heiDOK (Heidelberg University)
2011
Allan Hobson, Michael Schredl
50 citations
The discussion between J. Allan Hobson and Michael Schredl covers a broad variety of topics that are still“hot” in dream research. The starting point is the continuity hypothesis of dreaming which is complemented by AllanHobson’s theory of protoconsciousness. Whereas there is no disagreement that waking life is reflected in dreams, thediscussion evolves around discontinuity, i.e., how dream...
The American Journal of Psychology
2011
Michael Schredl
Dream books have a very long history, but systematic research on how many people have read magazine articles or books on dreams and whether reading such literature is beneficial to the dreamer is scarce. In the present sample of 444 people (mostly psychology students), about 75% of the participants stated that they had read at least one magazine article on dreams, and more than 40% had read at...
Imagination Cognition and Personality
October 1, 2010
Michael Schredl, Franc Paul, Olaf Lahl et al.
15 citations
Despite the large number of studies addressing gender differences in dream recall and dream content, research regarding whether these differences might be affected by sex role orientation is rather scarce. The present online-survey included a large sample of most recent dreams. The results clearly indicate that sex role orientation (femininity/expressivity and masculinity/instrumentality)...
The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease
August 1, 2010
Anne Katrin Kuelz, Ulrike Stotz, Dieter Riemann et al.
14 citations
Very little is known about dreams in patients with obsessive compulsive disorder, especially regarding changes over the course of treatment with stimulus exposure and response prevention. By use of dream content analysis, 40 dreams of 9 obsessive compulsive (OC) inpatients were compared with 84 dreams of 10 matched OC outpatients and 63 dreams of 11 healthy control participants. Dream protocols...
The Sport Psychologist
June 1, 2010
Daniel Erlacher, Michael Schredl
76 citations
Nocturnal dreams can be considered as a kind of simulation of the real world on a higher cognitive level. Within lucid dreams, the dreamer is able to control the ongoing dream content and is free to do what he or she wants. In this pilot study, the possibility of practicing a simple motor task in a lucid dream was studied. Forty participants were assigned to a lucid dream practice group, a...
Child psychiatry and human development
April 1, 2010
Michael Schredl, Heiko Sartorius
Although sleep is widely investigated in children with ADHD, dream studies in this group are completely lacking. The continuity hypothesis of dreaming stating that waking life is reflected in dreams would predict that waking-life symptoms are reflected in the dreams of such children. 103 children with ADHD and 100 controls completed a dream questionnaire eliciting dream recall frequency and the...
Imagination Cognition and Personality
March 1, 2010
Michael Schredl, Iris Reinhard
58 citations
Emotions are an integral part of dreaming. From the viewpoint of the continuity hypothesis, two areas are of interest: how are dream emotions affected by day-time mood and how do dream emotions affect subsequent waking life. Seventy-four participants kept a diary over a 2-week period recording daytime mood, emotional valence of daytime events, and their dreams. Confirming earlier findings, the...
heiDOK (Heidelberg University)
2010
Michael Schredl
51 citations
Dream content analysis is one of the basic methods applied in psychological dream research. The method can be easily applied but several pitfalls must be avoided in order to get valid results. The present article outlines how to construct new scales and the problems related to reliability and validity of content analytic scales. In addition, statistical issues prominent in the analysis of dream...
heiDOK (Heidelberg University)
2010
Michael Schredl, Daniel Erlacher
25 citations
A considerable amount of studies have shown that sleep facilitates memory consolidation. For procedural memory, some findings support the association with REM sleep but the relationship between memory consolidation and dreaming has been scarcely studied. The present study did not find an effect of direct incorporations of the mirror tracing task into the dream on over-night improvement. On the...
heiDOK (Heidelberg University)
2010
Arthur Funkhouser, Michael Schredl
5 citations
A question about déjà rêve (already dreamt, a form of déjà experience) was included in a large "sleep, dreams, and personality" survey of 444 (mainly psychology) students at three German universities. The incidence of déjà rêve was high (95.2%) and, like most other déjà experiences, was negatively correlated with age. In addition to dream recall frequency, the most influential personality...
heiDOK (Heidelberg University)
2010
Michael Schredl, Katja Becker, Elisa Feldmann
5 citations
Research has demonstrated stable gender differences in dream recall and dream content. Previous matching studies using student samples showed that the judges were able to correctly match the dreamer’s gender based on a single dream report with a probability better than chance. Using dream reports from a non-student sample only slightly increased the accuracy of matching gender despite the fact...
heiDOK (Heidelberg University)
2010
Michael Schredl
3 citations
Varying research perspectives of the conceptual distinction between physiology and subjective experience, and the outside vs. inside perspective on dreaming will be discussed. Whereas the AIM model is helpful in describing the neurobiological differences between states of consciousness, research is needed to test whether specific features of the subjective experience like bizarreness or...
heiDOK (Heidelberg University)
2010
Michael Schredl
This article reviews the dissertation of Wilhelm Weygandt that was supervised by Wilhelm Wundt. The claim of the author that all dreams emanate from sensory impression is not valid anymore; nevertheless the careful observations and experiments yielded interesting results which should be studied in-depth using modern methodology, for example, the effect of internal stimuli on dream content.
heiDOK (Heidelberg University)
2010
Michael Schredl, Daniel Erlacher
The International Journal of Dream Research is reaching its third year. The two issues of 2009 included 13 original papers and one invited essay. These articles covered a large variety of topics like lucid dreaming, dream recall, dream content, nightmares, dreams and psychopathology, and sleep quality. Submissions from all over the world including Canada, the United States of America, the...
The American Journal of Psychology
2010
Michael Schredl, Joelle Alexandra Schawinski
Although dreaming is a private experience, dream sharing is a common experience for most people. Dreams are disclosed to romantic partners, friends, and relatives, and the sharing is often associated with enhancement of relational intimacy and stress relief (e.g., in the case of nightmares). Research has focused on factors that might affect dream sharing such as dream recall frequency, gender,...
Perceptual and Motor Skills
June 1, 2009
Michael Schredl
The effects of sociodemographic variables on dream recall frequencies were investigated in a representative sample. Analysis indicated that age, sex, social class, and the size of the place of residence showed small but significant effects on the frequency of positively toned and neutral dreams. Women and inhabitants of large cities tended to report dreams more often than men and residents of...
Sleep Medicine Reviews
June 1, 2009
Michael Schredl
Dreaming is defined as mental activity which occurs during sleep. This review will focus on sleep disorders which have been studied in relation to dreaming: insomnia, sleep apnea syndrome, narcolepsy, and the restless legs syndrome. Dream recall is heightened in patients with insomnia and their dreams reflect current stressors. Whereas breathing-related dreams in sleep apnea patients are rare,...
Imagination, Cognition and Personality
June 1, 2009
Michael Schredl
Dream recall is naturally a prerequisite for eliciting dream content. Therefore it is of importance to study factors (e.g., personality traits) that might affect dream recall because these factors might bias the content analytic findings in the field of dream research. The present findings indicate that different aspects of dream recall (dream recall frequency, dream recall detail, long-term...
Psychiatry Research
May 30, 2009
Michael Schredl, Mathias Berger, Dieter Riemann
Trimipramine is a sedating tricyclic antidepressant which is not only effective in the treatment of depression but also in primary insomnia. In contrast to most other antidepressants, trimipramine does not affect rapid eye movement sleep. In a large sample of depressive outpatients (N = 3926), the effect of trimipramine on dream recall and dream emotions was studied. The effect of trimipramine...
heiDOK (Heidelberg University)
2009
Michael Schredl
38 citations
The present study investigated the nightmare frequency of patients with insomnia. Patients reported more often nightmares, especially when overall dream recall frequency was statistically controlled. Moreover, nightmare frequency was related to the severity of insomnia complaints. It would be interesting to study whether specific techniques for treating nightmares (imagery rehearsal therapy)...
heiDOK (Heidelberg University)
2009
Michael Schredl, Angelika Bocklage, Judith Engelhardt et al.
14 citations
Hartmann’s Boundary questionnaire was developed based on research regarding the personality of nightmare sufferers. Previous research showed that boundary thinness was not only related to openness to experience but also quite strongly to neuroticism. The aim of the present study was to develop a questionnaire measuring boundaries not related to neuroticism. The Boundary Personality...
heiDOK (Heidelberg University)
2009
Michael Schredl
5 citations
Laboratory research indicated lower dream recall in children compared to young adults. However, the sample sizes of these studies are very small and the findings regarding home dream recall in larger studies are conflicting. The present study compared home dream recall frequency of 558 children (mean age about 10 yrs.) with a sample of young adults (mean age about 23 yrs) and found a marked...
Imagination Cognition and Personality
September 1, 2008
Michael Schredl, Katharina Keller
11 citations
The present study investigated the effects of socio-demographic variables on dream content in a representative sample. The analyses of 380 most recent dreams showed that almost none of the socio-demographic variables like age, gender, marital status, education, income, nor town (or city) of residence size was significantly related to general dream characteristics like dream length, bizarreness,...
Sexologies
June 25, 2008
Michael Schredl, Simon Desch, F. Röming et al.
36 citations
Sexual dreams are quite common and many studies indicate that men report erotic dreams more often than women. A systematic exploration as to whether the frequency of erotic dreams is related to sexual behavior or fantasy in waking life – as would be predicted by the continuity hypothesis of dreaming – has not yet been carried out. Overall, 70 students completed a questionnaire about waking life...
Journal of Sleep Research
June 1, 2008
Michael Schredl, Iris Reinhard
SummaryMany studies have reported gender differences in dream recall. Data from 175 independent studies have been included in the analyses. Overall, estimated effect sizes in five age groups of healthy persons differed significantly from zero. Variables like measurement method and publication year did not affect the gender difference but age groups showed different effect sizes. The smallest...