Dreams of traditional and nontraditional women: Are dream aggression and hostility related to higher levels of waking well-being?

In order to determine whether varying degrees of traditionality would be manifested in specific behaviors that would be present in women's waking and dreaming life, 100 women between the ages of 22 and 79, 12% of whom were African American, were administered a number of self-report measures of psychological well-being and were asked to complete ongoing dream diaries for a 2-week period. These instruments were then scored along with a variety of measures used to determine to what extent traditionality differentiated among the women. Randomly selected dreams from the dream diaries were scored for aggression, anxiety, emotion, hostility, self-efficacious problem-solving, and success/failure. While traditionality was not a significant factor among the self report scales, a number of significant relationships between traditionality and dream content scales were found. As predicted, nontraditionality was positively correlated with a high ratio of achievement-oriented success to failure interactions, self-efficacious problem-solving, and aggressive dream interactions. However, nontraditionality was also significantly correlated with higher overall dream hostility. The results are discussed within the context of recent dream function theory as well as within a broader sociocultural context on shifting gender roles.This research was completed in partial fulfillment of the first author's requirements for the doctoral degree in clinical psychology at Yeshiva University. The authors wish to thank Stan Fevens, Ph.D., for his enthusiastic support and encouragment as well as his invaluable assistance. An amended version of this paper was presented at the June, 1993 meeting of the Association of the Study of Dreams, Santa Fe, NM     

Dream content: Individual and generic aspects

Dream reports were collected from normal subjects in an effort to determine the degree to which dream reports can be used to identify individual dreamers. Judges were asked to group the reports by their authors. The judges scored the reports correctly at chance levels. This finding indicated that dreams may be at least as much like each other as they are the signature of individual dreamers. Our results suggest that dream reports cannot be used to identify the individuals who produced them when identifiers like names and gender of friends and family members are removed from the dream report. In addition to using dreams to learn about an individual, we must look at dreams as telling us about important common or generic aspects of human consciousness.     

Self‐reported psychopathology in a convicted serial killer

The following paper presents a case study of a convicted serial murderer. Through data from personal correspondence, police reports, a true crime novel, witness statements, medical examiner reports, court appeals, and crime scene reports from the actual murder cases, and most important, a series of psychological self‐report measures, a case study was developed. Included in the psychological measures were tests of general psychopathology, specific tests of psychopathy, anger and aggression scales, and sociological measures related to family, individual, situational, and community risk factors, as well as previous criminal behaviour, including weapon and drug use. The results of these various measures are incorporated into the life history and criminal activity of the individual. The purpose of this research was to develop a more complete psychological report of a serial killer than any other previously reported. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

I know how you felt last night,or do I? Self- and external ratings of emotions in REM sleep dreams

We investigated whether inconsistencies in previous studies regarding emotional experiences in dreams derive from whether dream emotions are self-rated or externally evaluated. Seventeen subjects were monitored with polysomnography in the sleep laboratory and awakened from every rapid eye movement (REM) sleep stage 5 min after the onset of the stage. Upon awakening, participants gave an oral dream report and rated their dream emotions using the modified Differential Emotions Scale, whereas external judges rated the participants’ emotions expressed in the dream reports, using the same scale. The two approaches produced diverging results. Self-ratings, as compared to external ratings, resulted in greater estimates of (a) emotional dreams; (b) positively valenced dreams; (c) positive and negative emotions per dream; and (d) various discrete emotions represented in dreams. The results suggest that this is mostly due to the underrepresentation of positive emotions in dream reports. Possible reasons for this discrepancy are discussed.     

The manifest dream in psychoanalysis: a clarification

Controversies about the value of the manifest dream in psychoanalysis are usually a matter of semantics. The author concludes that two clinically meaningful questions about the manifest dream can be asked: Is the patient's report of a dream useful in formulating an interpretation if no formal associations to the dream elements are given? Inasmuch as such reports always include some kind of associations, and the analyst always possesses considerable knowledge about the patient, the answer to this question would seem to be "Yes, at least at times." In what ways can the manifest dream contribute to our understanding of the dream and the dreamer? Both the literature and clinical experience indicate that there are many ways; these are summarized in an appendix. One approach, the direct decoding of manifest dream elements, is discussed in some detail. Several examples of the undisguised appearance of memories of childhood traumatic experiences in the manifest dream are presented.     

Clinical Assessment of Adult Abuse and Trauma

This article examines several measures used in the assessment of adult abuse and trauma. These measures include structured clinical interviews, self report measures, screening inventories, symptom checklists, and some measures that include decision-making properties. Specific conditions in the assessment of adult victims of psychological trauma and implications for clinical practice are explored.     

Transliminality: Its Relation to Dream Life,Religiosity, and Mystical Experience

In a previous article (Thalbourne & Delin, 1994), evidence was presented that there exists a common thread underlying creative personality, mystical experience, psychopathology (both schizotypal and manic-depressive), and belief in the paranor- mal. This common factor was named rransliminality and was tentatively defined as a largely involuntary susceptibility to, and awareness of, large volumes of inwardly generated psychological phenomena of an ideational and affective kind (p. 25). This second article details the results of a follow-up study of this general psychological factor, in which 116 participants from the first study completed further question- naires. Transliminality was found to be related to measures of dream recall and dream interpretation, to Haraldsson's 8-Item Religiosity Scale and several other measures of religiosity, and to 2 additional measures of mystical experience.     

NonREM sleep mentation in chronically-treated persons with schizophrenia

This study examined the laboratory dream content reported by 14 patients with schizophrenia and 15 controls, with a focus on reports obtained from NonREM sleep. Both the controls' and patients' frequency of dream recall following awakenings from NonREM and REM sleep were similar to values reported for healthy participants. Patients' NonREM sleep narratives were shorter than those from controls. When compared to their reports from REM sleep, both groups' NonREM sleep reports included significantly fewer words and reportable items. The controls were more likely to report a subjective feeling of bizarreness for their REM sleep reports as compared to their NonREM sleep reports. This difference was not observed in patients with schizophrenia. Taken together, these findings suggest few differences between the NonREM sleep mentation of patients with schizophrenia and of controls and that sleep stage cognitive style is comparable in both groups, with NonREM sleep reports being more thought-like, less elaborate and bizarre than REM sleep reports.     

Spoken and written dream communication: differences and methodological aspects

Based on structural differences between spoken and written language, the purpose of this paper was to investigate whether spoken and written communication imply a different representation in reporting an experienced dream. In fact, the clausal-dynamic quality of the former and nominal-synoptic quality of the latter, with the consequent differences in length, cohesion and density, could enhance/reduce the perceptual character and narrative structure of report features often considered in order to assess sleep mentation. In particular, we wondered whether, after eliminating all the elements responsible for the more conspicuous quantitative differences across the two forms (false starts, repetitions, digressions, redundancies), we would obtain two equivalent ways of reporting dreams. Three hundred and two (101 males and 201 females) subjects, raging in age from 18 to 40 years, participated as volunteers in the study and were asked to complete a dream diary daily for 14 days, by tape-recording their own dreams and putting them down in writing. The reports were analyzed by a psycholinguistic system. Results indicated that the report modality is able to affect the dream experience representation, conditioning the figurative (re)translation carried out by the tester: written forms show a loss of hallucinatory information and a non-complete correspondence also of the bizarreness features with respect to the spoken texts. Partialling out for length eliminated any difference between spoken and written dream reports on bizarreness; on the other hand, controlling the sequence effect of the report did not introduce changes. Methodological and theoretical implications were discussed.     

The Religious Content of Dreams: A New Scientific Foundation

Dream content is meaningfully related to waking life religiosity, so much so that reading a person’s dream reports “blindly,” without any other personal information or associations from the dreamer, can reveal with surprising accuracy his or her basic waking attitude toward religion and spirituality. Two long-term dream journals are analyzed in this manner, and the results demonstrate that dream content is an accurate reflection of a person’s religious beliefs, practices, and experiences. The significance of this for pastoral psychologists lies not in specific new techniques of dream interpretation but more fundamentally in supporting the practice of paying attention to dreams in the first place. The goal of the article is to build a bridge between pastoral psychological interest in dreams and the latest findings in the scientific study of dreaming. Contrary to the assumption that religion and science inevitably conflict with each other, dreaming offers an area of potential religion–science convergence.     

Actions Can Speak as Loud as Words: Measuring Behavior in Psychological Science

It has been argued that there is a growing trend in personality and social psychological science concerning the preference of self‐report measures over the use of direct observations of behavior for the outcome variables of interest. Augmenting the use of self‐reports with measures of behavior helps achieve methodological pluralism that allows researchers to triangulate on the phenomenon of interest and have increased confidence in understanding the phenomenon. To facilitate this process, we discuss a sample of social psychological and personality studies published during APA’s ‘Decade of Behavior’ that use straightforward and innovative ways of measuring behavioral outcome variables. Specifically, we identify three different strategies for incorporating behavior in a study: behavioral traces, behavioral observations, and behavioral choice. In each case, we show how measures of behavior complement self‐report measures. By making a conscientious effort to include more behavior measures in our research, we can broaden the appeal of psychological science by enhancing our understanding of the causes and antecedents of human behavior.     

Applying problem-solving approaches to school psychological reports

School psychological reports continue to be an important part of the school psychologist's work. The value of reports as a communication tool has been questioned, a criticism that may be the result of the varying objectives by which it is judged. Recently, the literature in school psychology has seen a resurgence of articles on psychological report writing. Some writers are questioning current report-writing practices but at the same time proposing alternative report formats. Empirical support is lacking for these alternative report formats compared to traditional report organization in terms of consumer preferences and the report's ability to meet its intended objectives. Simultaneously, a considerable amount of attention is being given to scientific problem solving as it pertains to school psychology practice. This study examined the preferences of school psychologists and school staff for reports varied in respect to organization as reflected in expert vs. novice problem-solving strategies. The results indicate a preference across all professional groups for the traditionally organized school psychological report. Similarly, the same result was found as to perceived expertise of the writer, readability, problem identification, and understandability of recommendations. The implications of these findings for report writing are discussed in the context of the methodological challenges involved in this research area.     

Computer-generated psychological reports: a look at the modern psychometric machine

The proliferation of computer-generated psychological reports prompts an examination of the presuppositions of such reports and what they offer in the way of understanding individual clients. This topic is approached primarily through a review of some basics of psychological testing and psychological assessment. Major differences are noted between these two approaches to evaluating clients: They are different processes, and they yield different products. Assessment is a complex set of activities that seeks solutions to specific problems, whereas testing fits a straightforward actuarial paradigm. Testing is readily adapted to an automated data processing system, whereas the complex of assessment procedures cannot be so managed. Serious questions about the validity of computer reports are raised, however, and ethical concerns are expressed over the use of these reports by persons without adequate psychological training to understand them correctly. Limited uses for computer reports are suggested along with the need for further studies of validity and ethics.     

Working mothers versus homemakers: Do dreams reflect the changing roles of women?

In order to examine potential psychological changes arising from women's new social roles, 15 working and 15 nonworking mothers were asked to report dreams collected within a period of three weeks. In addition, they were administered the Jackson Research Personality Form. Two dreams from each subject were analyzed with selected scales which previous studies had shown to be sensitive to sex differences. On the personality inventory, working mothers were found to have higher social recognition and achievement motives. On the dream content measures, discriminant analyses showed that the two groups could be statistically differentiated on the basis of several scales. In accordance with the notion of continuity between waking and dreaming, working mothers experienced more unpleasant emotions, more male characters, and less residential dreams settings than homemakers. The latter group, surprisingly, had more overt hostility in its dreams. These results suggest that as the trend toward carrying the dual role of wage earner and homemaker is expanding, the gender differences typically observed in dreams content may decrease. They also suggest that the analysis of dream content may prove useful to study the strategies of women adapting to role changes.     

Jungian theory of dreaming and contemporary dream research – findings from the research project ‘Structural Dream Analysis’

The research method ‘Structural Dream Analysis’ (SDA) is described which allows for systematic and objective analysis of the meaning of dreams produced by patients in Jungian psychotherapies. The method focuses especially on the relationship between the dream ego and other figures in the dream and the extent of activity of the dream ego. Five major dream patterns were identified which accounted for the majority of the dreams. The clients’ dream series were dominated by one or two repetitive patterns which were closely connected to the psychological problems of the dreamers. Additionally, typical changes in the dream series’ patterns could be identified which corresponded with therapeutic change. These findings support Jung's theory of dreams as providing a holistic image of the dreamer’s psyche, including unconscious aspects. The implications for different psychoanalytic theories of dreaming and dream interpretation are discussed as well as implications for the continuity hypothesis.     

Studying dream content using the archive and search engine on DreamBank.net

This paper shows how the dream archive and search engine on DreamBank.net, a Web site containing over 22,000 dream reports, can be used to generate new findings on dream content, some of which raise interesting questions about the relationship between dreaming and various forms of waking thought. It begins with studies that draw dream reports from DreamBank.net for studies of social networks in dreams, and then demonstrates the usefulness of the search engine by employing word strings relating to religious and sexual elements. Examples from two lengthy individual dream series are used to show how the dreams of one person can be studied for characters, activities, and emotions. A final example shows that accurate inferences about a person’s religious beliefs can be made on the basis of reading through dreams retrieved with a few keywords. The overall findings are similar to those in studies using traditional forms of content analysis.     

The prevalence of nightmares and their independence from anxiety

Although several studies have examined the prevalence of nightmares and their relationship to anxiety, this is the first to have used daily dream logs, rather than retrospective self-reports, to monitor nightmare frequency. 220 undergraduates were administered self-report measures of anxiety and for 2 weeks recorded the number of their nightmares in logs. 47% of Ss reported at least one nightmare during the study period. The dream logs yielded an estimated mean annual nightmare frequency of 23.6, which is 2.5 times as great as the estimate yielded by retrospective reports (p less than .01). Nightmare frequency and anxiety were uncorrelated. The findings indicate that nightmares are more prevalent than has been reported, and their frequency unrelated to self-reported anxiety.     

Is dream recall underestimated by retrospective measures and enhanced by keeping a logbook? An empirical investigation

In a recent review, Aspy, Delfabbro, and Proeve (2015) highlighted the tendency for retrospective measures of dream recall to yield substantially lower recall rates than logbook measures, a phenomenon they termed the retrospective-logbook disparity. One explanation for this phenomenon is that retrospective measures underestimate true dream recall. Another explanation is that keeping a logbook tends to enhance dream recall. The present study provides a thorough empirical investigation into the retrospective-logbook disparity using a range of retrospective and logbook measures and three different types of logbook. Retrospective-logbook disparities were correlated with a range of variables theoretically related to the retrospective underestimation effect, and retrospective-logbook disparities were greater among participants that reported improved dream recall during the logbook period. These findings indicate that dream recall is underestimated by retrospective measures and enhanced by keeping a logbook. Recommendations for the use of retrospective and logbook measures of dream recall are provided.     

Waking and dreaming: related but structurally independent. Dream reports of congenitally paraplegic and deaf-mute persons

Models of dream analysis either assume a continuum of waking and dreaming or the existence of two dissociated realities. Both approaches rely on different methodology. Whereas continuity models are based on content analysis, discontinuity models use a structural approach. In our study, we applied both methods to test specific hypotheses about continuity or discontinuity. We contrasted dream reports of congenitally deaf-mute and congenitally paraplegic individuals with those of non-handicapped controls. Continuity theory would predict that either the deficit itself or compensatory experiences would surface in the dream narrative. We found that dream form and content of sensorially limited persons was indifferent from those of non-handicapped controls. Surprisingly, perceptual representations, even of modalities not experienced during waking, were quite common in the dream reports of our handicapped subjects. Results are discussed with respect to feedforward mechanisms and protoconsciousness theory of dreaming.     

Similarities and differences in dream content at the cross-cultural, gender, and individual levels

The similarities and differences in dream content at the cross-cultural, gender, and individual levels provide one starting point for carrying out studies that attempt to discover correspondences between dream content and various types of waking cognition. Hobson and Kahn’s (Hobson, J. A., & Kahn, D. (2007). Dream content: Individual and generic aspects. Consciousness and Cognition, 16, 850–858.) conclusion that dream content may be more generic than most researchers realize, and that individual differences are less salient than usually thought, provides the occasion for a review of findings based on the Hall and Van de Castle (Hall, C., & Van de Castle, R. (1966). The content analysis of dreams. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts.) coding system for the study of dream content. Then new findings based on a computationally intensive randomization strategy are presented to show the minimum sample sizes needed to detect gender and individual differences in dream content. Generally speaking, sample sizes of 100–125 dream reports are needed because most dream elements appear in less than 50% of dream reports and the magnitude of the differences usually is not large.