It started with a dream: Paul's dream (Acts 16,9?10) and Aeneas as a biblical example of dreams as intercultural legitimation strategy.

Dreams are often used to promote religion, or to propagate an interpretation of religion, or to bring political ideas to the fore. A dream can be used as an indication of divine help and thus it is a perfect tool for promoting ideas. Dreams figure in religious propaganda in Christian, Jewish, and Muslim traditions (e.g., in Osama bin Laden's tapes). In classical literature, we find many kings, emperors, or generals who had visions or dreams, especially in association with their accession to power. It is the thesis of this article that in the encounter between Jewish (-Christian) cultures and the Hellenistic world dreams were shared as possible means of divine communication. An important example is the dream in Acts 16,9?10, the most Hellenistic dream of the New Testament. This dream is part of a larger unit, Paul's new move from Asia to Europe. I will try to show that the author of Acts combines here the story of Aeneas (e.g., as told by Virgil) and the story of Jesus, an interesting merging of two cultures. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Revision of the good fortune scale: A new tool for the study of "big dreams."

This article proposes a revision of the good fortune (GF) scale of the Hall and Van de Castle (HVDC; 1966) content analysis scoring system. In place of the original one-point GF scale, this proposed revision offers a 6-point scale that conceptually matches the HVDC system's 6 types of misfortune. The GF scale is then applied to the 1000 HVDC norm dreams to generate a new estimation of the average frequency of the 6 types of good fortune. These findings are discussed in relation to the study of highly memorable and impactful dreams, what C. G. Jung (1948/1979) called "big dreams." The new GF scale strengthens the ability of the HVDC system to contribute to the interdisciplinary study of those rare but unusually significant types of dreams. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The Sanctification of Dreams: Prevalence and Implications

Many scientists and practitioners have debated about the function of dreams. Though some researchers have described dreams as purposeless random neuronal firings, others have suggested that dreams serve an adaptive function with certain dream characteristics having positive implications. Drawing on other studies of sanctification, this study examines whether imbuing a dream with qualities of the sacred relates to beneficial outcomes. Examining a college student sample of 168, it was found that the more sacred the dream was perceived, the more beneficial the outcome reported from a stressful life event which related to the dream. These outcomes include less negative affect and more positive affect, psychological and spiritual growth. Sanctification of dreams predicted these outcome variables over and above other religious measures as well as dream measures. The implications of these findings are discussed.     

The On-Going Significance of Significant Dreams: The Case of the Bodiless Head

In the growing literature on significant dreams, relatively little attention has been given to the enduring, even life-long, influence some dreams have on dreamers' lives. This article describes an ongoing research project on significant dreams by way of an illustrative case of a young woman whose 20-year-old dream still resonates in her psychic life. We suggest that such dreams might be better understood in terms of the aesthetics of & #x201C;image rather than the interpretation of dreams as & #x201C;text.     

Dreams in the History of Philosophy

For 2,500 years western philosophers showed great interest in dreams—as subjects, examples, analogies, and contexts. Since 1960 this interest has declined, while scholars in other disciplines continue to study dreams, often addressing philosophical issues. The history and the current dialogue invite philosophers to reinvigorate their study of dreams. This essay develops these observations about the philosophy of dreams by focusing on its history, briefly noting its recent decline, and closing with comments about its future.     

Recurrent dreams and psychosocial adjustment in preteenaged children.

Research indicates that recurrent dreams in adults are associated with impoverished psychological well-being. Whether similar associations exist in children remains unknown. The authors hypothesized that children reporting recurrent dreams would show poorer psychosocial adjustment than children without recurrent dreams. One hundred sixty-eight 11-year-old children self-reported on their recurrent dreams and on measures of psychosocial adjustment. Although 35% of children reported having experienced a recurrent dream during the past year, our hypothesis was only partially supported. Multivariate analyses revealed a marginally significant interaction between gender and recurrent dream presence and a significant main effect of gender. Univariate analyses revealed that boys reporting recurrent dreams reported significantly higher scores on reactive aggression than those who did not (d = 0.58). This suggests that by age 11 years, the presence of recurrent dreams may already reflect underlying emotional difficulties in boys but not necessarily in girls. Challenges in addressing this developmental question are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Children's grief dreams and the theory of spiritual intelligence.

Throughout history, people have reported dreams that have impacted upon their spiritual lives, some of which are related to death. Dreams related to death are not uncommon in childhood, and research shows that some children make meaning from them. Often this interpretation of a dream reflects a search for meaning about issues of life and death, as well as acting as a coping mechanism. This article explores how children make meaning from this type of dream by synthesizing the theory of spiritual intelligence with theoretical approaches to dreaming. Specifically, it explores the intersection between theoretical approaches to dreams related to death, children's responses to these dreams, and a key function of spiritual intelligence to solve problems of meaning and value in life. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The central image makes "big" dreams big: The central image as the emotional heart of the dream.

"Big dreams" are hard to define. This paper considers "big" dreams under several more easily definable subcategories: memorable dreams; important dreams (labeled by dreamer); significant dreams; and impactful dreams. Past studies are reviewed, and five new preliminary studies are presented showing that a powerful Central Image (CI) distinguishes "big" dreams in all subcategories. 1) Dreams labeled "important" by the dreamer have higher CI intensity than dreams labeled "unimportant." 2) Dreams labeled "especially significant" have especially high CI intensity. 3) Impactful dreams (leading to a new discovery) have a very high CI intensity. 4) The dreams of people who score very "thin" on the Boundary Questionnaire (BQ)--sometimes called "dream-people"--have higher CI intensity than the dreams of people who score "thick." 5) In a separate, larger group, there is a significant positive correlation between CI intensity and "thinness." It appears that CI intensity is an important measure of the "bigness" of dreams. The present results are consistent with the Contemporary Theory of Dreaming which states that dreams involve making connections guided by emotion, that the Ci of the dream pictures the emotion, and that CI intensity measures the power of the underlying emotion. "Big" dreams are dreams with great emotional power and have powerful Central Images. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Dreams and Visions in the Anglo-Saxon Conversion to Christianity.

Dreams and visions were reported to be powerful agents of change in the 7th-century conversion of Anglo-Saxon England to Christianity. They were presented as instrumental in the introduction and integration of this new religious/cultural paradigm. These dreams and visions combine Anglo-Saxon and Christian themes and metaphors. This article presents reports of dreams and visions extracted from historical sources and grouped into 8 categories: conception, vocation, dream songs/poems, temptations and consolation, otherworld journeys, prophecies of death and destruction, gloriosus obitus (saints at death), and saints' relics. These categories were created to reflect the human life cycle and to facilitate use by other dream researchers. The distinction between dreams and visions made by the hagiographers of the time is significantly different than the contemporary distinction between dreams and visions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The Relationship of Dream Content and Changes in Daytime Mood in Traumatized vs. Non-Traumatized Children

The study examined how the mood changes from night to morning, and how dysphoric dream contents associate with this change among children who live in traumatic environment and their controls from peaceful area. The sample consisted of 413 Palestinian boys and girls of 6–15 years of age, the mean age being 11.22 ± 2.64. The participants filled in a seven-day dream diary in which they recorded their recalled dreams every morning. First, the results, confirmed that mood change from evening to morning is a general dream function: age and gender are not related to the change. The mood chance was rather associated with what and whom the children dreamt about. Second, the hypothesis of the trauma group showing less change in dysphoric dream content and in the intensity of negative morning mood across a period of time of seven days was not confirmed. On the contrary, the results showed that both dreams incorporating dysphoric themes and negative morning mood decreased only among children living in traumatic conditions. Third, it was hypothesized that there is a stronger association between presleep negative mood and dysphoric dreams, as well as between the dysphoric dreams and negative morning mood among children living in traumatic environment than among children from peaceful area. Contrary to the hypothesis, results for the trauma group revealed a reverse association between evening mood and dream contents: the more afraid, angry and worried children felt in the evening, the more Happy recreation dreams they reported, and the happier evening mood they reported, the more Threatening stranger dreams they had. However, concurring with the hypothesis, a direct association was found between dysphoric dreams and negative morning mood in the trauma group. The more children dreamt about Threatening strangers, the more afraid, angry and worried they felt in the morning. The discussion proposes a model of the correcting or balancing dream function that is characterized by an reverse assimilation of incorporating evening mood into dreams, and by a direct accommodation of dream content into morning mood.     

Significant Dreams: Bizarre or Beautiful?

The literature on highly significant dreams is filled with references to the bizarreness of their content. On the other hand, the concept of beauty is rarely if ever mentioned in relation to these dreams. Grounded in archetypal psychology's tenet that psychological life is aesthetic life, this article argues that the enduring, even life-long, influence some dreams have on the dreamer's life may be better approached through the idea of beauty than through the idea of bizarreness. The argument builds on Hunt's (1989, 1995) theoretical model of the nature of consciousness and dream multiplicity with its emphasis on cross-modal synesthesia as well as on insights provided by Scarry's (1999) recent essay on beauty. A detailed account of how one composer's work was profoundly influenced by his most significant dream is presented to illustrate this aesthetic approach to understanding the on-going significance of significant dreams.     

Object Representations in Dreams of Chicanos and Anglos

The relationship between the cultures to which persons belong and their internalized object representations as revealed by manifest dream content was investigated. It was hypothesized that because Chicanos are from a more nurturing culture than Anglos, they would represent persons in their dreams as more differentiated, articulated, and integrated, with more benevolent interactions. 50 Chicano and 50 Anglo university students (25 of each gender in each culture) reported a total of 555 dreams that were scored according to the Concept of the Object Scale (Blatt, Brenneis, Schimek & Glick, 1976). The Scale applies developmental principles concerning the three dimensions of differentiation, articulation, and integration to the study of human responses given to the Rorschach. This research applied the Scale to the manifest content of the subjects' reported dreams. The cross-cultural hypothesis was disconfirmed; however, there were strong findings concerning gender. Gender differences across culture were statistically significant in each developmental dimension, ranging from females representing more humans, who are better articulated and more benevolently interactive (p < .01) to females reporting more intentional, congruent actions and more interactions (p < .05). The only cross-cultural finding was that Anglos represent more action in their dreams than Chicanos (p < .05). Within the sample of acculturated Chicano subjects, genders were polarized to a much greater extent than in the Anglo sample. Implications of the findings for theoretical understanding of gender and cultural differences in object representations are discussed.     

The Significant Dream as Emblem of Uniqueness: The Fertilizer Does Not Explain the Flower

Recent, renewed attention to big or significant dreams calls into question many widely held assumptions about dreams. This essay focuses on the assumption that dreams can be accounted for in terms of the dominant emotions and concerns of the dreamer at the time of the dream. That assumption is found to be inadequate to account for at least some significant dream experiences. Archetypal psychology's aesthetic, phenomenological approach to dreams is presented as providing an instructive, illuminating alternative for understanding the on-going significance of significant dreams.     

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)     

Mystical dreaming: Patterns in form, content, and meaning.

This article enriches the psychological understanding of religious mysticism by exploring patterns of form, content, and meaning in self-described mystical dreams, drawing on extensive sleep and dream interviews conducted with 100 contemporary Americans. Four major hypotheses regarding mystical experience are tested: mysticism as psychopathological, as culturally constructed, as a mode of pure consciousness, and as characterized by four Jamesian “marks” (ineffability, noesis, transience, passivity). The data from this study indicate that mystical dreams are experienced by around half the population and by women more than men, and their prototypical form involves good fortunes, friendly interactions, and unusual or nonhuman characters. These findings provide only limited validation for the psychopathology and pure consciousness hypotheses and somewhat more support for the Jamesian and cultural construction approaches. Taken together, the results suggest that psychological efforts to understand religious mysticism will remain incomplete without systematic reference to contemporary dream research. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Sex dreams, wet dreams, and nocturnal emissions.

This study provides an overview of the frequencies and narrative features of sex and wet dreams and investigates the incestuous behavior in the manifest content of dreams. A questionnaire specially designed for capturing both quantitative and qualitative aspects of sex and wet dreams was administered to 58 male participants. More than 80% of participants had dreamed about having vaginal intercourse with a woman. Dreaming of sexual interactions other than vaginal intercourse—such as oral sex—was also common. Consistent with the hypothesis that latent sexual motives or some variation of sexuality that people may not be aware of during the daytime would emerge at night through dreaming, both homosexual and incestuous behaviors were observed in dreams. In addition, the finding indicates that sexual thoughts and motives can be represented by symbols in dreams, and dream impressions involving no erotic scenes are capable of eliciting nocturnal emissions. It seems that sex dreams, wet dreams, and nocturnal emissions without erotic imagery or dreaming can be distinguished from each other. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

The influence of impactful dreams on self-perceptual depth and spiritual transformation.

Two studies contrasted the short-term effects of nightmares, existential dreams, and transcendent dreams (Busink & Kuiken, 1996; Kuiken & Sikora, 1993). Results from Study 1 indicated that existential dreams were more likely than mundane dreams, transcendent dreams, or nightmares to be followed by reported self-perceptual depth; also, transcendent dreams were more likely than mundane dreams, existential dreams, or nightmares to be followed by reported spiritual transformation. Results from Study 2 replicated these findings for existential dreams, indicating also that the type of spiritual transformation associated with transcendent dreams involved an ecstatic sense of release from everyday entanglements. Both existential dreams and transcendent dreams moved the dreamer toward an unbounded sense of life in all things, as did lucid forms of all three dream types. Such unbounded enlivenment suggests an aesthetic substrate to the changes induced by each of these dream types. The contrasting short-term effects of impactful dream types may require integration into a comprehensive model of long-term dream function. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The Phenomenology of True Dreams in Maimonides

Maimonides' conception of true dreams posits an important role for the faculty of imagination within the growth of the intellectual self. However, unlike many modern theories of the dream, Maimonides requires one to subject the imagination to intellectual processes, in order to be able to harness the imagination for the practical knowledge. The imagination found in the dream images consists of objective graded levels based on the purity of the imagination from desire and the use of the intellect. The content of the dream is new piece of knowledge, a solution, a political agenda, or a vision for the future that needs to be contextualized within one's own life. Maimonides emphasizes the image as an intellectual object, specifically a single object and not the event. For Maimonides dreams do not give supernatural content nor are true dreams a universal part of daily life. They are extraordinary and do not have presentational immediacy.