other.     

Are Unrealistic Weight Loss Goals Associated with Outcomes for Overweight Women?

Objective: To examine cross‐sectional correlates of current, goal, and dream weight and their prospective associations with weight loss in treatment. Research Methods and Procedures: Goal and dream weights, demographic characteristics, and psychosocial factors were assessed by self‐report questionnaire in 302 adult women enrolled in a weight loss trial. Height and weight were assessed at baseline, after 8 weeks of active treatment, and at 6‐ and 18‐month follow‐up. Regression techniques examined associations among baseline, goal, and dream weights, psychosocial factors, and treatment outcomes. Results: On average, goal and dream weight losses were unrealistically high (?24% and ?30%, respectively). High goals were associated with greater expected effort and greater expected reward but were not associated with psychological distress. Goal and dream weight losses were only weakly associated with behavioral or weight outcomes. An association between higher dream weight losses and greater weight loss at 18 months was the only outcome result to reach statistical significance. Discussion: Results suggest that lack of realism in weight loss goals is not important enough to justify counseling people to accept lower weight loss goals when trying to lose weight.